Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke (or its full title 'Stoke on trent') is a city in the English midlands (half way between Birmingham and Manchester). Stoke has a population of about 250,000 people and its best points are:

• It is heavily polluted
• It has high unemployment thanks to the ailing coal and pottery industries
• Robbie Williams is from here

As you can see it is a wonderful place!!! ;) no, only joking!! if you happen to find yourself in Stoke here are the good points...

• Good pub and club scene - just follow signs for 'Hanley'. fun places include 'The Place' and 'The Void'
• Alton Towers is very close
• Beer's cheap!! especially on a monday night (student night)

Stoke on Trent's original claim to fame was the european ceramics headquarters. This evolved due to a combination of reasons.

First, there was traditionally a great deal of high quality clay available along the banks of the rivers in the midlands.

Second, canals could be easily built in this same clay, allowing the transportation of fragile ceramics very long distances. In fact, the existance of the pottery/ceramic industry was largely responsible for extending the English canal system to what it was (and is now returning too. The Trent, is of course the main river in the area.

Famous potteries such as Royal Daughlton and Wedgewood are located near Stoke.

"Stoke" is actually 5 towns, Hanley, Stafford, Stoke, Burslem and Longton. These comprise the collective "Stoke-On-Trent".

North Staffordshire University is good at one thing, and that is Ceramics. It also has a pretty good music scene.

Further to the two previous writeups, I have to add that Slash from Guns N' Roses is from Stoke and that it is made up in fact of six towns... the sixth of them being Fenton...

It is a popular joke that Arnold Bennett's Mother-in-Law came from the town, which is why he never mentions it.

Politically, the city is a bastion of Old Labour support, with most recently every councillor belonging to the party until one or two became independent to aid debate.

It has been ranked as the worst council region in England and Wales in a quality of life assessment, which is quite bad, especially considering that there are 376 local council areas.

Despite this, many parts of the city are being developed in order to create jobs following the loss of the area's major industries, being coal, ceramics (which have moved factories to China and Indonesia) and the Steelworks.

The nightlife is good, with many pubs, bars and clubs for which people travel from many miles.