Charles Dickens visits the Potteries in the early 1850s…

PUTTING up for the night in one of the chiefest towns of Staffordshire, I find it to be by no means a lively town.

I have paced the streets and stared at the houses, and am come back to the blank bow window of the Dodo [Inn]; and the town clocks strike seven. I have my dinner and the waiter clears the table, leaves me by the fire with my pint decanter, and a little thin funnel-shaped wine-glass and a plate of pale biscuits – in themselves engendering desperation.

No book, no newspaper! What am I to do?

The Dodo Inn was actually a lightly disguised name for the Swan in Green inn, Gate St., Stafford. Apparently he merely visited a small bit of the Potteries for part of a day, taking the train from Stafford then a tour of a pot works in Stoke, though he managed to get a long article out of it. The tradition obviously started early, of a London journalist spending a few hours here and becoming an ‘instant expert’ on the district.