OLD POTBANK FOUND UNDER CITY CAR PARK
Archaeologists make discovery before work starts on apartmenttt blblocks
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed the fascinating remains of a potbank underneath one of the city’s car parks.
They were asked to carry out the dig before work starts on building two new council-owned apartment blocks off City Road in Fenton.
Now the team have been treading in the footsteps of history after finding the bases of three 19th century bottle kilns close to the surface.
And some small artefacts recovered from the soil go back much further. One piece of kiln furniture used for stacking plates is thought to date to around 1780 when William Greatbatch owned a factory there.
Sarah Weston, an archaeological supervisor with Stoke-on-trent City Council, said: “Greatbatch was big pals with Josiah Wedgwood.”
Car parks – like the one in Leicester where Richard III’S grave was discovered – can be great locations to excavate as they are often laid on top of old structures.
Although Sarah has yet to unearth a long lost member of the Royal Family in Fenton, she is excited about what they’ve found since starting to dig the trenches three weeks ago.
“Every kiln is slightly different. They all have their own personalities,” she said.
Alongside one of them is a beautiful curved wall.
Sarah added: “They often cooked their oatcakes at work, so it may be a very early bread oven!
“You also find ash pits where they raked out the coal. Next to one of the kilns we’ve found a lovely cobbled section, which would have been the working floor.”
The team already knew from old maps that the site was used by the pottery industry.
To help date the structures, they’ve examined the ash left inside after the last firing. It has unearthed bits of crockery, such as creamware.
But more recent objects have also been found there, including an early 20th century ginger beer bottle that was probably a pottery worker’s discarded lunch.
A 1967 penny has also been recovered, which may have dropped out of someone’s pocket and found its way into history. The building itself was demolished in the 1970s.
The team have been unable to pinpoint the exact company that owned the site when the kilns were used as it changed hands several times in the 19th century.
It was first occupied in the mid to late 1700s by William Greatbatch.
The next documented occupants were Bourne, Baker and Bourne, who acquired it in the 1820s.
The Baker family were credited with having singlehandedly ‘built’ Fenton. Along with the Bourne family, they owned d more than 100 homes and the Roebuck pub.
But by 1878, the factory had become an encaustic tileworks, before reverting to china and earthenware production in 1884 with the firm Thomas Forester, Son & Co.
The archaeologists are now documenting their findings through photographs, drawings, drone footage and samples taken from the site.
Once they have finished, a construction crew will move in to build 42 apartments on top of the remains.
The flats are part of a wider £18 million investment in housing in the Fenton area and will be rented out by the council.
Councillor James Smith, heritage champion for the local authority, said: “This shows you can literally be walking on top of history in the city without even knowing it.”
It is the second site in City Road to be excavated in recent months.
Just before lockdown, the team worked on a former pottery factory near Stoke Workshop for the Blind.
They found kilns used for the production of pharmaceutical wares, including pill box lids.