47 bottle ovens, one walk and a mission to celebrate Stoke's dance music heritage
Organised to raise funds for a mural celebrating dance culture in Stoke, the 14-mile jaunt began in Longport, taking in Burslem, Hanley and Stoke and ending up in Gladstone
From the days of the Golden Torch and Top Rank to The Void and Shelley’s, Stoke has a rich and storied history of dance culture. In the early 70s, the Torch was blasting out the latest Northern Soul hits and its all-nighters later became the stuff of legend, while 20 years later, big names like Paul Oakenfold and Sasha were behind the decks for the Golden, the legendary house and trance club night at the Void, when ravers from all over the north and the Midlands, including Manchester, Birmingham, Crewe, and Wolverhampton, would descend on the club to dance ‘til the early hours.
Music lover Phil Johnson wanted to do something to pay tribute to Stoke’s contribution to dance music. He’s already made a start with six unofficial blue plaques around the city – four in Hanley, one in Stoke and one in Newcastle – one of which commemorates The Place, widely regarded as one of the UK’s first purpose-built discotheques, designed to play recorded music via a DJ instead of a live band.
But he had bigger ambitions in mind, and came up with a plan to commemorate the city’s dance culture with a mural featuring the nightspots and DJ’s of Stoke’s golden days. A location has now been secured, and a crowd funder secured over £11,000, with donations coming from Denise Coates and JCB among others. Artist Tom Edwards, who has been involved in projects at Stoke Minster, the World War I mural in Longton, and nature scenes along local rivers, has already been commissioned.
The one obstacle Phil is now trying to navigate is that the location, outside the Victoria Inn in Hanley, falls within the city centre conservation area. “This means the council‘s planning department have to look at things such as ‘does it involve advertising or include anything inappropriate or change the general environment and spoil the local Edwardian and Victorian architecture’? Obviously, we are hoping they say go ahead but there is a chance that we will have to put in a planning application, which could cost £600, hence the sponsored walk,” he explains.
The 14-mile trek began in Longport and criss-crossed the city, taking in Burslem, Hanley, Etruria, Stoke and Fenton before culminating at Gladstone, where the six towns’ greatest concentration of bottle ovens can be found. By exploring Stoke’s industrial heritage with a band of dance music fans and history-loving ramblers, Johnson now hopes to pay tribute to six decades of Stoke’s nightlife.
On a scorching August morning, there are around 20 of us gathered outside Cherished Chimneys, mostly sporting sunglasses, backpacks and hiking boots, before we descend onto the Trent and Mersey Canal at Longport to admire the first bottle oven en route, a glorious specimen encased in buddleia that once made Price & Kensington teapots. It casts long, shimmering reflections into the murky water and before long, Middleport is in sight, the second bottle oven on our journey. We’re just two bottle ovens in, and everyone is already happily snapping away.
