HYDERABAD:Wedgwood pottery is something that I have seen only in museums. This elegant ceramic is admired for its unique beauty garners appreciation from people with good taste. Most of the aristocratic homes proudly display at least a few of this artistic porcelain in their collection. Recently while touring in England, I visited the place where Wedgwood pottery was born.
We set out on a cold winter morning by train from Manchester and within 40 minutes reached ‘Stoke on Trent’: it is the place where the world famous Wedgwood pottery is made. At the Wedgwood railway station, the statue of Josiah Wedgwood greeted us while the first woman cab driver of the town picked us up. Talking in fluent Punjabi mixed Hindi she narrated her life’s journey from Punjab to Stoke spread over the 20 minutes of our journey.
At the Wedgwood factory, in a guided tour that lasted an hour, we saw their craftsmen at work utilising unique artisan skills and techniques honed over 250 years. The tour offered an in- depth view of all aspects of quality ceramic production including casting, figure making, pattern decorating and hand painting, ornamentation. Later we rolled up our sleeves under the guidance of their skilled workers and tried our hands at the potter’s wheel. Our hands got dirty no doubt, but at the end of the session, a beautiful vase emerged like magic!
Later we sat in the elegantly decorated Wedgwood Tea Room and had a modern interpretation of afternoon tea, with open sandwiches, cakes and scones with clotted cream and traditional preserves. We were spoilt for choice with Wedgwood’s finest teas to choose from, all served in the finest Wedgwood china of course.
The finale to our visit was going around their museum that is filled with unbelievably pretty pottery with a mind-blowing collection of the last two centuries.
We were lost in this exquisite world of Wedgwood pottery till it was time to take the train back to Manchester. A grumpy cab driver- partner of our lady chauffeur in the morning not only arrived late to pick us up (something unheard of, in England), he grumbled in Punjabi and left us way before the station. We ran with all our might, to catch the train just in time. A drop of bitterness in a cup of joy? It doesn’t matter, as long as the cup is Wedgwood!
Useful links
www.visitbritain.com
www.worldofwedgwood.com
(The author is a documentary filmmaker and travel writer; she blogs at vijayaprataptravelandbeyond.com)