About
Middleport Pottery is the last Victorian pottery factory in Britain still making pottery, and it has been doing so on the same canal bank in Burslem since 1888. It was built as a model works for Burgess and Leigh, laid out so that raw clay entered at the canal wharf and finished ware left by the same route, with each stage of manufacture arranged in sequence through the buildings between. The firm's Burleigh ware is still produced here, and the factory remains the only place in the world where underglaze tissue transfer printing is carried out as continuous commercial production rather than as demonstration — a hand process in which a pattern is engraved on a copper roller, printed onto tissue paper, and rubbed onto the raw pot by a team working at speed.
The site nearly went in 2011, when the company came close to closure and the buildings were at serious risk. It was rescued by the charity now known as Re-Form Heritage, restored over the following three years, and reopened in 2014 as a working factory that is also open to visitors, with studios let to makers, a café in the old packing house and traders in the Port Street and Harper Street ranges. That combination — production, workspace and public access on one site — is what makes Middleport unusual among industrial heritage sites, most of which preserve buildings from which the industry has gone.
Visitors can walk the site free of charge and see the visitor centre, shops and café. A charged Heritage Trail covers the historic spaces, including the Victorian offices, the surviving bottle oven, the placing house and the weighbridge, and a charged factory tour, which must be booked in advance, takes visitors through the actual production floor to watch Burleigh being made from clay to finished cup.
The factory has also become familiar on television as a filming location, most prominently for The Great Pottery Throw Down.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Book the factory tour in advance — it runs on weekdays only, at 11:00 and 13:45 Monday to Thursday and 10:30 on Friday, and sells out regularly.
- If you can only come at a weekend, the site, shops, café and studios are still open and free, but there is no factory tour.
- The tissue transfer printing shop is the point of the tour; if the printers are working when you pass, stop and watch rather than moving on with the group.
- The Burleigh Factory Shop sells seconds at a discount and is worth budgeting time and luggage space for.
- Go inside the surviving bottle oven on the Heritage Trail; it is a very different experience from looking at one from outside.
- Wear closed, sturdy shoes — this is a working factory with uneven historic floors, and the tour passes through production areas.
- Parking on site is free, which is unusual for a heritage attraction of this profile.
- Walk a stretch of the Trent and Mersey towpath before or after; the canal explains why the factory is where it is.
Highlights
Underglaze Tissue Transfer Printing
Middleport is the only factory in the world still using underglaze tissue transfer printing as everyday commercial production. A pattern engraved on a copper roller is inked, printed onto tissue paper, cut and rubbed by hand onto the unglazed pot, and the paper washed away, leaving the design beneath the glaze where it cannot wear off.
It is skilled, fast, physical work done by a team, and watching it is the reason the factory tour matters: this is not a demonstration staged for visitors but the way the pottery on sale in the shop is actually made.
Britain's Last Working Victorian Pottery
Every other Victorian pottery factory in Britain has either closed, been demolished, or been preserved with the manufacturing removed. Middleport still makes pottery in the buildings it was built for, on the same site, in substantially the same sequence, which makes it the last of its kind rather than merely an unusually complete example.
The distinction matters on a visit: the noise, the dust, the heat and the pace are those of a working factory, and the people passed on the tour are at work rather than in costume.
The Model Factory Layout of 1888
Burgess and Leigh built Middleport in 1888 as a model works, laid out deliberately so that materials moved through the buildings in the order the manufacturing required: clay landed at the canal wharf, was worked through the slip house, the making shops, the ovens and the decorating shops, and left as finished ware by the same canal.
Efficient factory planning of this kind was still novel, and the site survives intact enough for the whole logic to be walked. Understanding the plan is what turns a collection of Victorian brick buildings into a legible machine.
The Surviving Bottle Oven
Bottle ovens — the great brick coal-fired kilns that once made the Potteries skyline and its notorious smoke — were almost entirely demolished after the Clean Air Acts, and only a few dozen survive anywhere. Middleport originally had seven; one remains, and it can be entered on the Heritage Trail. Standing inside gives an immediate sense of the scale, the heat and the risk of a firing, and of the labour involved in packing thousands of pieces into saggars and drawing them out again days later.
It is the most photographed structure on the site.
Collections
Middleport Pottery is a working Victorian pottery factory of 1888, built as a model works for Burgess and Leigh on the Trent and Mersey Canal at Burslem and still producing Burleigh earthenware. It is the last Victorian pottery factory in Britain still in production, and the only factory in the world where underglaze tissue transfer printing remains continuous commercial practice.
The site preserves its original sequential layout from canal wharf through slip house, making shops, ovens and decorating shops, together with the Victorian offices, the weighbridge, the placing house and one of the seven bottle ovens the works originally had.
Rescued in 2011 by the charity now known as Re-Form Heritage and reopened in 2014, it combines production with public access, let studios, shops and a café. A charged Heritage Trail covers the historic spaces and a charged, pre-booked factory tour passes through the working production floor.
The Heritage Trail
Self-guided route through the Victorian offices, the surviving bottle oven, the placing house and the weighbridge.
The Factory Tour
Guided, pre-booked tour of the working production floor from clay to finished ware, including the tissue transfer printing shop.
Visitor Centre
Displays on the works' history, the Burleigh brand and the 2011-14 rescue and restoration of the site.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.