A new tea room has opened inside a former Stoke-on-Trent pottery factory.

The Little Vintage Tea Room inside the Spode Museum opened to customers this month to coincide with the launch of a new art exhibition 'Spodespiration' by Jon Tatham.

The museum located within the Spode Works will be open 10am to 4pm Wednesday to Sunday.

The tea room also has an outdoor space and it is hoped in the future that the space can be used for outdoor and evening events without the need to open the whole museum.

Although the current museum opened 12 years ago following the factory's closure in 2008, the site has hosted a museum in some form for more than a century. The opening of the tea room represents a significant step forward for the museum. 

Since the factory closure 18 years ago much of the collection has been out of sight of the public.

The collection has more than 20,000 ceramic pieces, 40,000 engraved copper plates, archive photographs, and factory ephemera which has now been returned to its historic home.

Museum manager Michael Escolme said: "The museum is sort of actually celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, like the city.

"Since the factory closed in 2008, the museum obviously closed when the factory closed.

The Little Vintage Tea Room has plenty of outdoor seating. (Nub News)

"However; we've been here for 12 years, although the museum started again as a very small temporary exhibition and it's only recently in the last three or four years that we've expanded into a proper museum offering.

"The opening of the tea room is a critical step in the museum development because all good museums should have a good tea room because it gives people a reason to visit, it gives people a reason to visit, it gives people a reason to extend their stay and makes their visit more comfortable and more enjoyable."

The manager of The Little Vintage Tea Room, Craig Scott-Patrick said: "For us it's not just about running the tea room, it's about being part of the community and going forward we hope to become a community interest company.

"This will mean we can really engage with the local community and be a place for everybody."

A Stoke-on-Trent City Council spokesman added: "We are delighted to have supported the opening of The Little Vintage Tea Room at Spode Museum.

"Thanks to funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, it has been refurbished and has a brand new menu."