The manufacture of porcelain required finely-ground materials that when fired produced white-bodied wares. When the ceramics industry of North Stafford, around the present city of Stoke-on-Trent were at their most prosperous numerous mills in the region ground flint and bones to supply potters who produced porcelain. The Etruscan Bone & Flint Mill was built in 1857 and bears the initials of Jesse Shirley (born 1815). It is a two-storey building with a calcining kiln at one end and a house containing the beam engine Princess at the other. Princess was installed during the 1860s, but was then second hand, and was probably built by Bateman & Sherratt of Manchester in the 1820s. The mill was scheduled as an Ancient Monument in 1975 and after its closure Jim Kelly a member of the staff of the city museum service, called for support for its restoration. It was duly restored by volunteer and was opened to the public in 1991. The Etruria museum is part of the city museum service, but volunteers are responsible for the steaming of the engine. The mill stands alongside the Trent & Mersey Canal, near to its summit lock, and to its junction with the Caldon Canal, and to a canal warehouse which contains a display about waterways, and a gauging dock. A statue of the canal engineer James Brindley (1716-72) stands opposite the mill’s visitor entrance.
Etruria Industrial Museum
Lower Bedford Street
Etruria
ST4 7AF Stoke-on-Trent
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1782 - 233144
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