About the Factory

All our pottery is made from cream-coloured earthenware in our factory in Stoke-on-Trent, the home of British pottery.

Around 230 people work at the Emma Bridgewater Factory on Lichfield Street in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, a site first opened by the Meakin brothers in 1883. To support the increase in customer demand for Emma Bridgewater pottery over the past few years, we opened a second factory site in 2021 just down the road from our original Lichfield Street Factory.

On a Factory Tour you will see the traditional skills and craftsmanship that goes into every piece of Emma Bridgewater pottery:

  • We produce 1.9 million pieces of pottery each year
  • In 2022 we made over 72,000 personalised mugs
  • Each piece of pottery is touched by 30 pairs of hands before it reaches a customer
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Each half-pint mug begins its life as clay which is dug out of the ground in Devon, Cornwall, Wales or closer to home in Staffordshire.
It is mixed into our unique secret recipe by two Potteries-based suppliers and then brought to the sliphouse where a machine called a blunger mixes it into a liquid called ‘slip’. From here it is pumped by pipe into the casting shop.

The casters are highly trained with years of experience, and they make around 42,000 pieces of pottery a week, including our best-selling ½ pint mug.
Bench Casters fill the mug moulds with the ‘slip’ and ‘bit in’, or fill in, the top indent where the handle joins. You’ll have to come on the tour to find out why the bottom indent remains. The moulds are then left to dry for up to 24 hours and it is the skill of the caster to know when each piece is ready – depending on weather conditions, temperature and even the day of the week.
In response to increased demand, we have recently invested in the introduction of two Pressure Cast Machines which has allowed us to significantly increase the volume of ½ pint mugs we can produce in our two factories. Our two techniques - bench casting and pressure machine casting - both contribute around half each of all the mugs we produce; around a million per year.

Once our mug is taken from the mould it leaves the casting shop to be fettled and sponged. The two halves of the mould leave a tiny seam in the clay where they have been joined and this seam is removed by hand by the fettlers. They will scrape away the tiny line of excess clay before passing it on to the spongers who make it perfectly smooth.
It requires a real lightness of touch and an excellent eye for detail. Finally we have an overlooker who checks every single piece of ware before it moves on to the next stage.

Next we turn up the heat, quite literally. Our mug goes into the 950 degree heat of the biscuit kiln for its first firing.
Our ‘placer’ fills a kiln truck full of ware but needs to know where each piece should be placed to ensure it doesn’t overheat and crack. It can take up to three hours to stack each truck before it’s wheeled into the kiln for 7 hours of firing. Once the biscuit selector has inspected each piece it moves on to the decorating studio. But it hasn’t finished with firing yet…

We have more than 50 full-time decorators with some of the steadiest and most creative hands in the business. All have undergone years of training to ensure they continue to do justice to Emma's original designs. Our mugs can be decorated in two different ways, through the historic sponge decorating or lithographing.
Our most famous sponge decorated ware is polka dot and hand cut sponges are dabbed into paint and applied by hand before being glazed. Lithographing is the technique used to decorate our more intricate designs. A glaze is first applied to the biscuit and fired in the kiln before the lithograph – a patterned transfer – is carefully placed on each piece.

When our mug has been fired once more in the kiln it is ready for a rigorous inspection. The tiniest mark, the smallest crack even a little run on the glaze is spotted by our eagle-eyed selectors. Every single piece of ware is checked by hand.
All pottery is inspected before it leaves our factory. As all of our pieces are handmade, some items may contain small faults. We classify these items as “seconds”. When an item is classified as a second the fault may be in the finish, the decoration or the shape. The faults are not structural, so each piece still functions as intended and is usable. The fault will be marked with a black or red pen, but don’t worry this will easily wash off.


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NEW Decorating Inspiration Experience

NEW Decorating Inspiration Experience

£20.00

Afternoon Tour & Decorating Experience

Afternoon Tour & Decorating Experience

£30.00

Morning Tour & Continental Breakfast Package

Morning Tour & Continental Breakfast Package

£16.00

Afternoon Baby Prints Experience

Afternoon Baby Prints Experience

£36.00

NEW Saturday Decorating Breakfast

NEW Saturday Decorating Breakfast

£30.00

NEW Weekend Afternoon Tea & Decorating Package

NEW Weekend Afternoon Tea & Decorating Package

£42.00

Early Bird Decorating Session

Early Bird Decorating Session

£15.00

Afternoon Tea for Two Gift Card

Afternoon Tea for Two Gift Card

£40.00

Afternoon Tea Experience Day for Two Gift Card

Afternoon Tea Experience Day for Two Gift Card

£96.00

Breakfast Experience Day

Breakfast Experience Day

£35.00

Afternoon Tea Experience Day - 11:30am

Afternoon Tea Experience Day - 11:30am

£48.00

Factory Tour

Factory Tour

£8.00

Decorating Studio

Decorating Studio

£2.95

Baby Print Experience

Baby Print Experience

£30.00

Emma Bridgewater Afternoon Tea Experience - cake stand with a beuatiful array of tasty sandwiches, homemade cakes and scones as a special gift to treat mum

Afternoon Tea

£20.00

Afternoon Tea Experience Day - 12pm

Afternoon Tea Experience Day - 12pm

£48.00

Mother's Day Spring Bouquet Workshop

Mother's Day Spring Bouquet Workshop

£65.00

Mother's Day Continental Breakfast

Mother's Day Continental Breakfast

£15.00

Mother's Day Afternoon Tea

Mother's Day Afternoon Tea

£30.00

Peppa’s Party at the Factory

Peppa’s Party at the Factory

£20.00