Undercover Tourist

As part of 'What this City Really needs...' I feel it would be useful to get an idea of what the city is proud of. What is here already to celebrate? Thinking back to that very interesting point which came up during the Longhouse PAd back in November '07, if Stoke were to win the FA cup, where would the city gather to celebrate? If I were a tourist visiting the city for the first time, where should I go to get an idea about what this city is about, and what it has to offer.
I decided then to go undercover today, and go to the Tourist Information centre in Hanley, posing as a visitor, and see where they might suggest I go.
The results were really interesting:

Lady: Hello.

Me: Hi, erm, I’m just visiting for a few days staying with a friend and erm, they’re working and I wondered erm if you could recommend anywhere in the city centre to go and visit y’know things which are quite interesting?

Lady: Yeah, look you’ve got the Potteries Museum and art gallery, have you been there?

Me: I haven’t been there no.

Lady: It’s just go out the door to the bottom, go to the building at the bottom which is the yellow building and that’s the library, to the left of, well obviously you can go in there if you want to, to the side of there you’ve got the Potteries Museum and art gallery, it’s got the best ceramic collection in the world, it’s got a social history department, it’s sort of got a spitfire in there, if you’re interested in planes but it has, and it’s sort of got, y’know sort of the area how it was as well erm sort of and clothes, it’s got all sorts of things in there and most of it is free. I mean, you’re in Hanley, so you’re in the city centre so you’ve got the Potteries Shopping Centre and y’know all the main shops that are here. You’ve got Central Forest park if you want to go somewhere for a walk. It’s reclaimed land, but it’s very pretty there, it’s got a lake in it, it has still got the slag heap, but covered in err grass but you can walk up to the top and get a really good view of the city over there. There’s a skateboard park in there, they’ve got swans and ducks, so I mean that’s just somewhere for a walk. You’ve also got Hanley Park, which is the Town Park, again it’s quite pretty round there to walk around but you’ve not got the same views as this one, but you can go on the swings there if you wanted to

Me: oh right.

Lady: so that’s the other thing. Otherwise you’ve got the six towns, which will require you to travel around, you’ve got the Gladstone Pottery Museum, which is here. You’ve got Spode, you’ve got Wedgewood, but you will have to go on a bus - it’s a bit further away, but you’ve got the factory shops that you can go around

Me: uh-huh

Lady: You’ve got the town of Burslem, You’ve got Ceramica, erm Burslem’s what they call the Mother town, it’s one of the oldest towns, Ceramica’s just mainly a museum for that area.

Me: Right.

Lady: So, everything with a pot is something you can do, and it gives the information, on the other side.

Me: Oh, Ok. And the other thing was that erm I’m a photographer and I want to sort of get some good images of Stoke

Lady: Is it past images or the modern images?

Me: Well, just to go around and take some photos, so I wondered…

Lady: Well, the Gladstone Pottery Museum’s very good because it’s still got the bottle oven, you’ve got Festival park, it’s called Festival park because in 1986 the Garden Festival was there, so they reclaimed the land back, it’s now a retail and leisure area, there are certain little walks, you can walk up still get a good view of the City, with twenty years past of the actual, there are certain things that are still there if you look for them, it’s quite interesting actually. You’ve got the Trent and Mersey Canal, obviously be careful walking on it on your own, but if you do walk down you’re gonna get lots of old photographs, you’ve got the locks you’ve got the Industrial Museum, which was what you put in. and by walking down it, it gets quite industrial then it gets quite pretty, you can get quite a lot of good photos if you, if you’re walking sort of around this area as well, you’ve got the area of Longport, there’s two big bottle ovens, it’s actually towards Stoke, it’s err if you get on it at Etruria, which is here, and walk down there, just go past here and it’s this area here, you’ve got the cemetery on one side, you’ve got the canal, and then on the other side you’ve got the two bottle ovens but then they’ve built brand new houses, it’s quite odd, it’s quite a good,

Me: oh right, can I mark that on there

Lady: because I’m into photography as well

Me: Are you?

Lady: I know that’s quite good to take a good photograph of. And the area of Festival park, if you do go on it, as you’re walking on to it, or driving on to it, you can see little walkways up, especially if you go by Morrisons, to your left you can actually walk, and you’ve got the old remnants of when it was the garden festival

Me: Oh right, Ok.

Lady: Before that it was very industrial, it was Shelton Bar.

Me: So what was there when it was the garden festival? Did they turn it into a garden?

Lady: Well the garden festival site happened in Glasgow, London, - err Glasgow, Liverpool, Stoke and Newcastle-upon-Tyne and it was very badly scarred area – they turned it into reusable land, so they did it in, when they did it there they turned it into a garden, but obviously it evolved into a leisure, leisure and retail area now, from what it was before, it was just a scarred landscape. They did it in Liverpool, they did it in Glasgow and Newcastle as well. I think we were the last one. If you want, if you don’t mind walking along canals you can walk up, right past Westport lake, you can wind up right by the Air Castle Tunnel so that’s another place that’s good for photography, Westport lake’s good photography because of the birds, Canals always are aren’t they.

Me: OK. Great.

Lady: But I mean the area of Longton you’ve got the Gladstone, obviously to get the best views you need to go in it, and you do have to pay, but if you go on the car park you can actually see the bottle ovens there.

Me: Oh right, yeah.

Lady: I mean, another area that’s sort of old an old area, is the area around here, especially around sort of Port Street, again because the canal, that’s a very old pottery and they don’t use it a lot, and sort of around the junction here, you’ve got all the boats, a lot of the canal boats. Go Festival park to the Marina you’ve got all the boats as well, all the canal boats

Me: oh Ok. Good.

Lady: It depends what you want to take pictures of really.

Me: Yeah, I’ve just been noticing that there’s quite a lot of sort of empty land around here, erm

Lady: Yeah, That’s - if you walk down, if you walk down Lichfield street, this is what the whole areas gonna be erm completely erm, all the houses are empty, and again that’s good for photography isn’t it? So if you sort of go down that area where the canal is here there used to be a big factory, named Jim Ekins (?)

more later...