Description:This photograph shows two important sites on the Trent & Mersey Canal in Middleport. In the centre is the Anderton Canal Company's warehouse and boat repair yard and beyond Burgess & Leigh's Middleport Pottery. The Anderton Building is a tall, thin brick building with a wooden loading structure overhanging the canal at the front. Facing onto the canal is a wooden structure which was a lift that was used to load and offload goods from canal narrowboats. At the top of the gable is "Anderton Co". with the date 1890. The main building is at right angles to the canal and was renovated and restored under the Middleport Waterfront Townscape Heritage Initiative.
To meet Burslem's rapid growth in the early 19th century new canal wharves were the developed between Longport and Newport. By 1823 this area was known as 'Middle Port' where a large new wharf had been opened by 1832 called 'Port Vale Wharf’ connected to Newcastle Street by Port Vale Street. The Anderton wharf fronts onto Port Vale Street.
Middleport Pottery, the home of Burgess and Leigh dates from 1888 and was designed by local architect A. R. Wood based on linear production for efficiency. This set Middleport Pottery apart from most other pottery sites, which generally in a more unplanned, organic manner, and the factory was described as “the model pottery of Staffordshire”. The building is grade II listed and is the only totally intact working Victorian pottery in Stoke-on-Trent. The photograph shows the raw material (clay, flint etc) unloading wharf.