These three bottle ovens are known locally as Salt Pepper and Vinegar, because they are as long and slender as table cruets. And yes, they are different in shape to most of the squat, fat bottle ovens in north Staffordshire. They have a different function – being used not to fire pottery ware, but to calcine flint, so that the flint could more easily be ground down for use in various processes.
Their heyday was the 19th century of course, and now they are preserved (as Grade 2 listed) memories of the past, as part of the Bottle Ovens Conservation Scheme. James Kent Pottery now owns the site, and they have occasional open-days when the public can get a little closer.
They certainly look like bottles. It's a style we do not see here.
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