Britain’s spiritual home of ceramics, Stoke-on-Trent, is undergoing a multi-million-pound regeneration, breathing new life into historic buildings and creating new bars, food and drink venues and eventually a hotel.
A combination of funding from the Lottery Heritage Fund, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, the Government’s Levelling Up Fund and private investment is creating a “Potteries renaissance” restoring heritage architecture as well as bringing new facilities.
Leading the way is Capital&Centric’s Goods Yard, a £60m project in partnership with the city council to transform a prime industrial site next to the West Coast mainline train station into a vibrant new urban quarter with homes, business, and leisure space.
Construction began in October 2022 and already the 10-floor new build that will house 174 design-led rental apartments is standing tall over the Trent & Mersey Canal, with restoration also underway on the below ground Vaults Warehouse.
Now the search has begun for independent businesses to move in when it opens as an all-day social hub, with eateries, a bar and places to meet, work and stage events.
New CGI images reveal how the revamped Vaults will look, which developers say will be a space with a range of eateries that will attract visitors looking for a dining and leisure experience in Stoke-on-Trent, and with easy access by rail.
Originally constructed in the 19th century as a brick building with a vaulted basement, the shed served as a warehouse where goods were craned between the canal, on one side of the site, and the railway on the other. It also played a vital role in the ceramics industry, transporting the raw materials and then sending out finished products around the world.
Phase one, including the Vaults Warehouse, is expected to be finished by autumn 2024 with a 150-bed hotel planned as part of phase two (www.capitalandcentric.com/goods-yard).
Elsewhere, a Stoke-on-Trent charity is set to help safeguard and restore some of the city’s dilapidated historic buildings after becoming one of 12 heritage development trusts across the UK.
Re-Form Heritage, which operates Middleport Pottery and the Harper Street attraction, will benefit from a share of a new £5m fund, awarded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) and the Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF), to help preserve the city’s internationally significant heritage. One of the first projects could be the restoration of Burslem’s Grade II-listed indoor market – closed for 20 years – as a new venue for arts and performance.
Separately, there are also ambitious new plans for The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, including an extension to the building and the gallery space, making the museum a new centrepiece for the city’s Cultural Quarter.
Regarded as a world ‘Capital of Ceramics’, Stoke-on-Trent has been shaped by its production of pottery for centuries, and today is home to award-winning attractions, tours, and factory shops, and is still the base for some of the country’s leading names in ceramics.
For more information on Stoke-on-Trent as a destination, see www.visitstoke.co.uk
Photos: Capital&Centric
