Stoke-on-Trent : Britain

Stoke-on-Trent : Britain
The city of Stoke-on-Trent (also known as The Six Towns and The Potteries) is a city in The Midlands, United Kingdom.
Stoke-on-Trent is situated almost equidistant to all the major cities in the North/Midlands of the UK (Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Liverpool, Sheffield). The city is named after the town of Stoke, the earliest of the six towns to be established.
This city runs into Newcastle-under-Lyme, which is administered separately. Together they form a conurbation with a population of over 350,000.
Unlike most English cities, its council is led by a directly-elected mayor, currently Mike Wolfe, an independent. It is the only one of the eleven English districts with elected mayors to use the mayor and council manager system rather than the mayor and cabinet system.
Sites and Attractions
Stoke-on-Trent is home to two Football League teams, Stoke City F.C. (the Potters), whose ground is in Stoke, and Port Vale F.C. (the Valiants) based in Burslem. Football fans may also like to visit the shrine to Sir Stanley Matthews in Stoke churchyard.
Stoke-on-Trent has a reputation of being something of a “student city�, with a particular bias towards those taking media & creative courses. Stoke-on-Trent College is the largest college in England and has two sites; one in Burslem and the main centre in nearby Shelton. The Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College is based in Fenton, while Staffordshire University has its main site in Shelton (the other is in Stafford). Stoke-on-Trent city centre is also popular with students from Keele University and from the huge Alsager-based Art & Design campus of Manchester Metropolitan University. Nearby Leek, Crewe, and Newcastle-under-Lyme all have excellent Colleges. There is also a Workers Educational Association residential college at Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent.
Nightlife has boomed in recent years, with Hanley becoming increasingly popular for its nightclubs, theatres, pubs, bars and restaurants. Nearby Newcastle-under-Lyme also has plenty of bars and pubs to offer to young people. There are also several theatres outside the city centre, and a long-established ‘art-house’ cinema in Shelton.
The main shopping centre is Hanley; with the Potteries Shopping Centre, plenty of major high street shops, and a scattering of unique specialist retailers. With the Peak District National Park just ten miles away, Hanley naturally boasts five outdoors clothing & equipment shops.
The city’s rich past can best be explored through visiting one of its many museums & galleries; such as the Etruria Industrial Museum, the Elizabethan Ford Green Hall, the world-class ceramics collection at the main Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, and the newly opened Ceramica in Burslem. Burleigh is not a formal museum, but is well worth visiting since it is the world’s oldest working Victorian pottery.
2005 attractions in the city will include; the results of a £100-million refurbishment of Trentham Gardens, the opening of the initial phase of the huge Chatterley Whitfield Mining Museum (now given Ancient Monument status, ranking it in importance with Stonehenge), the new National Cycle Network of off-road bicycle paths through the city, and numerous improvements to the extensive & popular canal system.