A Very Smelly Museum!

In my last blog post, I told you about our visit to the wonderful Gladstone Pottery Museum, where you can learn all about the history of pottery-making in Stoke-on-Trent and see craftspeople hard at work making lovely things, like vases and flowers, out of clay.

In another building, however, you can learn about other very important pottery products - toilets!  

The first part of the 'Flushed with Pride' exhibition starts with a street scene from before houses had proper flush toilets indoors, and it is very, very smelly!  As soon as we were carried through the door and let out of our bear bag, we all went 'Poooo!' because that's what we could smell.

There was a chicken hiding in this stinky outdoor loo.  Obviously, chickens do not have sensitive bear-like noses, as we had to leave very quickly.

The next part of the exhibition wasn't much nicer, as it involved sitting in a sewer pipe learning about why toilets and drains were important.  We found a good book about toilets written for very small human cubs which we thought Grizzly's grandcubs would have liked.  

Hanley Bear went to explore two very old toilets.  They had been cleaned very thoroughly and didn't smell any more, but he was still very careful not to fall in.

We learnt that making toilets out of pottery and glazing them was very important for developing something that could be kept clean and hygienic, unlike the old buckets and earthenware loos.  Those made for wealthy people in posh houses started to be decorated in a very elaborate style.  Although too much fluting and scrolling would have made them very difficult to keep properly clean, those decorated with pretty transfers must have looked very fancy.

There were some beautiful Victorian and Edwardian wash basins as well.  I hoped that seeing those wouldn't remind Polar that she planned to give us baths before the weather got too cold, but she didn't seem to remember.

We saw how bathroom fashions kept changing.  We didn't think we would have liked this funny, flowery bathroom suite as it made our eyes feel funny just looking at it.

After that, there was a quiz section where you had to choose which button from three to press for the right answer.  If you got the right answer, there was a flushing noise but, if you pressed the button for a wrong answer, there was a farting noise.  The smaller bears thought it was great fun deliberately choosing wrong answers!

We had enjoyed visiting the stinky street and the toilet museum but we were very happy when Polar gathered us all up and told us we were going over to the cafe so Grizzly's cousin could try oatcakes for the first time.  

We really hope we can visit the Gladstone Pottery Museum again, when Grizzly's grandcubs come to stay.  We think the toilet museum would be their favourite part of it!