Port Vale (Burslem)
What to See
You’ll find accounts of Burslem’s (and the Potteries’) tourist attractions in Towns of Two Halves (and of 91 other places). For additional information plus shopping, eating out etc there’s Visit Stoke. For events coming up go to Visit Stoke’s What’s On pages.
Links to Burslem points of interest include:
● Arnold Bennett Locations
● Middleport Pottery
● Westport Lake
Towns of Two Halves extracts:
● “Hidden among the dusty shop-windows of low-rent 21st century capitalism are some decent examples of Victorian residential architecture. At 205 Waterloo Road is the house in which Arnold Bennett grew up. His father Enoch, a solicitor, bought the plot in 1879 for £200 and built the house on it for £900.”
● “You come to what was originally the Waterloo & American Hotel, more recently just The American. It’s an unlikely anomaly. The explanation may lie in the Potteries Emigration Society that used to meet there in the mid-19th century; the society bought land for a colony of potters in America.”
● “By now darkness is falling. I am wearing in a new pair of spectacles. Not only are they varifocals but also photo-sensitive. Under the floodlights they darken. I am unable to follow the play at the far end of the ground. Well, it’s a poor game involving two sides unable to find a moment of inspiration that might sink the other.”
These are taken from the Port Vale (Burslem) chapter of Towns of Two Halves, published in 2018. To buy a copy, email info@townsof2halves.co.uk.
