Join Miranda Goodby, former Head of Ceramics at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery for this brand new course. North Staffordshire has been known as The Potteries since the 18th century and at its height, in the 1870s, had over 300 factories operating simultaneously across the Six Towns. They employed thousands of people, their ovens dominated the local skyline, and their wares were sold across the world. Almost all of these firms have since disappeared and their factories demolished. In many cases their names are largely forgotten except to collectors of their wares. Yet over more than three centuries these potteries and their owners created the towns that make up The Potteries. This course will look at some of the well-known and some of the lesser-known factories that no longer exist in each of the Six Towns, from the Ridgways of Hanley & Shelton, to the Mintons of Stoke, and the Masons of Fenton, to William Burgess of Burslem, including what they made, who they employed and their impact on the towns where their factories once stood.