Meet the team hoping to bring this ‘forgotten’ Stoke-on-Trent flint mill back into use
A heritage group in Stoke-on-Trent is hoping to repurpose an old flint mill in Middleport and bring it back into use as a hub for independent businesses and creatives.
The Teapot Factory CIC is currently conducting a feasibility study into potential uses for Oliver's Mill on banks of the Trent and Mersey Canal after being granted funding from the Architectural Heritage Fund earlier this year.
The site, on Newport Lane, features grade-II listed calcining bottle ovens which were used to fire flint stones before they were ground down and added by pottery manufacturers into clays to make them whiter and stronger.
The mill is now derelict and the Teapot Factory team, led by co-founder of ProtectaPet Simon Davies, are hoping to bring it back into use in the coming years.
The group includes local artist Tom Edwards, Founder of Strive Revive, Evelyn Howe; therapist and author Jane Smith, Mac & Dean creative director Dean Brindley and managing director at Gabba, Nathan Smith.
As well as heritage insurance specialist, Deborah Noonan; 3D architectural designer, Will Morris and the deputy chief executive of Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, Chris Plant.
Simon told Stoke Nub News: "We want to bring that site back into use and create a space where the ground rent is affordable so it encourages startups and independent businesses to go and set up there.
"We're just at the early stages of a feasibility study so we're going to look at potential uses for it and what we could do.
"Our early ideas are that we want to make a food hall with a few independent food vendors and bars, cafes, that sort of thing, inside there, with a really nice sort of outside area, which is on the banks of the canal."
The group has been formed out of "teapot tours" which were hosted by Simon and the Chambers of Commerce which brought creatives, artists and business leaders on tours of the Trent and Mersey Canal to share its history and to highlight the heritage buildings dotted along its banks.
The vision was to encourage an appreciation of the surroundings and provide a vision for how the area could be improved through investment. And as a result, the Teapot Factory CIC's board was formed out of some of those who attended the tours.
Simon has been inspired by the former industrial areas of Birmingham and Liverpool, such as Digbeth and Baltic Triangle which have now been turned into hubs for creative enterprise in their respective cities.
It got the team thinking as to why similar derelict industrial buildings in Stoke-on-Trent haven't been repurposed and how they could be utilised to bring something different to the city.
Recently Capital&Centric has led the way in bringing unused industrial sites back into use using government funding. The Goods Yard in Stoke is set to welcome its first residents this month and the company has been appointed as the development partner for the further redevelopment of the Spode Works.
This Oliver's Mill project appears to break that current trend, with hopes for the site to be an additional space where independent city businesses can thrive.
Simon added: "We've got all these amazing old buildings that are completely unique. Very few of them have been repurposed into anything. A lot of them are just sat there rotting.
"We started to look at what the area needs to become an aspirational place to live and for me it is bringing the industrial heritage buildings back into use and giving them a new purpose.
"I think to get young people and creatives in you need to do something a bit more of a cool place with a bit more of an arty feel to it."
The site is located at the end of Newport Lane but with a council idea for a new bus and pedestrian-only bridge over the canal and the growth of the nearby Etruria Valley business park, it's hoped the area will "open up" in the coming years.
Simon said: "It's at the end of Newport Lane and it's a dead end at the moment, so as a result, nobody ever goes there. It's kind of forgotten about.
"But I think over the next few years that area is going to become a lot more accessible and it's going to open up Middleport to Festival Park. There are around 8,500 employees who work there, and that's going to grow.
"If you think about Festival Park currently, there aren't really very many places to go and eat or have a drink after work or anything like that aside from fast food."
A public consultation will be released later this year as part of the feasibility study for the site.
-------
READ: Adult social care in Stoke-on-Trent rated 'good'
Free from clickbait, pop-up ads and unwanted surveys, Stoke Nub News is a quality online newspaper for our city.
Subscribe to our FREE weekly newsletter email HERE - or just click the green 'SUBSCRIBE' button.
Please consider following Stoke Nub News on Facebook, X or Instagram.
Image of Cains Brewery, Baltic Triangle, by Gerald Murphy via Flickr.
Share:
