The Clay Warehouse

The Clay Warehouse is a china clay and bone ash warehouse dating to circa 1880-90. Constructed of red and blue brick with a slate roof, it has a single storey and a double-depth plan. The south-east side features six double-width boarded doors, each flanked by 3-brick wide x 2-brick deep blue brick piers, with chamfered wood lintels running almost at eaves level. Recessed red brick panels, in English Garden Wall Bond, are set between the doors and framed by the door piers, a high blue brick plinth, a bullnosed brick cornice, and a deep blue brick eaves band with three stepped courses and a dentil course. A moulded cast iron gutter sits on this eaves band. The south-west and north-east gable ends have pairs of recessed red brick panels framed with blue bricks, surmounted by wide bands of blue bricks that join similar verge bands to form twin gable pediments with recessed red brick infill panels. Large circular openings, framed in blue bricks and filled with cast iron wheel grilles featuring radiating spokes based on dagger and quatrefoil motifs, are located at the centres of the gable pediments. Large stone kneelers support square-edged verge copings, with the brick dentil course running up the verges under the copings and continuing downwards, carved into the stonework of the kneelers. The east section of the north-east gable end contains two double boarded doors with board cladding above. The north-west side has six red brick panels divided by 3-brick wide pilasters and includes two centrally placed double doors under segmental arches with concrete springers. A 3-brick square stack rises from eaves level at the centre of the building on the north-west side. A central lead valley separates the two pitched roofs of the parallel ranges. Historically, the building served as storage for china clay shipped from Cornwall and then transported by narrow boats to the Potteries, and for bone ash used in the manufacture of Bone China. The warehouse occupies an island site formed by the canal, the basin, and an arm of the canal.