Gladstone Pottery Museum

A pottery factory first opened on the site in 1787. It was run by the Shelley family who produced earthenware and decorated plates and dishes produced by Josiah Wedgwood in Etruria. The site was purchased in 1789 by William Ward who split it into two pot banks: the Park Place Works subsequently named the Roslyn works, and the Wards Pot Bank which was sold to John Hendley Sheridan in 1818. In the 1850s Sheridan had rented out the site to Thomas Cooper who employed 41 adults and 26 children to produce china and parian figures. By 1876 the Wards site had passed into the hands of R. Hobson and Co. and had been renamed Gladstone, after the politician William Ewart Gladstone. The factory opened…

The museum is centred on the Roslyn pottery. It contains two biscuit ovens and two larger glost ovens. In addition are two enamel kilns. A tandem compound steam engine by Marshall & Sons, of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire is in place but it is turned by an electric motor. The two muffle kilns came from elsewhere.

Gladstone has seen its share of celebrity interest, from Tony Robinson filming for a BBC documentary 'The Worst Jobs in Britain' and from Alan Titchmarsh. It also has regular visits from the Blue Peter crew, and numerous children's TV programmes. In 1986, parts 13 and 14 of the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord were shot at the museum. In the early 1990s it was featured on Noel's House Party with a live 'gunging' outside of the bottle kilns. Gladstone Pottery Museum was featured on Living TV's popular series Most Haunted. The museum featured in the third episode of the BBC One programme 24 Hours in the Past featuring six celebrities working in the Victorian era. The episode aired…