Paws around the Potteries: More about "Me Town"

Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here, with a post I meant to write back in the summer, except I've been a busy bear and have only just got around to doing it.

I wanted to share these photos Polar and I took of the pretty umbrellas over Piccadilly in Hanley ("Me Town", the city centre of Stoke-on-Trent), which looked bear-illiant back then, but aren't looking so good now after all the rain and gales we've had lately.

I'd gone into Hanley with Polar for a Festival of Archaeology, to help launch the new exhibition about the Staffordshire Hoard - a famous stash of Saxon treasure unearthed by metal detectorists near Lichfield.  I got to pose with some actors who were telling Saxon tales to an audience of grown-up and human cubs, and were really good. 

Then we went to see the treasure!  It is mostly in quite small pieces because lots of it had been broken up and taken off things like swords, shields and helmets, so there isn't a whole helmet like the one in the photo - just one of the cheek pieces and some of the trimmings.

Although the pieces are tiny, there is so much fine detail on them that, even if you are a sharp-eyed small bear, it helps to have a magnifying glass to see it all.  Some of the pieces of gold have jewels set into them, including garnets that came all the way from India!

The Staffordshire Hoard is amazing and anyone can visit it free if they come to Stoke-on-Trent and the Potteries Art Gallery and Museum in "Me Town", but the museum isn't open on Mondays and Tuesdays anymore (booo!).

The City Archaeologists had lots of other ancient things to show people that they had dug up all over the county, including Roman and Saxon pottery, but my favourite thing was a Roman shoe!  The archaeologist said they found more than sixty of them dumped in a disused well, so they think it must have been near a cobbler's shop and people threw their broken shoes away down it when they got new ones.

Another day, I went to "Me Park" with Polar, Grizzly and some of their pensioner friends, as Polar and her friend Mrs Pat organised some walks there.  Mrs Pat is part of a group called the "Friends of Hanley Park" (and so are me and Polar now!) and she knows lots about it.

There are great flower beds, lots of them looked after by the Friends - and play areas for human cubs, including one with special swings, slides and other play equipment for disabled human cubs to use safely.

The best thing about it, for a boating bear, is that the Caldon Canal runs right through the middle of it.  I found a milepost and saw that it had been renovated by our Inland Waterways Association branch.

There are mooring rings so boats can stop there, and their humans can go to the cafe or have nice walks - like we did!

Mrs Pat showed us a birdbath that had once been a drinking fountain for human cubs, made by a kind local plumber whose own little cub had died when he was very young.

I wanted a good look at it, so I climbed up and jumped onto the little island in the middle - but then I slipped and fell in!  Polar fished me out and Mrs Pat found some tissue paper and a little plastic wallet to wrap me up in.

I had to stay in the Bear Bag for the rest of the walk, but Polar and Grizzly stopped for lunch on the way home at the bear-illiant cafe at the Mitchell Memorial Theatre (named after Mr R J Mitchell, the famous aircraft designer who came from Stoke-on-Trent).

I felt much better after eating some cake - served on a proper Potteries plate with a little Spitfire on it!

I've been to other great places around the Potteries since then, so I'll do some more blogs when Sonning lets me - he's got lots of his own to write first!