Re-Form Heritage is an independent charity which specialises in the restoration and rejuvenation of heritage buildings at risk of decay or demolition. Re-Form Heritage’s objective is to transform these historic buildings into local assets, creating job opportunities and catalysing wider social and economic benefit.
Re-Form Heritage owns and manages Middleport Pottery in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. Middleport Pottery was built by Burgess and Leigh in the late nineteenth century and is the home of Burleigh Pottery. It is the oldest working pottery in the United Kingdom.
The charity's latest project, Harper Street: Engagement in Heritage will commence Autumn 2020.
This project sees the renovation of eleven dilapidated Victorian terraced houses adjacent to Middleport Pottery.
The Harper Street: Engagement in Heritage project will create;
- a new heritage attraction focusing on the domestic life of the early 20th-century pottery worker
- workshop and retail space for seven creative businesses
- a dedicated store for the Middleport Pottery collection and archive
- a public research room to allow people to study items from the archive, many of which will be digitised for the first time
- a modern community centre offering community activities and support services via Middleport Matters Community Trust
- a 'Changing Places' toilet facility to support visitors with additional needs.
Help For Heritage
Our current appeal is
#HelpForHeritage. We need to raise £12,000 to help Re-Form Heritage protect our precious heritage at Middleport Pottery. With your support, this fundraiser will restore some of the income that’s been lost through closure and cancellations caused by Covid-19 and help to see us through these uncertain winter months.
Click here to find out more
Words from our volunteers and visitors"Middleport Pottery is a second home to me. Having Paintresses, a Cup Handler, a Lithographer, a Cod Placer and even a Saggar-Makers-Bottom-Knocker in my ancestry, the pottery industry and the Middleport Pottery factory brings me closer to family members whom I was never able to meet. Now as a volunteer, I feel proud to be continuing their stories and sharing local heritage for future generations" - Volunteer
"Stoke-on-Trent had a huge impact on the world a hundred years ago. Middleport Pottery is making sure that people remember our important heritage.... As someone born in Stoke that makes me very proud." - Visitor
"I feel that we are providing a tangible insight into the past for the public to see and understand what it was like back in the day and how things were done then... I for one am proud to be part of the team as we educate and inform our guests as to the old ways of canal life." - Volunteer
"Having been to Middleport Pottery a number of times, I have seen it develop into a wonderful history lesson of what made the Potteries so successful in the past but also how, with its ability to showcase its activities and protect a valuable site, it has become an important part of the new Potteries." - Visitor
