This article argues that cultural capital in the Victorian town contributed to spatial as well as social differentiation, helping to bolster the power of civic elites and the image and identity of the town. Evidence drawn from north Staffordshire Pottery towns demonstrates how the value of cultural capital reflected the scale, timing and geography of investment, and its ability to represent and communicate the taste and judgment of the civic elite to those of neighbouring towns. In the hothouse of local rivalry that led up to the creation of the borough of Stoke-on-Trent, investment in cultural capital took on extra significance as each town strove for political ascendancy in the nascent conurbation.