Category: Tunstall

Dog Fighting in Tunstall

Fighting dogs were aggressive. When they fought, there was no stopping them.

In his book Old Times in the Potteries, published in 1906, William Scarratt shares his memories of a dog fight.

Although dog fighting declined in the 1840s and 50s, there were still dog fights in Tunstall.

Bull terriers, or fighting dogs, had large yellow and white patches. They also had brindle and white patches on their bodies, over their eyes and on their ears. Their coats were course, and their tails were thick.

Fighting dogs were aggressive, although they were quiet and affectionate at home. They had to be forced to fight, and when they fought, there was no stopping them.

I saw a dog fight when I was a schoolboy. It was between two dogs and took place at dinnertime. One dog was a white bullterrier that weighed 24 lbs. The other was a cross-breed that weighed 28 lbs.

The struggle continued for several rounds until both dogs were exhausted. When the next round started, the dogs had to crawl to each other before starting to fight again.

At the end of each round, the dogs were picked up and taken out of the arena. The hairs caught in their mouths were removed before the next round.

The fight lasted a long time. The dogs continued to fight. To end the contest, their owners reached a compromise. They agreed that the dog entering the arena first would be the winner when the next round started.

The dogs fought for about an hour. When it ended, both dogs were too weak to walk. The men picked them up and carried them to the Grapes Inn. They took the dogs to an outhouse and weighed them.

Edited by North Staffordshire Heritage 2024

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)

William Scarratt’s Schooldays

William Scarratt remembers his schooldays in Tunstall.

In his book Old Times in the Potteries, published in 1906, William Scarratt recalls his schooldays in Tunstall. 

A 19th Century Classroom

There were three schools for primary education in Tunstall. There was one Church of England school (Christ Church National School), two Methodist Church schools and a few dame schools. 

In the 1840s, Mr Lambert was the headteacher of the Church of England school I attended. The school was surrounded by fields. I was one of the ‘little ones’ when I saw my first barring out day. 

The headteacher came to school at the usual time. He found he was locked out of the building. The older boys had locked him out. There was great excitement inside the school. The big boys opened the windows.

They held the keys out of a window on the end of a long pole, which was held so high that he could not reach them.

The headteacher and his staff had been barred out.

Good-natured bantering occurred between the boys and the head until he agreed to give them a holiday.  

Ho! The triumph of the victors. The big boys said they were going to keep the doors locked all afternoon if he had refused to give them a holiday.  

We had an all-around education that was not restricted to the three Rs. When the school day started, a hymn was sung. My heart filled with joy when we sang, ‘Awake my soul and with the sun’.  

After singing the hymn, we learned the creed before lessons began. It was a pleasant school. Sometimes, the curate would take us to an adjacent field for games. I saw my first cricket match played there.  

Pupils attended school on Saturday mornings. On Wednesday afternoons, there were recitations at one Methodist school. On Wednesday mornings, pupils who went to Christ Church National School were taken to a service in the church.

Edited by The History Factory (2024)  

 

Furlong Road in the 1850s

Scarratt’s Tunstall

Furlong Road ran from High Street, Tunstall, to Greenfield, an industrial village near Pitts Hill. The road was narrow and overhung with laburnum and other trees.

In his book Old Times in the Potteries (published in 1906), William Scarratt describes the road in the 1850s.

In 1854, Furlong Road was like a country lane. The oak and other trees surrounded Greengates House, which Mr William Adams built in the 18th century. These trees were quite leafy. Rooks built their nests in them, and wild ducks sported on the pool in front of the house. At the back of the house were large trees where rooks cawed noisily in the spring. Little birds built nests in the hedgerows below the church – I have found them there. Nobody today would believe that harriers or beagles were kept at this house. But that is a fact. The owner of the house was fond of sport. I met them on the road to school in Newchapel. One of my school fellows, the owner’s son, has followed them, so he said. The road ran from High Street to Greenfield. It was narrow and overhung in some places with laburnum and other trees.

Edited by The History Factory (2024)

Tunstall Memorial Gardens

An Open Letter From Lee Wanger (10 November 2024)
The Pavilion in the Memorial Gardens

I want to draw your attention to the plight of Tunstall’s Memorial Gardens in The Boulevard.

If you haven’t visited the gardens recently, please go and see for yourself how they have been neglected.

While nearly every town has a war memorial, Tunstall’s Memorial Gardens are unique. They are a heritage asset we should be proud of. The gardens are the focal point of a Conservation Area and home to our cenotaph.

