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# Beloved Bottle Ovens - A poem for Potteries Bottle Oven Day
- URL: https://www.theredhairedstokie.co.uk/beloved-bottle-ovens-a-poem-for-potteries-bottle-oven-day/
- Published: 2026-08-29T14:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-29T14:15:00.000Z
- Description: A poem for Potteries Bottle Oven Day, celebrating the fat bottomed, thin topped icons of the Stoke skyline, and the industry that stopped burning but never stopped meaning something to us.
- Author: Jenna Goodwin

Today is Potteries Bottle Oven Day, and if you're not from round here, that might sound like an odd thing to celebrate. But if you're a Stokie, you'll already know why it matters.

The 29th of August marks the anniversary of the last ever firing of a traditional coal fired bottle oven, which took place at the Sutherland Works in Longton in 1978, organised by Gladstone Pottery Museum. It took 19 staff, 72 volunteers, and around 12 tons of local coal to pull off, and the whole process took nine days from start to finish. Since then, the date has become an annual celebration of the ovens that once defined our skyline.

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At their peak, it's estimated there were up to 2,000 bottle ovens across Stoke on Trent. Today, only 50 remain standing, thanks largely to the Clean Air Act of 1956, which forced potteries towards cleaner firing methods and brought the age of the bottle oven to a close. Since 2018, Potteries Bottle Oven Day has been coordinated by the Stoke on Trent Ceramic Heritage Action Zone, Gladstone Pottery Museum, and Potteries Heritage Society, with events, walks, and trails held across the city each year to mark the occasion.

To celebrate, I've written a poem for the occasion. It's mine, written by me, not AI. (I hate that I even have to say this!)  
  
Beloved Bottle Ovens

> *The bottom's fat, the top is thin,* 
> *Sometimes we fill them full of gin,* 
> *They're even used as biscuit tins,* 
> *Our beloved bottle ovens.*

> *We make them big, we make them small,* 
> *We're proudest of them most of all,* 
> *We love it when they still stand tall,* 
> *Our beloved bottle ovens.*

> *We still have some, others are lost,* 
> *Some are for biscuit, some for glost,* 
> *The wares all came out freshly glossed,* 
> *From our beloved bottle ovens.*

> *The Clean Air Act, it stopped them burning,* 
> *Which unfortunately stopped them earning,* 
> *But we will never stop the yearning,* 
> *For our beloved bottle ovens.*

Wherever you are today, spare a thought for the ovens that built this city. They might not be firing anymore, but the pride they left behind certainly is.