The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is in Bethesda Street, Hanley, one of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. Admission is free. One of the four local authority museums in the city, the other three being

Gladstone Pottery Museum The Gladstone Pottery Museum is a working museum of a medium-sized coal-fired pottery, typical of those once common in the North Staffordshire area of England from the time of the industrial revolution in the 18th century to the mid 20th cent ...

, Ford Green Hall and

Etruria Industrial Museum The Etruria Industrial Museum is located in Etruria, Staffordshire, in England. The museum is a typical and well-preserved example of a nineteenth century British steam-powered potter's mill. It is situated between the Trent and Mersey Canal ...

, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery houses collections that bring together the identities that went into forming the area known as the Potteries. The museum holds a collection of Staffordshire ceramics. All the collections at this museum are categorized as Designated Collections. Galleries display fine and decorative arts, costume, local history, archaeology and natural science collections. There is a

second world war World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

aircraft on permanent display, a Supermarine Spitfire whose earlier Marks were designed by R. J. Mitchell who came from nearby

Butt Lane Butt Lane is a village in North Staffordshire near the town of Kidsgrove in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, North Staffordshire. Butt Lane borders on Church Lawton in Cheshire. A ward of the borough is named after the place. Notable people ...

History

The museum opened on its current site in 1956 as the Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery. The building was designed by the city architect; J. R. Piggott. The museum's Spitfire, was received from the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

in 1972. Over the winter of 1985/6 the Spitfire was moved from its previous home in a glasshouse outside the museum to a specially constructed gallery within the museum. Since February 2010, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery has been the home of a number of artefacts from the Staffordshire Hoard. 52,500 visitors viewed 118 items at the Potteries Museum during a 23-day exhibition in February 2010.http://www.esci.keele.ac.uk/nsgga/bulletin/bulletin093.pdf Since

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...

and Stoke-on-Trent Museums have purchased the Hoard, items have been on permanent display at both venues. Over 80 pieces can be seen in The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery's archaeology gallery. Redevelopment of the Saxon part to this gallery in the latter half of 2010 has set the Hoard within a more tangible context, using existing pieces from the museum's collection of Staffordshire archaeology. In 2012 the museum ran an exhibition on the subject of connections between Stoke-on-Trent and the Titanic. It included information on people from the area who died in the sinking and archive footage of Captain Edward Smith who was born in Hanley. On 28 February 2017, the Leekfrith torcs, believed to be the oldest Iron Age gold jewellery found in Britain, were unveiled to the public for the first time, at the museum. From the following day, they were placed on public display. In June 2017 a bronze statue of

Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...

was located on the pavement just next to the front entrance to the museum. In the 2010s the museum's Spitfire underwent a three-year restoration program before returning to a new gallery at the museum in September 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Potteries Museum and Art Gallery Art museums and galleries in Staffordshire Museums in Stoke-on-Trent Decorative arts museums in England Staffordshire pottery Natural history museums in England Ceramics museums in the United Kingdom

History

See also

References