Category: Stoke-on-Trent

£1.9 million facelift for Longton

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s proposed £1.9 million investment plan will change the face of Longton.

If it goes ahead, the Longton Improvement Scheme will give the town better public transport and create welcoming open spaces. An improved bus service will reduce congestion in the town centre, making it easier and safer for people to shop there.

The city council’s cabinet is set to approve the scheme on 16 September.

Councillor Finlay Gordon-McCusker, cabinet member for transport, infrastructure and regeneration, said:

Longton has always been more than just a place on the map. It’s a proud town where people raise their families, open their shops, and greet their neighbours in the street.

For generations, people here in Longton have worked hard and looked out for one another. And they deserve a town centre that works just as hard for them.

That’s what this project is about.

We’re making it easier to walk between the bus and rail stations. We’re creating more welcoming public spaces where you can stop and talk to a friend, and we’re building stronger links between the high street and the retail parks. Because when it’s easier and more inviting for people to come into town, local businesses get a real boost.

This is all about giving people a reason to believe in their town again, to feel proud when they bring their family or friends to visit. And if we get this right, the impact will last for years. Because when we invest in our people and our proud spaces, we build something far bigger than bricks and mortar.

Tunstall News: Pour & Market Day

There will be fun for all the family at Tunstall’s local Pour & Market Day on Saturday, October 4th.

The event is being held on Hunt Street Car Park and at the Wheatsheaf. Although there will be an outside bar at the Wheatsheaf from 12.00 pm, the event opens at 2.00 pm and continues until late evening.

There is something for everyone, including a market, fun fair rides, axe throwing and refreshments.

Live music will be played throughout the day.

The event is being organised by Tunstall Town Centre Community Association and the Wheatsheaf.

Tunstall Town Centre Community Association’s mission is to work with businesses and the community to create a thriving, connected and sustainable town.

Visit Stoke-on-Trent during its Centenary Year

A 19th-century kitchen in a typical working-class terraced house in the Potteries.

We strolled through the ‘Street of Life in Stoke’ [at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery] where we envisaged living in the past and gazed in wonderment at the old chemist’s shop with its small wooden drawers filled with pills and potions. Also on display was an antiquated fish and chip shop range, a cosy potter’s cottage and the interior of a village pub.

Why you should visit Stoke-on-Trent as it celebrates its centenary

Friday NewsDesk

North Staffordshire Heritage has had an uneventful week. We have continued to reorganise our filing system, which holds research projects dating back to the 1990s.

Our research project into the Anglo-Saxon justice system is progressing well.

We have been researching the meaning of the Early English place name ‘Tun’.

Some historians suggest that ‘Tun’ was the name the Saxons gave to a fortified village which they built on the site of a Roman villa or small settlement. It has always been accepted that our Tunstall in Stoke-on-Trent dates from 5th or 6th century. If it was built on a Roman site, Tunstall is much older than anyone thought possible.

We hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Take care, and we’ll see you again next week.

Two Film Shows at the Brampton Museum

Two Film Shows at the Brampton Museum in September, telling the story of North Staffordshire’s Pottery and Textile Industries.

There are two film shows at Newcastle-under-Lyme’s Brampton Museum in September.

The first film, The Pottery Industry – 20th Century to Today, will be shown on Sunday, 14 September at 2.00 pm. Admission Free.

The second film, Leek and the Story of Silk Twisting, will be shown on Thursday, 18 September at 2.30 pm. Admission £5. The film marks the start of an autumn programme called Textile Take Over at the Brampton Museum. The programme will include exhibitions, talks and events relating to North Staffordshire’s textile industry.

Claybody Theatre to Stay at Spode Works

Stoke-on-Trent’s Claybody Theatre is going to stay at The Dipping House on the historic Spode Works site in Stoke-upon-Trent’s town centre.

The theatre has taken a 15-year lease on The Dipping House, which has been its home since 2023. Deborah McAndrew, the theatre’s co-artistic director, said:

We absolutely delighted to have secured the future of the Dipping House.

The Dipping House has proven to be a great space for us and we have already welcomed thousands of visitors who have come to watch our performances and participate in workshops and other events.

In going forward we will continue to collaborate with the City Council to develop the venue for theatre, arts and community events right in the heart of this incredible and historic site at Spode Works.

The Tragedy of Lidice – A talk at the Potteries Museum

In June 1942, the small Czech village of Lidice, 12 miles from Prague, was destroyed. Its inhabitants were murdered or deported, and the village was wiped off the map.

The atrocity was a reprisal for a top-secret operation code-named “Operation Anthropoid,” to kill Reinhard Heydrich, a high-level Nazi official who planned the Holocaust, which murdered at least 6 million people.

On 9th June, the day of Heydrich’s state funeral in Berlin, Hitler ordered retaliatory measures against the Czech population. That very evening, German police and SS officials surrounded Lidice. Their behaviour was caught on film. The atrocities they committed caused an international outcry that strengthened the resolve of Great Britain and the United States to destroy Nazi Germany.

On Friday, 5 September, Dr Kate Vigurs, a Second World War Historian, will give a talk at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery telling the story of Lidice from Operation Anthropoid to 2025, revealing its special relationship with Stoke-on-Trent.

Her talk starts at 7.00 pm and ends at 9.00 pm. The bar opens at 6,00 pm. Tickets cost £12.

Telephone 01782 232323 or email museumevents@stoke.gov.uk to book your ticket.

Tunstall in the 1790s

The sketch above shows William Adams’ Greengates Pottery in Tunstall. The factory built between 1779 and 1781 was one of the largest in the Potteries. It manufactured tableware, stoneware and jasper ornaments for the luxury market. William Chaffer, the author of ‘Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain’, said some of the jasper made at Greengates was ‘equal to, if not superior’ to that produced by Josiah Wedgwood at Etruria.

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 Tunstall as it was in the 1790s.

Tunstall is the pleasantest village in the Potteries. It stands on high ground, commanding extensive views of the surrounding countryside. Pottery manufacturers in the village produce good-quality ware and do considerable business. There was a church here, and human bones have been dug up. But such is the effect of time that no trace of either the church or the bones remains today. A small chapel has recently been built here. There is a considerable number of brick and tile works. They use local clay to make blue bricks, which look as well on the roofs of houses as moderate slate. Tunstall is four miles from Newcastle-under-Lyme and nine miles from Congleton. The turnpike road from Lawton to Newcastle-under-Lyme runs through Tunstall, where the turnpike road to Bosley in Cheshire begins [near the Wheatsheaf Inn].

Friday NewsDesk

Friday NewsDesk is a new regular weekly post that will tell you about North Staffordshire Heritage’s activities.

Worldwide interest has been shown in Chatterley Whitfield’s future. The creation of a circular heritage tourist trail linking Burslem, Ford Green Hall, Chatterley Whitfield and Biddulph Grange with Mow Cop and Kidsgrove.

North Staffordshire Heritage is continuing to research Mercia and its legal system. This is a long-term project, which is expected to last for eight or nine months.

Our new series of posts about the Township of Tunstall starts in September, and we will give you more details at the end of August.

We hope you all have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Take care and stay safe. We’ll see you again on Tuesday.

Image of Biddulph Grange Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)

Drama high in the sky above North Staffordshire

Something had indeed gone badly wrong. High in the sky above North Staffordshire, a scene of high drama was unfolding. It was away from the eyes of the assembled spectators. Even the excitement and danger of a normal parachute drop paled in comparison.

The World’s First Mid-Air Rescue