Stoke-on-Trent Tower Poppies bid update

We are proud to be a part of the core team supporting Stoke-on-Trent’s bid to host part of Paul Cummins’ ""Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red"" installation as it tours the country over the coming 3 years. 1418Now have been charged with the task of organising the tour which will visit various venues around the country until the two remaining sculptural elements (the “Weeping Window” and “Wave”) reach their new homes in the Imperial War Museum London and IWM North in 2018. 

Potclays played a key role in the sourcing of the 497,000kg of clay, materials, kilns and rolling equipment during the project and we are an ardent supporter of the campaign to bring the Poppies home to Stoke.

It is our hope that Stoke’s bid to host the ”Weeping Window” will be successful, providing an opportunity for one of the largest and most significant ceramic art installations in recent history to visit the UK cultural home of ceramics and the city where a large number of the poppies were made.

We are excited to announce that the venue proposed for Stoke’s bid is the recently restored Bethesda Chapel, situated opposite the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.  The building is known with great affection as the “Cathedral of the Potteries” being one of the largest and most ornate Methodist town chapels surviving in the UK. You may have seen this building when it appeared some years ago on the ""Restoration"" series. If the bid is successful, the poppies will flow from a second floor window into the chapel gardens below.  As you can see in the artist’s impression produced by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, the effect will be breathtaking and, in our opinion, provides a fitting tribute to those brave men of the Potteries who gave up their lives during WWI, be it on the battlefield or in the coal fields of the area that fed the war effort.

It is hoped that the installation’s visit will coincide with the British Ceramics Biennial due to take place in the city later this year, of which Potclays is the Materials & Equipment Sponsor.

We want to personally wish the City luck in the bid, which we feel will demonstrate to the world that the City of Stoke-on-Trent has a lot to offer as the cultural capital of ceramics for the UK.