Proud to be Part Stokey

Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England Heart Of Inc Birmingham

Recommendation added: 04/06/2007 21:02
By: katygriff (YSUK rating +352)

katygriff has been thanked 2 times for this contribution

"I was first introduced to Stoke-on-Trent when I was about 9 years old when my mom and dad would insist on taking me and my sister Sam to get pottery from there. Then when I was at school we were taken to water world for school trips. Then I went to university in Stoke so lived there for 3 years. Now my boyfriend lives there so I still go every weekend so this review will show you realistically what a visit to Stoke would be like (good and bad points).

Stoke-on-Trent is a huge place and is made up of 6 towns which are Stoke, Hanley, Fenton, Tunstall, Burslem and Longton. Like everywhere it has its good and bad points.

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Good Points;

Pottery;
Now the most famous things to come out of Stoke are Robbie Williams and pottery so as we can only dream about Robbie I can only tell you where the potteries are. The pottery shops and factory outlets are in Stoke town centre. Here you will find outlets for Wedgewood, portmeiron and royal doulton, perhaps the most famous three names for pottery. The factory shops house a great choice of all sorts of pottery and the prices are very reasonable indeed. My mom likes to visit to collect dinner sets in the latest portmeiron style and my dad likes visiting royal doulton to get the latest Disney figures they have made. Me, when I first came to university I went to the factory shops to buy cheap dining sets and trust me you can find some right bargains. I got mugs for 25p each and plates for £1 and they were really nice.

Shopping;
Shopping is not too bad either. Although I would not recommend going to Stoke town centre as there is nothing there really apart from a Woolworths and Blockbuster Video. Where I would recommend is Hanley which houses the potteries shopping centre. Here you will find all of your high street shops so expect to see Dorothy Perkins, Topshop, Burtons and HMV. The potteries itself has a nice atmosphere and has four different levels. In the basement level there is a large indoor market which is great for fruit and on the top level there are toilets and an eating area with Burger King and a café. The shops are reasonably sized so the stock is always good and the shopping centre is always clean and tidy. In the other towns of Stoke there are a few shops but Hanley is the most popular place and the only place to house all of the high street shops.

Eating Out;
There are a lot of places to eat in Stoke-on-Trent. Wherever you go you will stumble upon friendly pubs and bars which serve food. Where I can recommend though is a place called Pastiche in Hanley which serves fantastic food and reasonably priced. Also the newly named Toby Carvery (used to be called China Gardens) by Festival Park is also very nice and situated by the canal so is lovely in the summer. Also on Festival Park which is located just outside of Hanley you can find Pizza Hut and Fatty Arbuckle's which are both great places to go and eat. Another great place is a Chinese restaurant called Bauhinia which is located in Trent Vale. It is expensive but you get a lot of food for your money and the food is the best I have ever tasted. With its stylish interior decoration and the fact that if you go on a night when the piano is being played this restaurant is lovely and is my favourite place to go in the UK so we always go for special occasions.

Things to do;
Festival Park just outside of Hanley has an Odeon cinema, laser quest and a mega bowl and each of them are clean and nice places to visit. Also just outside of Hanley, there is dry ski slopes which I have never been to so cant really comment much more than that. There is also water world which is fantastic fun for all ages for just a normal swim or there are whirlpools, flumes and the scarily named black hole which I still refuse to go on for fear of landing in the water upside down. Just outside of Stoke town centre we have Britannia stadium for all you football fans and there are many art and pottery museums located around the towns.
For children may I recommend a small place called Finney Gardens which is located not too far away from Hanley. It has a few rides for kids and a farm which on a summer's day is a great place to go and have an ice-cream. The animals are very tame and they come up to you for food so children and adults love it there.

