A GARDEN VILLA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 89, 12 October 1938, Page 5

A GARDEN VILLA

WEDGWOOD FACTORY

FOUNDATION-STONE LAID

(By Air Mai!, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, September it

The laying of the foundation-stone of a new factory in open country at Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent, today, was an event ,of some consequence in the history of a family and an industry wfiose fame is not confined to the Potteries. Since 1769 Wedgwood pottery has been made at the works established by Josiah Wedgwood when Jhe moved his growing business from Burslem to the site between Hanley and Newcastle-under-Lyme, which hie called Etruria. But the Etruria works, with their core of eighteenth-century buildings, are no longer well suited to modern needs, and the descendants of Josiah Wedgwood have decided to erect a new factory in a rural area some four miles awaY-

For this purpose Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, Limited, have acquired the Barlaston Hall state of 381 acres, which will also provide room for a large garden village in delightful surroundings. It is expected that many of their 1100 workpeople will eventually go to live there. The factory will"'be a smokeless one, in which all the firing of thepottery will be done by electricity; its electrically-fired tunnel oven will be the first of Its kind in the country. The architects, Mr. Keith Murray (formerly of Auckland) and Mr. C. S. White, have designed.a building which incorporates the best modern practice in lay-out and lighting. , HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY. The scheme of the new, works as » whole has regard not merely to industrial efficiency but to. the health and happiness of the workers. Near to the factory there will be a canteen, alsa equipped for use as a theatre or cinema. The first factory will probably be completed by the spring of 1940, and the manufacture of fine earthenware will then be transferred there from the Etruria works. Extensions of the factory will be built later to house the jasper and china sections, and within about five years the whole manufacturing business will be n^oved from Etruria to the new works. At some distance from the works, on rising ground, will be the garden village. At first 100 houses will-be built, and these should be ready by the time.the first factory is opened. The lay-out of the estate and the planning of the garden village has been entrusted to Mr. Louis de Soissons, an architect who is known for his housing work at Welwyn Garden City and elsewhere. Everything possible will I>e done to harmonise the new houses with the landscape, and generally to"^pieserve the rural amenities. There will be a sports groimd of 18 acres, and space is being reserved for a village school and shopping centre. 'A string of pools, 1200 yards long, which traverse the estate, will provide Opportunities for boating, bathing, and fishing. The property purchased also includes Barlaston Hall, an eighteenth-century building which was included among the English scenes chosen to decorate the dinner and dessert service of 952 pieces which Josiah Wedgwood made for the Empress Catharine of Russia in 1774. The hall is to' be preserved and .renovated and—-amon^ other uses—:it •is' to house the Wedgwood Museum. Between the hall and the pools 140 acres of land will be kept as an open space. Including the price paid, for the estate, the cost of building and equipping, the first factory and providing the first part of the garden village will be about £300,000.

'only), 2 p.m.} Grand Theatre, Eastbourne, 8 p.m. . , | Mr. L. G. Lowry (Labour, Otaki), St. Peter's Hall, Paekakariki, 2 p.m.: . Mr. J. F. Thompson (National* Wairarapa), State Theatre, Carterton, • p.m.; Greytown Town Hall, 9 p.m.