With our wedding anniversary coming up soon, and mindful of past mishaps on my part, I decided to treat my wife to something very special; a trip to Stoke. Yes, that Stoke. Super Stoke on Trent. In the past, usually when I was travelling on business, I’ve taken her to Hawaii, Tahiti, Australia, Thailand, the Seychelles, Savannah, Singapore and Shanghai, so Stoke was the obvious choice. She loved it, and wants to go back. No doghouse for me this year!
I laid it on thick, with stops on the way and back. First off was Chesterfield, an exotic little town with Roman and Anglo-Saxon roots, a Crooked Spire and a pleasant little market. We stayed at the Gallion Steak House near the centre, and very pleasant it was too, with friendly and efficient service. We stayed there because our next destination was nearby Chatsworth House. Mrs A loves stately homes, and Chatsworth, in the middle of the Peak District, is as stately as stately gets. She is an arts afficionado (or is it aficionada?) and was mightily impressed with the art on display. I was equally impressed with the spectacular gardens.
Next stop was beautiful Buxton. Oddly enough, Buxton has an opera house, and a fine old building it is too. Fortunately, there was no opera or anything classical on when we went, as the anniversary girl laps that sort of stuff up. She once dragged me to a Mahler concert, which seemed to go on for hours. Pure torture.
Buxton is an excellent base for exploring the Peak District and has a lot going for it, with something for just about everybody. We both thoroughly enjoyed it before making our way south to Stratford Upon Avon. On the way there I made the mistake of following the satnav (it’s female) and drove through Birmingham. On the road out, heading south, we passed through an area that reminded me of a mix of places like Chittagong, Lagos, Calcutta and Mogadishu. Took me by surprise that did.
At Stratford we did the full Shakespeare thing. His school is still there, and they do a very interesting talk by a very strict schoolmaster. The village we stayed at, Weston-on-Avon, is beautiful and has a fine pub and some of the best thatched cottages we have ever seen. We stayed at the Boat House on the river, and can highly recommend it. It is well placed for a tour of the Cotswolds, and we visited Chipping Campden and Broadway, both a short drive away. The proximity of the Cotswolds was a bit of a surprise, and the excellent woman who runs the Boat House suggested we take it in – an added bonus. I really was clocking up the brownie points, and gained more by visiting Clarkson’s farm on the way to our next stop, Stroud. We didn’t stay long. It was a Saturday morning and there were long queues waiting for over-priced veggies and stuff. The Amazon series is excellent, but the farm shop is a let down. Nearby Hawkstone Brewery, where we stopped of for a swift half and a few cases of IPA and cider, was much more to our liking. Not cheap, but worth it.
And on to Stroud (still sober). We stayed at Five Valleys Apart Hotel which, like all the places we stayed at, was clean, comfortable, reasonably priced and recommended by us. Stroud is a pleasant place, surround by beautiful hilly country. It has a stretch of canal that is being slowly cleared and re-opened by worthy and enthusiastic volunteers. A trip on their boat is well worth the money. While at Stroud we went through Ross-on Wye to Monmouth, as my wife had never been to Wales. Ross is alright, but nothing special in itself, but Monmouth is interesting. The main highlight of that trip though was half a day in the gorgeous Forest of Dean. We hope to go back and stay longer.
Heading back north, we visited Blenheim Palace, well known as Winston Churchill’s birthplace – you can go in the room in which he was born. It calls itself Britain’s greatest palace. It certainly is grand and is set in stunning grounds. Again, it’s full of art treasures that hugely interested Mrs A. We stayed at the nearby Crown Inn in Woodstock, itself a very attractive place. The Crown is an 18th Century ‘boutique’ hotel, that boasts bose sound docks and luxury toilets. And it really is very nice. We’d stay there again if we ever go back.
Now this will impress any married man who happens to read this: having exceeded the call of duty by visiting two stately homes, we went and visited a third, Waddesdon Manor, once home of Rothschilds and, I understand, still owned by them. It’s an odd, noveau riche sort of a place, built like a French chateau and stuffed with random collections of expensive stuff that failed to impress Mrs A, though it still took her hours to get around the place, studying each display in great detail. The park is exceptional.
The great day had almost arrived, and we set off north again to Stoke, where we stayed at the exceptionally good Upper House, set in surprising beautiful countryside and conveniently close to the World of Wedgewood, a place Mrs A, who loves fine pottery, has long wanted to visit. We did the tour and our guide, a local lass, was funny, interesting and knowledgeable and made it a very pleasant experience. They are still making fine China there.
I’ve heard tell that some turn their noses up at Stoke, the snobs. That’s a very British thing you know, the turning up of noses. We all do it. Mention Blackpool, Bridlington, Skegness or Southend, and a good few of us laugh and turn up our noses – despite never having been to any of them. We just know they are crap, right? Wrong, they all have something good to offer, and Stoke has as much or more than any of them.
Like almost anywhere else it has its blackspots, and like most places in Britain it has suffered from planner’s blight and the replacement of fine old buildings with ugly modernist blocks of concrete and glass. But there are still enough good-looking Victorian buildings to impress.
But you don’t go to Stoke for the city itself, you go for its pottery past and present, and the industry that grew around it in the 18th and 19th centuries. Stoke had the clay and coal to fire the pottery industry, and when the Trent & Mersey Canal was opened in 1777, West Country china clay was also brought in and the waterway allowed fragile porcelain to be safely shipped out. That, and the development of bone china, in which animal bones were added to the clay, resulted in Stoke becoming the world's pottery capital. There is enough left to make a trip to Stoke very interesting.
If my wife was writing this she would focus on the pottery, the porcelain museums and the World of Wedgewood, all fascinating, even to me who has no intrinsic interest in pottery or chinaware. She would get very enthusiastic about the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, The Gladstone Museum, the Loveclay and Ceramics Centre, the Moorcraft Heritage Visitor Centre, as well as the Middleport Pottery and the Emma Bridgewater factory, all of which she enjoyed enormously, and only spending a modest amount on their wares, which have all since attracted approving attention. And all of which I would endorse as being worth visiting.
For me the highlight was the Etruria Industrial Museum, which has the world’s last remaining steam-powered potters’ mill. Really, the sheer inventiveness and ingenuity of those early engineers remains impressive to this day. We had a personal guided tour, and our guide was impressively knowledgeable, well worth the tenner it cost us. Sadly, they didn’t have steam up on the day we visited – coal is just too expensive for that now. The website says that the next steaming day is 27 (and 28th July). I’m going to try to make it. The mill is owned, managed and maintained by the sterling men of Shirley’s Bone and Flint Mill Volunteers, to whom I doff my cap.
Finally, the 75-acre Trentham Garden is superb. Go and see it if you can.
So shed any doubts you might have and go to Stoke. You won’t regret it. And finally again, this trip reminded me just how beautiful this country is, and just how friendly and decent the British people are.