4 Best Sights in Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Liverpool, and the Peak District

This highly successful local firm is known across Britain for its whimsical pottery designs. The hour-long factory tour (available on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 10 am; advance booking required) shows how Emma Bridgewater herself adapted 200-year-old techniques, and you can book a session in the decorating studio to try your hand at designs of your own. There's also a gift shop, a cute café, and a walled country-style garden in the summer.

The country's only remaining old-style Victorian pottery factory's traditional bottle kilns are surrounded by original workshops where you can watch demonstrations of the old skills of throwing, casting, and decorating or even try your hand at throwing a pot.

This modern museum and gallery displays a 5,000-piece ceramic collection of international repute and is recognized worldwide for its unique Staffordshire pottery, as well as for a number of items from the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and metalworks ever found. Other highlights are an original World War II Spitfire plane and works by Picasso, Degas, and Dürer. You'll also find the area's tourism information headquarters here.

This slick modern attraction on the Wedgwood Estate's 240-acre garden factory site offers a factory tour, a V&A Collection of ceramics, works of art, manuscripts, and photographs, creative studios hosting activities and events, woodland walks, and a children's play area. There's also a restaurant, a tearoom, as well as the obligatory pottery and gift store.