| Old
Town Road, Hanley
Dominating Old Town Road
is the Falcon Pottery Works of Weatherby.
J H Weatherby
& Sons
The company was founded
in Tunstall in 1891, in the following year they moved to the larger
Falcon Pottery at Hanley.
They first made domestic ware such as basins and ewers, later moving
into tableware and giftware.
The marks include the
initials J H W & Sons or the name 'Weatherby'.
Printed
mark used 1891 only when Weatherby were at Tunstall |
Printed
marks 1936+
Including the trade names
"Falcon Ware"
"Royal Crownford"
"Durability" |
"One of the last
remaining family-owned pottery firms is to close after more than a
century.
J H Weatherby and Sons in Hanley is currently being run down and is
will soon cease trading after 109 years.
Its chairman, Christopher Weatherby, the great-great grandson of
company founder John Henry Weatherby, today blamed cut-throat
competition in the hotelware business for the firm's decline.
At its height the company employed 200, but the figure was down to
50 at the turn of the year and now stands at 10."
Sentinel newspaper April 2000
After the closure of J.H.Weatherby in 2000 Jonathan Weatherby took
over producing for
JONROTH,
working with a very limited staff at the Falcon Pottery. .....
operating as a decorator under the name of Jonathan Weatherby At
Falcon Pottery.
Pot Bank. 1906, with use of site established by 1891.
photo:
2001
Brick with plain tiled roofs. Extensive workshop
ranges loosely grouped around yard. Entrance range of 3 storeys and
23 bays, with entrance arch to the yard towards the left of
elevation, with cast-iron lintel and mosaic lettering: "Falcon
Pottery".
The works extends back from Old Town Street, with 8
bays in the side elevation of the frontage range, and a further
3-storeyed range of 12 bays beyond, a later addition.
The Bottle Kiln at
Weatherby's Falcon Works
A squat bottle kiln in courtyard, a circular hovel over
downdraught oven, adjoining an earlier range of buildings. The
remains of one of the few surviving muffle kilns in the City are
also housed on this site.
photo:
2001
Kiln at J H
Weatherby & Sons
photo:
©
Chris Oldham 2007
J H Weatherby &
Sons Gates
photo:
©
Chris Oldham 2007
From the upper window of the slowly decaying Weatherby factory can be
seen
one of the saddest sights in the city of
Stoke-on-Trent, and a monument to the apathy and neglect of the city’s
built heritage the 'Ragged Glory' of the Church of St. John the
Evangelist.....
St. John's,
Hanley
photo
taken through Weatherby's window
Eileen Hallam - 2002
but that's for another
"lost road" story....... |