My attempts to get Stoke-on-Trent City Council to look after the gardens failed. I consulted heritage lawyers and asked them if there was anything else I could do. They told me my only choice was to shame the council into action. Will you add your voice to mine? Can we work together and ask the council to restore our Memorial Gardens before it is too late?

The pavilion shown in the image has been left to rot. Fires and graffiti have damaged the murals, bricks have been knocked out of the walls and the guttering is collapsing.

The ornate entrance gates and fencing in The Boulevard are rotting away. Finials are missing from the tops of pillars, and the fencing is rusting and disintegrating.

For a long time, I have been asking the council to restore the gardens to their former glory. My requests have been ignored. Now, I need your help. Please write to the City Council, your local Councillor, and your Member of Parliament. Tell them about the plight of the Memorial Gardens. These gardens are of great historical significance. Ask them to stop the neglect and save the gardens.

Many thanks for reading my letter. Best wishes, Lee Wanger

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.

Anglo-Saxon Tunstall

An Anglo-Saxon Village

Tunstall is one of the oldest towns in the Potteries. Its Old English name suggests it dates from the late 5th or 6th century. 

The Anglo-Saxons called a town or village surrounded by a ditch and a stockade a “Tun”, and a “Stall” was a place inside the stockade where cattle were kept. 

Anglo-Saxon Tunstall was built at the crossroads where a road from the Staffordshire Moorlands to Chester crossed the main highway linking London and the East Midlands with the North West and Scotland. Part of the highway’s route through Tunstall can be traced by following Oldcourt Street, America Street, Hawes Street and Summerbank Road to its junction with High Street. 

The road from the Staffordshire Moorlands to Chester may have been a drove road.

Old drove roads are not easy to trace. In places, they were a quarter of a mile wide. We believe the road from the Staffordshire Moorlands entered Tunstall near the Wheatsheaf Inn and passed through the village on a track called Green Street, which is now Roundwell Street.  

All physical traces of Anglo-Saxon Tunstall have disappeared. Two old field names, God’s Croft and Church Field, tell us there was a church in the village. Another old field name, Cross Croft, suggests that a marketplace may have existed.       

(Revised July 2025)

Tunstall’s First Market

John Henry Clive founded an unincorporated company that gave Tunstall a market hall and a Market Place (Tower Square).

He was born at Bath on 29 March 1781. After his father’s death, John and his mother, Sarah, came to live in Longton.

On 28 May 1793, Sarah married earthenware manufacturer Charles Simpson at St. Giles’ Church, Newcastle-under-Lyme.  

John served an apprenticeship in the pottery industry. He married Lydia Cash on 30 September 1805 at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Norton-in-the Moors.

Shortly after John’s wedding, his stepfather, Charles Simpson, started making pottery at a factory in Sandyford.

Sarah and Charles left Longton and moved to Tunstall, where they lived at Newfield Hall. John and Lydia came to live with them. John managed the Newfield Estate for its owner, Admiral Smith Child, and went into partnership with him. They formed a company, Child & Clive. The firm mined coal and ironstone at Clanway Colliery and made earthenware at Newfield Pottery. 

John was an astute entrepreneur. He realised Tunstall was a growing industrial town. A town that needed shops, a market square and a civic building containing a covered market and a courtroom, where Justices of the Peace could hold Petty Sessions (Magistrates’ Courts) and try minor criminal cases.

John formed a company to finance the project and sold its shares to local businesspeople. The company leased a plot of land, on a field called Stony Croft, for 500 years at an annual rent of £5 from Walter Sneyd, the Lord of the Manor, who lived at Keele Hall. Shares in the company cost £25 each. John bought one share. Walter bought eight, and Ralph Hall, the company’s treasurer, bought two.  

Between 1816 and 1817, the company created Market Place, a market square surrounded by shops and erected a civic building. The building had two names until it became known as the Town Hall in the 1840s. The company called it the Courthouse, and the Sneyd family called it the Market Hall. In the late 1830s, Market Place’s name was changed to Market Square.

NSH-2o24(F) 

We Need Your Help

North Staffordshire Heritage is publishing a series of history books and booklets about Tunstall and is trying to find old photographs of the town. If you can help, please email David at davidmartin227@outlook.com

R.06.09.24

Weeds in Tower Square

Tunstall’s Neglected Heritage

The clock tower in Tower Square, Tunstall.
Weeds at the base of the Smith Child Clock Tower in Tower Square.

Our photograph shows weeds growing at the base of the Smith Child Clock Tower in Tower Square. The tower was erected in 1893 to honour Sir Smith Child, the town’s most generous 19th-century philanthropist.

Tell us about neglected buildings in Tunstall which need regenerating and help save them from demolition.

You can email us at northstaffordshireheritage@0utlook.com