Nights out;
Stoke is fantastic for nights out especially if you are a student. They have great night clubs like Creation and Liquid including fantastic bars to go to like Flares and Chicago Rock. Again Hanley is the best place to go as it is the most popular. I recommend a night starting with drinks at Walkabout followed with a quick dance in Flares and then head to Liquid as when you are in liquid you can also get through to Jumping Jacks which often has live music. Drinks prices are quite steep though and when I went out there a few weeks ago I spent over £50 so be careful.
Also there is the Regent Theatre in Hanley which will house a lot of plays and they all vary. I recently saw the rocky horror show and fame here.

The University;
Staffordshire University is situated in Stoke and is a fantastic uni. I spent three wonderful years studying Biology here and it was great. They do some good courses and for a student lifestyle you cannot do much better. The university halls and housing is clean and reasonably priced and the lecture rooms are great and if you are studying science, the labs are lovely to work in.

Nearby Attractions;
From Stoke you can easily get to beautiful surrounding countryside leading to Shrewsbury or to Stafford and Cannock. Towards Stafford you can get to Trentham Gardens which is a fantastic and stunning place with beautiful scenery. They have Italian gardens, a craft village and the newest thing is a monkey forest which I went to the other day and it was great and only cost us £5 each. We had our graduation at the gardens and it truly is a nice place to see with a few walks and a very relaxing atmosphere to the whole place with a spectacular view of the lake.
Also you can get to Alton Towers easily from Stoke-on-Trent as it only takes around half an hour (well it did from where we lived near Hanley).
For more shopping though head to Newcastle-Under-Lyme (or the fake Newcastle as we call it) as they have great shops and nice little cafes dotted around.

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Bad Points;

The gangs;
Now my boyfriend lives there and even he calls it the Chav city and to be honest wherever you go you will see gangs of young people playing about. Hanley is not too bad to be honest but everywhere else you will see gangs that are often being unnecessarily loud and swearing. We were driving through Fenton the other night and there were a gang of people playing up the police officers by throwing things into the police station and just generally being annoying. This is the sort of behaviour that you see quite a lot in Stoke.

Student Housing;
May I recommend to all future students of Staffordshire University that when you are looking for housing in your second year then get houses right by the uni. We got our house near to Hanley in Shelton and it was vile. The areas are not the greatest and it is best not to walk around on your own at night and it is better to be by the uni in the housing there as the prices may be a little bit more expensive but your landlords will generally live quite near so will be easy to get hold of. Ours lived in Shrewsbury so when we had a problem it was hard for him to get to us and this left us with no heating throughout the whole winter one year.

Walking Around;
Again I stress the fact that you really shouldn't walk around any area of Stoke on your own at night. For a year we walked through Hanley Park to get to our uni on our own until we found out a lot of rapes happen there and we heard about three while we were at uni. The only area that is slightly alright is Hanley as there are always a lot of people but other areas just stay in groups. This ties into the gangs problem that is happening and they can get intimidating especially when you are a girl.

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Final Verdict;

Now I like Stoke-on-Trent mainly because of 3 things:
1) I have met my boyfriend.
2) It has given me a great university experience.
3) I have made some great friends.
The majority of people in Stoke are very friendly and expect to be called duck or chick wherever you go. Because it is a city there are lots of things to do and places to explore. Being a student I loved the fact that it is generally a cheap place to live with respect to living costs and taxi costs and it also boasts great night life.

Although I do not like Stoke because of the gangs I would still recommend it as a place to visit as there is something for everyone and as a place to study I could not recommend the university enough as it is fantastic. The housing is cheap in Stoke and do not listen to people when they say that it is because it is a vile place because it really isn't. Like everywhere it has nice and bad areas and everyone who I know who lives here live in really nice areas and have never had any problems.

I finished uni a year ago now and I still visit Stoke every fortnight and still wished I was at uni and living there as I met a lot of nice people and there was always something to do. Its just no fun working full time, I want to be a student again. I think the trick with Stoke is to not think that Stoke town centre is it and explore a little and you will realise just how much Stoke has to offer.

Almost forgot to say, do not forget to try Stoke Oatcakes they are great.

Thanks for reading.

xxx"