The Spode Rose Garden Flooring Project

Anna Francis as lead artist of The Spode Rose Garden developed a project to transform the floor of the garden, through a series of hands on workshops with the public and the delivery of a new flooring design to improve the accessibility and look of the garden.

A successful proposal was written to Historic England within the HAZ - High Street Action Zone initiative. The project involved skills development workshops with the public to create and install hand made bricks and tiles which drew on Spode’s Historic Patterns, and invited the public to make bespoke tools based on the details in Spode Wares, for use with clay (some of which was dug from within the garden), and then to make bricks and decorative tiles for the garden’s new floor.

A kiln was built on site within the garden to fire the wares, in order to replicate traditional processes of ceramic making which would have taken place on the Spode Site when the factory was operational.

This physical regeneration project which involved the public in delivering positive public realm development, supported skills development and improvements to the city's green infrastructure.

Anna Francis designed and led on the project, including writing the funding proposal to deliver to Historic England. The project was delivered with support from Glen Stoker (AirSpace gallery) as project manager and ceramicists Sarah Fraser, Joanne Mills and Natalia Kasprzycka supporting the ceramic tile creation and ceramics workshops, and many volunteers taking part in public workshops to make and install the tiles and bricks.