Northern Eye 13 - Thomond on Thursday with his choice of pictures from his Guardian beat

Yes, it's the West Midlands rather than the north, but Stoke-on-Trent has much in common with our towns and cities and lessons that we can learn. One of the last working Victorian potteries in the UK for example, is aiming to be a model of how to restore a grand old building to bring in - and instruct - visitors while retaining its original use.
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The pottery has two of the last bottle kilns in Stoke, structures whose use was wiped out almost overnight in the 1950s by the passing of the Clean Air Act. Of the 2,500 working then, only 45 now remain. These two survived because their bulk helps to hold up the ancient buildings. They and the rest of the canalside complex are being revived with £7.5 million from a consortium led by the Prince's Regeneration Trust
Photograph: Christopher Thomond of the Guardian

Trade secrets were important in the pottery's heyday when it became famous for the production of Burleigh ware. Sales of this rose by 16 percent last year, but future commercial success also depends on welcoming strangers in the form of tourists and school parties
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The pottery's new visitor centre, cafe and other tourist facilities are being built at the moment, but the rest of the place is a proper factory with all the bustle and mess involved. Here the clay is puddled in big tanks to ensure a smooth and consistent mix for moulding
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Preparing the clay for the processes which result in delicate pottery whose appeal has lasted for well over a century - for example plates, bowls and cups in the lastingly popular Asian Pheasants design
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Checking of the pots is extremely careful at all stages, with rejects thrown out to ensure quality. Here jugs are examined for flaws for going on to be glazed and fired
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The pottery's 18th and 19th century buildings are a warren but one whose quaintness is central to its appeal for tourists. You expect to meet the great writer of the five towns, Arnold Bennett, round every corner
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The placing of patterns on the plates, cups, teapots and other products, supplemented by hand-painting, is a marvel to watch. Skills are passed down through families and the pottery's long-serving staff include fathers and mothers working alongside their daughters and sons
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Different departments are connected by stairways, winding passages and narrow doors in a complex which includes huge kilns where the pots are fired and a magnificent beam engine which provided power until five years ago
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The pottery also houses the largest collection of historic moulds in the world, and Aladdin's Cave of 19,000 items which are still used to make an extraordinary range of toby jugs and commemorative ware as well as dinner services, vases and that great British standby, the teapot
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Staff know them all and can locate the mould they want in no time. There are more than a score of different moulds for toby jugs modelled on Sir Winston Churchill
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Another corner of the storage area where the historic moulds are packed in for safe-keeping. In the coming year they will be joined by new ones for the latest in hundreds of commemorations of Royal events. Designs are in hand for the birth of Prince Charles' first grandchild
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Other new moulds are constantly made, too, for the pottery's best-selling lines as the old ones gradually suffer wear
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

And here is the graveyard of the pots which failed the quality checks. Beautiful but each with a flaw. No wonder that wherever you dig in the UK, your spade turns up a scrap of blue and white pottery ware. You can read more about the restoration of Middleport and watch four short film clips, in the Guardian here.
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian