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Staffordshire has all the answers. If you want to know how beer is made, how canals carved our County’s industrial heritage or how glass is blown, or how that delicate pottery is manufactured. Our amazing county can answer them all and more besides. South of the Churnet in the market town of Cheadle, St Giles Roman Catholic Church is said to be one of Pugin's finest buildings. Its interior is quite breathtaking -extravagantly decorated and in vivid colours. A number of other buildings in the vicinity are also designed by Pugin and these are detailed in the Pugin Trail leaflet available from Leek Tourist Information Centre. 
Bordering on the Staffordshire Moorlands are the Potteries, a collection of towns based around Stoke-on-Trent, world renowned for the manufacture of excellent ceramics. Here visitors can see first hand the remarkable skills required in producing fine china, discover the history of the industry and pick up some bargains in the factory shop outlets. A fantastic visitor centre is located at Wedgwood in Barlaston. In the West of the District the great Victorian plantsman James Bateman created an amazing garden at Biddulph using species collected from various parts of the world. The garden is landscaped into a series of themed areas with secret passages, grottos and glades. After a long period of neglect the garden has been completely restored by the National Trust and is now open to the public. Rich with Industrial Heritage - now a peaceful wooded valley but once hives of industrial activity alive with iron smelters lime kilns and narrow boats transporting coal and limestone. The Caldon Canal, which extends from Stoke to Leek and into the Churnet Valley was originally surveyed by James Brindley and is still in use, but now with pleasure craft. A traditional narrowboat operating from Froghall Wharf offers traditional canal boat trips to visitors. The steam railway is once more taking passengers down this delightful valley from Cheddleton to Consall and shortly through to Froghall where once stood the fantastic Froghall station. Two working water mills are located in the Churnet Valley; The Brindley Mill in Leek, a corn mill once owned by the great canal engineer James Brindley; and at Cheddleton flint mill, flints were ground to a powder for use in the ceramic industry in the nearby Pottery towns. Both open to visitors, where huge water wheels can be seen in action driving the machinery inside the mills. |
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