THE BEAUTY OF BURSLEM

July 2023. Burslem, the Potteries.

One of the conditions of my exciting sponsorship deal (come on Pipers, sort it out) is that I promote towns that normal folk never visit.

Oddly, if I mention Stoke-on-Trent to Mum and Dad they’d go “Oooh, we used to love Stoke“, but of course they mean the genteel bit around Trentham Gardens where the monkeys and coffee shops are.

The rest of the Six Towns are traditionally a harder sell, despite the efforts of Blackpool Jane and myself to promote the toilet museum at Longton.

So I was delighted when the Good Beer Guide (not that I’m doing it) sent me back to Burslem this year for a new micro pub, which is something you can’t imagine yourself saying.

It’s thirty (30) years since my first trip, when I spent an enjoyable Tuesday afternoon touring the slag heaps and rail sidings of Longport before a Cambridge away game at Port Vale.

No pubs visited at all in 1993, which rather dates the start of my Guide ticking quest. On the journey home after a 2-2 draw my brand new United scarf, hanging out the back window, unravelled completely on the M1 between Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stafford North. That taught me a valuable life lesson; ALWAYS buy your football scarf from the bloke outside the ground, not the official club shop.

The train from Crewe to Wolves was the only one (of six) not to be packed, and only three of us left at Longport, Gateway to the (Port) Vale.

A mile into central Burslem past closed pubs,

a closed Oatcake shop, crumbling potteries,

and grounded canal boats.

It’s certainly a world apart, but oddly compelling, and the main drag around the market place and St John’s Square is the start of a Retired Martin cultural walk I urge you to add to your bucket list.

OK, it’ll mainly be pubs,

the first of which was still setting up when I arrived,

but being able to spot the diamonds in the dirt is all part of the fun.

And there are plenty of diamonds,

If you go you can tell me what this church on Queen Street is.

The main cultural icon in Burslem is Arnold Bennett, who seems to have invented the term “duck”, but there’s plenty of handsome architecture in town.

Even before you get to Vale Park.

Next up, I get called “duck”. Or actually “ducky”.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

10 thoughts on “THE BEAUTY OF BURSLEM”

  2. “they mean the genteel bit around Trentham Gardens where the monkeys and coffee shops are” – There were no monkeys and coffee shops there a century ago when local families would go for the day as their summer holiday. I read that in an autobiography, that would go for the day as their summer holiday not that there weren’t any monkeys or coffee shops back then.

    That micropub was big news locally last autumn.
    stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/police-want-shut-down-seating-7705922

    “The main cultural icon in Burslem is Arnold Bennett” and I’m never sure if he was Gordon’s brother.

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    1. I’ll have quite a bit to say about that micro shortly, Paul. It may have provided the best beer of the year (amongst other things).

      And yes, it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come in the last century despite the misery the media bombards us with. A day in a pleasure garden and a day in Blackpool was the extent of most people’s holidays, and they didn’t have Plum Porter to wash it down with.

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  4. Having grown up close by, a lot of my drinking time in my youth was spent in Boslem, and so always good to read favourable comments about the place. It’s always had some decent pubs over the years, some sadly now gone. Had you been to the Leopard before it’s unfortunate demise?

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