Category: Mow Cop

Buses from Mow Cop to Tunstall

A forty-horsepower Daimler Bus

In 1914 the Potteries Electric Traction Company started running bus services from Biddulph and Mow Cop to Tunstall using forty-horsepower Daimler Buses.

During the First World War (1914-1918) the government requisitioned the company’s buses, and the services were suspended. The buses were sent to France, where they were used to take troops to the front line. When the war ended, the buses were returned to the company and the services resumed.

Former soldiers and sailors formed small transport companies that ran bus services bringing customers to Tunstall’s shops and markets from industrial towns and villages on the northern part of the North Staffordshire Coal Field.

The bus services to Tunstall operated by these companies competed with those run by the Potteries Motor Traction Company.

Rowbothams, a transport company whose garage was in Sands Road, Harriseahead, ran a bus service from The Bank, a hamlet in South Cheshire, to Tunstall. Its buses stopped to pick up passengers in Mount Pleasant, Dales Green, The Rookery, Whitehill, Newchapel, Packmoor, Chell and Pitts Hill.

The Potteries Electric Traction Company also operated a service between The Bank and Tunstall although its buses followed a different route.

Buses owned by both companies ran via Mount Pleasant, Dales Green and The Rookery to Whitehill, where their routes diverged at the top of Galley’s Bank. Rowbothans’ buses turned left into Whitehall Road which took them to Newchapel. Buses owned by the Potteries Motor Traction Company turned right into Whitehall Road and went to Tunstall via Kidsgrove, Goldenhill and Sandyford.

Staniers who had a garage in Newchapel was another company whose buses competed with Rowbothams. It ran a service from Mow Cop to Tunstall via Harriseahead, Newchapel, Packmoor, Chell and Pitts Hill.

The Corda Well

During the 19th century, there were numerous springs, called wells, on the slopes of Mow Cop from which local people obtained their water supply.

In his book “Mow Cop and its Slopes” published in 1907, W. J. Harper describes the Corda Well – a spring that never ran dry.

Not far from Mow Cop is a little well, about 2ft in diameter, which was never known to be dry. The water always bubbles up in summer or winter, seedtime or harvest.

About 30 years ago, there was a drought. The cows were moaning in the fields, and the sheep were bleating in the mountain meadows for want of water. This little well, all the while, supplied the inhabitants with water for many miles around. At three o’clock in the morning, people came for water bringing buckets, tubs and various utensils to carry the precious liquid. Although a small well, its water supply was never exhausted but flowed on and continues to flow.

Edited by David Martin

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The Old Man of Mow

The Old Man of Mow is a local landmark whose origin is hidden by the sands of time.

In 1907, J. W. Harper wrote Mow Cop and its Slopes, a local history book about Mow Cop and its surrounding villages. During the coming weeks, North Staffordshire Heritage is posting edited extracts from the book, which is out of print and difficult to obtain from second-hand bookshops.

In the first extract from Mow Cop and its Slopes, we post Harper’s description of The Old Man of Mow.

The Old Man of Mow is a great rock in a rocky dell left intact by the quarrymen of a former age. Like many things connected with this hill, why it was left is a matter of conjecture. But there it is, standing alone, looking down over the Cheshire Plain, sombre and black with the years of weather it has seen, a curio unexplained for ages.

The Old Man’s rock’s circumference is 76 feet (ca. 23 m) 7 inches. It is 65 feet (ca. 20 m) 6 inches high. All the approaches to the rock are of the most rugged kind. The place it is in looks like an ideal rockery, pure and simple, without any shrubs to relieve the monotony of stone.

Visit0rs to Mow Cop often try to get into the rocky dell and some climb to dangerous heights on its steep sides. Few consider their visit to Mow Cop complete without a glimpse of the Old Man.

Photograph: © Copyright Colin Park, licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The Parson’s Well

A spring at Mow Cop

The Parson’s Well, near the Methodist Church at Mow Cop, was one of the springs on Mow Hill that were given a stone surround in the 19th century. After erecting stone surrounds around the springs, local people started calling them wells. The two inscriptions on The Parson’s Well read, “The Parson’s Well A S 1858” and “Keep Thyself Pure”.

Photograph: © Copyright Sue Adair and licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

Mow Cop Castle

Do You Know Who Painted This Picture?

While researching Mow Cop’s heritage, we came across this old print of Mow Cop Castle, indicating there may be more truth than we realise in the many legends surrounding its building history.

We think the print is one of a series of local views painted by an artist whose nom de plume was Jotter. North Staffordshire Heritage is trying to trace the publisher, Picturesque Staffordshire. Please get in touch if you can tell us more about the castle or help identify Jotter.

Our email address is northstaffordshireheritage@outlook.com

Since our post was written, we have been told that the view of Mow Cop, which is on a postcard, was painted by Walter William Young (1868-1920). Can anyone give us more information about him?