Category: North Staffordshire

The Potteries in the 1790s

A Description of the Country From Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester, a book published in 1795, was compiled by Dr John Aikin. The book tells us about Newcastle-under-Lyme and North Staffordshire’s pottery towns and villages in the 1790s.

This edited extract from the book describes the Potteries in the 1790s.

The Staffordshire Potteries commence about a mile from the Cheshire border at a village called Goldenhill.

From there it extends to Lane End [Longton], a distance of more than seven miles. Many of the towns and villages that form the Potteries are linked by houses and factories. The traveller is left with the impression that he is journeying through one town with different names. Manufacturing pottery is the primary business of this extensive and populous area. It is believed that the number of inhabitants or houses has increased threefold over the last twenty years. The towns and villages that make up the Potteries are likely to merge to create one town with one name. Many people who live nearby already call the area The Pottery.

A Polluted Stream at Birchenwood

Showing a stream polluted by water from old coal and iron stone mines and fly tipping next to the route followed by the North Staffordshire Railway's 'loop line' at Birchenwood nr. Kidsgrove (1994).

This image was taken at Birchenwood near Kidsgrove in 1994. It shows a polluted stream. The stream ran next to the route followed by the North Staffordshire Railway Company’s ‘loop line’. The line closed in the 1960s. It ran from Etruria to Kidsgrove. There were stations at Hanley, Waterloo Road, Cobridge, Burslem, Tunstall, Pitts Hill and Goldenhill.

The town Bennett forgot

Do you think Fenton is Stoke-on-Trent’s forgotten town? We believe Fenton’s town hall and Christ Church will help make North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape a World Heritage Site.

Fenton is called Stoke-on-Trent’s Forgotten Town

Can You Help Us?

We hope to show a series of film strips during Stoke-on-Trent’s Centenary Year.

Schools in the six towns made these films in 1960. They were made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the County Borough of Stoke-on-Trent’s creation.

North Staffordshire Heritage has the scripts for all these film strips. But, we only have one film strip, The Township of Tunstall, made by Highgate Secondary School.

The film strips about Burslem, Hanley, Stoke-upon-Trent, Fenton and Longton are missing. If you can help us trace them, please email northstaffordshireheritage@outlook.com

DM/LW /BC(2024)

A Tunstall Church Could Help Create a World Heritage Site

The Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tunstall, designed by Father Patrick Ryan and built by unemployed men could help make North Staffordshire’s Industrial Heritage Landscape a World Heritage Site.

The Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tunstall is one of Stoke-on-Trent’s hidden jewels.

Architectural historians believe it will help make North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape a World Heritage Site. The parish priest, Father Patrick Ryan, designed the church, which was built between 1922 and 1930 by unemployed men.

The Churnet Valley Railway

The Churnet Valley Railway is a popular tourist attraction. It will help make North Staffordshire’s Heritage Landscape a World Heritage Site.

The Gladstone Pottery Museum

The Gladstone Pottery Museum is one of Stoke-on-Trent’s heritage assets. It will help make North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape a World Heritage Site.

North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape Merits World Heritage Site Status

The Harecastle Tunnels on the Trent & Mersey Canal at Kidsgrove

There are no historical reasons to prevent North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape from becoming a World Heritage Site.

In the 18th century, North Staffordshire helped to make England “the workshop of the world.” Local entrepreneurs, like Wedgwood and Adams, transformed a group of small towns into an industrial area of international importance.

James Brindley’s Trent & Mersey Canal “kick-started” the Industrial Revolution, which made Britain “the Workshop of the World. The canal and railway tunnels between Kidsgrove and Chatterley are significant feats of civil engineering. They merit World Heritage Site status in their own right.

The Primitive Methodist Church was founded in North Staffordshire by Hugh Bourne and William Clowes. It gave the Potteries its unique culture and a way of life that Arnold Bennett vividly portrayed in his novels.

Burslem’s “old town hall” is one of the finest examples of Victorian civic architecture. The Wedgwood Institute’s terracotta facade is an inspiring tribute to the men, women and children who worked in local industries.

The former colliery at Chatterley Whitfield should have been made a World Heritage Site many years ago.

Making North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape a World Heritage Site would encourage economic regeneration and create new employment opportunities.

Daimler buses ran from Mow Cop to Tunstall

After the First World War, former soldiers and sailors set up small bus companies and ran bus services from towns and villages on the North Staffordshire Coalfield 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 buses and 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.

After the First World War, former soldiers and sailors formed bus companies. The companies ran services to Tunstall that competed with those run by the Potteries Motor Traction Company.

Rowbotham’s was a bus company with a garage in Sands Road, Harriseahead. The firm ran a service from The Bank, a hamlet in South Cheshire, to Tunstall. Its buses ran through Mount Pleasant, Dales Green, The Rookery, Whitehill, Newchapel Packmoor, Chell and Pitts Hill.

The Potteries Electric Traction Company operated another service from The Bank to Tunstall. Its route ran through Mount Pleasant, Dales Green, The Rookery, Whitehill, Kidsgrove, Goldenhill and Sandyford.

Stanier’s was a bus company based in Newchapel. 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

View Post

Self-Service Stores Revolutionised Shopping

In the 1950s and 60s, self-service stores replaced local shops in town centres throughout North Staffordshire and South Cheshire.

If your family used self-service stores, please share your memories of shopping there with our readers. Tell them how self-service stores differed from High Street and corner shops.

To read the full post, click on “How England’s First Self-Service Store Heralded the Birth of the Modern Supermarket” below the photograph.

How England’s First Self-Service Store Heralded the Birth of the Modern Supermarket