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 The British Ceramics Biennial
By Paull Tickner

The city of Stoke-on-Trent will be hosting one of the leading events of its kind in the UK, when it stages the 2009 British Ceramics Biennial Festival, from October 3rd to December 13th.

The British Ceramics Biennial is a prestigious, new, cultural event that not only embraces the heritage of The Potteries as the 'home' of British Ceramics, but also celebrates Stoke-on-Trent’s creative edge as an international centre for excellence in contemporary ceramics.

Exhibitions in the Festival will include work from a prestigious new awards scheme, celebrating the best in British contemporary ceramics practice, and a showcase of the work of some of the country's best new graduates from UK university ceramics courses.  There will also be work by one of Europe's leading ceramic designers and an exhibition of traditional rural pottery from India.

The Minton Conservatory

The Minton Peacock

Three previous Stoke-on-Trent "Ceramics Festivals" have already paved the way for The Potteries to become recognised as a venue for contemporary lifestyle ceramics.

And leading designers, cutting-edge studio potters, experts, celebrities, collectors and members of the general public will once again converge on The Potteries in their thousands in the autumn of 2009 to celebrate the ceramic art, and to join in a lively weekends of events at the first ever international Biennial Festival.

Chatsworth Dining Room dressed for Chistmas 2008

Day One
Morning:  Guided tour round the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, which houses the world’s largest and finest collection of Staffordshire ceramics.  The museum has over 5,000 pieces of pottery on display.  It explains the history and development of the ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent from Roman times to the present day. (min. 2 hours)

Emma Bridgewater factory shop & pottery café is less than 5 minutes away from the City Centre.  Here you can decorate your own piece of pottery, which can be sent to you as a unique souvenir of your visit. (min. 1-2 hours)

Afternoon:  Visit to the Gladstone Pottery Museum, which is an original 19th century pottery factory, now preserved as a living museum, complete with bottle ovens, cobbled yard and workshops.  Opportunity to have a go yourself at throwing a pot or making a china flower.

Day Two
Morning:  visit to Burslem, “mother town of The Potteries” and birthplace of Josiah Wedgwood.  Burslem is home to several pottery factory outlets – Moorcroft, Dudson, Royal Stafford, Moorland, Burslem Antiques, Burleigh, which specialise in collectable and antique pottery.  (min. 2 – 3 hours).

Factory tour at Moorcroft Heritage Visitor Centre possible if trip is Mon to Fri, at 11am.

Lunch could be at The Leopard in Burslem.  The Leopard is an historic pub, which has established a good reputation for food – it does traditional English recipes that you don’t see much of these days.

Afternoon:  Doulton Outlet Superstore on Festival Park for factory shopping. Then down to Stoke for more shopping at Churchill and Portmeirion. See the graves of both Josiah Wedgwood and Spode at the Stoke Minster. 

Day Three
Morning:  Visit to Longton factory outlets – Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, Portmeirion, Aynsley etc.  These are the City’s largest factory outlets that are all open 7 days a week.

Late morning:  Visit to the Wedgwood Visitor Centre.  This award-winning attraction, with its demonstration area and exhibition.  The new Wedgwood Museum opened October 2008 this houses the majority of the Wedgwood ceramic archive and art collection to create a new museum of international significance.

Lunch at Wedgwood in the Ivy House restaurant or have a traditional afternoon tea in the Wedgwood Tea Room.

Afternoon:  Visit to the Trentham Estate, the £100 million re-development of the former Trentham Gardens, including the Italian Gardens, brought back to life with Piet Oudolf (famous Dutch gardener).

Everything stops for tea

All over the UK, contacts of mine are coming up with all sorts of imaginative new products for you to consider.  For example, in the county of Bedfordshire, just north of London.during a 3 night stay you will learn the art of serving afternoon tea as demonstrated by a skilled English butler and visit the home of 7th Duchess of Bedford who started the tradition. There’ll be time to take a peak under the dust covers, tour the deer park and gardens and browse at leisure in their unique antiques centre

At a nearby privately owned manor house will also see how petals can be made into scrumptious rose and lavender cakes, wonderful ice creams and a host of other goodies. Add in spa treatments at Champneys, morning coffee and cream teas in archetypal English tea rooms, a ghost walk, a Night at the Museum private tour and you're in for a memorable treat, just 30 minutes north of London. Accommodations could be at a privately owned 17th century country manor house where the artist James McNeill Whistler was once a regular visitor. Now a place of retreat where you can enjoy a range of holistic therapies and benefit from the revitalising energies of the labyrinth, it is a hidden gem surrounded by stunning gardens.  Email us for the complete itinerary.

Afternoon tea in an English country garden

Girls Getaway to Brighton

Visions in the East  

A 7 night / 8 day tour that includes Her Majesty The Queen’s summer home at Sandringham, award-winning Houghton Hall, the theatrical garden at East Ruston and others both large and small, chosen to suit the season. Also nincluded, Choral Evensong at Kings College Cambridge, the largely undiscovered, stunning cathedral at Ely, shopping time in Norwich and a wine tasting at an Elizabethan manor house. This programme works well as a pre or post cruise extension through Harwich.

Arts and gardens in the city by the sea

Another 7 nighter this time based in the city of Brighton and featuring the celebrated gardens at Parham House and West Dean both former winners of the fiercely contested Historic Houses Association/Christies Garden of the Year Award, a short piano recital in a medieval, timber-framed private house, an out of hours tour of a private art collection in a nearby stately home and a close encounter with The Bloomsbury Set and with the British Surrealist Movement. With visits to one or two of the Great Gardens of West Sussex on the way to London, this combination can be timed to coincide with the internationally renowned Brighton Festival and the Chelsea Flower Show, in late May.