Hitting the Bottle

I'm a Knottie, born in North Staffordshire, who has returned to the roots I spent years running away from.

My wife knew virtually nothing about the area until we moved here to be closer to my mother, who now lives with us.

But we love the place, the people, well, most of them apart from the flag shaggers, and the countryside.

And if you love the history of the place, then you have to love the bottle kilns. Though being pedantic, there is a difference between bottle kilns and bottle ovens.

We are building up a small collection of them, but our current favourite is this one, made by Chris Twigg.

It does an incredible job of capturing the reality of how the survivors now look.

Could it become a feature on a layout? It could, but it won't.

It is hard to convey the emotional heft to something like this. It might be best to let Chris tell you himself.