Stoke-on-Trent - Main Sights

Main Sights

The city's world-class ceramics collection is housed in the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley. Etruria Industrial Museum on the Caldon Canal, and Gladstone Pottery Museum in a former potbank in Longton are dedicated to the city's industrial heritage. Ceramica in Burslem used to be an interactive ceramics museum, but it closed in 2011 due to council funding cuts.

Most of the major pottery companies based in Stoke-on-Trent have factory shops and visitor centres. The £10 million Wedgwood Museum visitor centre opened in the firm's factory in Barlaston in October 2008. The Dudson Centre in Hanley is a museum of the family ceramics business, which is partly housed in a Grade II listed bottle kiln. It is also a volunteer centre. Burleigh in Middleport is the world's oldest working Victorian pottery. There are also smaller factory shops, such as Royal Stafford in Burslem, Moorcroft in Cobridge and Emma Bridgewater in Hanley. In addition, there are ambitious plans to open the huge Chatterley Whitfield Colliery as a mining museum, since it has been given Ancient Monument status.

The Elizabethan Ford Green Hall is a 17th century farmhouse which is now a historic house museum in Smallthorne.

Many local people consider Trentham Gardens to be in Stoke-on-Trent but it is actually in the Borough of Stafford. It is just south of the city and a £100 million refurbishment was completed in 2005. Next door is Trentham Monkey Forest, which houses 140 Barbary Macaques in a 60-acre (240,000 m2) enclosure that visitors can walk through.

The Alton Towers Resort is 10 miles (16 km) east of Stoke-on-Trent and is one of the United Kingdom's best known attractions. The Waterworld indoor swimming complex on Festival Park near Hanley is also a significant children's attraction.

Each of the six towns in Stoke-on-Trent has at least one park. At nine hectares, Burslem Park is one of the largest registered Victorian parks in the UK. Park Hall Country Park in Weston Coyney is a National Nature Reserve, and its sandstone canyons are a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Hartshill Park in Stoke is also a nature reserve, and Bucknall Park is home to the City Farm. Westport Lake in Longport is the largest body of water in Stoke-on-Trent and has a nature reserve.