The Dudson Museum

Museum

Explorer Tom

The Dudson Museum in Hanley has a trick up its sleeve: you enter an old bottle oven and find it stuffed with pottery instead of smoke. If that sounds like a kiln swallowed an entire dinner service, steady on; the collection is real, and it has more than a few plates to show off. Richard Dudson opened his first Hanley factory in 1800, and the family business made ceramics across three centuries. On the original Hope Street factory site, more than 1,300 objects follow that trade. Look for Staffordshire figures, jasperware, colourful pieces shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and everyday wares that made potters' skills useful as well as decorative. The displays occupy two floors inside the converted oven; the building itself is part of the story. By the late nineteenth century, rail travel, hotels and shipping gave people far more places to eat away from home. James Thomas Dudson saw an opening and steered production towards tough tableware for the catering trade. Imagine a Victorian traveller refusing soup because the bowl lacked sufficient swagger: that's my daft version, not a museum exhibit. The real change is visible in the crockery, from elaborate domestic pieces to practical shapes for meals on the move. The museum is at the Dudson Centre on Hope Street and offers free general entry, normally Monday to Friday, 10am to 3pm, plus the first Saturday of each month, 11am to 3pm. Bank holidays and the Christmas to New Year period are exceptions. Wheelchair users can reach the bottle oven's ground floor, while an album shows the upstairs exhibits. Step in, inspect two centuries of table manners, and let the oven have the last word.

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