Category: Transport and Communications

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].

The Fowlea Brook Valley Looking Towards Burslem in the 1860s

This engraving of the Fowlea Brook Valley looking towards Burslem was made in the 1860s. Note the sheaves of corn and the Trent & Mersey Canal in the foreground. In the background, you can see Burslem and St. Paul’s Church, Dalehall, where John Ward, who published The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent in 1843, was churchwarden.

18th Century potters left North Staffordshire to work in Liverpool

My story begins with a journey from Burslem in Staffordshire to Toxteth in Liverpool in November 1796.

A Herculaneum Potter

To read the post, press the title A Herculaneum Potter (above).

Etruria Industrial Museum

This video showcases Etruria Industrial Museum. The museum is housed in a 19th century steam powered potter’s bone and flint mill. Built in 1857, the mill is a Grade II* listed building.

The museum is at Etruria Junction, where the Caldon Canal joins the Trent & Mersey Canal.

There is a statue of James Brindley (1716–1772) at the junction, which was the site of Etruria Wharf. A tramway ran from the wharf to Hanley/City Centre. The site of Stoke-on-Trent’s first public hospital is near the museum. Built in 1803, the hospital was called the Dispensary and House of Recovery.

History of England’s Railways

A railway revolution swept Britain in the 19th century, changing the country forever. A predominantly agricultural society became an industrial superpower.

To read this post, click on “A Brief Introduction to the History of the Railway in England” beneath the photograph.

A Brief Introduction to the History of the Railway in England

1970s Photographs of Etruria

The area was named by Josiah Wedgewood when he built his new pottery works here in 1769 (it was named after the region of Etruria in Italy in an early example of somewhat fanciful marketing). By the early 1970s, the pottery works had been moved, and the old canal was caught in the doldrums between commercial and leisure traffic.

Capturing Etruria

Note: We viewed Alan’s photographs with great interest and were most impressed by their quality.

During the late 1960s, David photographed the Trent & Mersey and the Caldon Canal for a group of canal enthusiasts opposing British Waterways’ plans to close the canal and turn it into a feeder channel for the Trent & Mersey Canal.

Stagecoaches, Coaching Inns and Snow

This repost comes from The Old Roads of Derbyshire, a site everyone interested in Derbyshire’s history should visit at http://oldroadsofderbyshire.com/ We enjoy reading the posts on this site. You will, too.
The image is a snow scene showing a stagecoach on a winter's day outside a coaching inn.
A cold coming

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.

Tom Brown’s Journey to Rugby

At three o’clock on a cold, frosty February morning in 1834, his father put him on an express stagecoach bound for Rugby. Thomas had an outside seat next to the guard who looked after him during the journey.
A typical scene at a 19th Century Coaching Inn

Judge Thomas Hughes, who wrote Tom Brown’s Schooldays, presided over County Courts in South Cheshire. The book is an autobiographical novel about his early life.

His father sent him to Rugby School when he was eleven. In the book, he describes his first journey to school.

At three o’clock on a February morning in 1834, his father put him on an express stagecoach bound for Rugby. Thomas had an outside seat next to the guard who looked after him during the journey. It was a bitterly cold and frosty morning. He was given a glass of hot beer and rum to keep out the cold. Yet, he was still half-frozen when the coach stopped for breakfast at a coaching inn.

“Twenty minutes here, gentlemen,” says the coachman as they pull up at half past seven at the inn door.

Have we not endured nobly this morning, and is not this a worthy reward for much endurance? We enter a low, dark, wainscoted room whose walls are hung with sporting prints. A hatstand is by the door, with a whip or two in it. They belong to commercial travellers who are still snug in bed. The room has a blazing fire, casting a warm and inviting glow. There is quaint old glass over the mantelpiece… The table is covered with the whitest of cloths and china dishes full of food. There is a pigeon pie, a ham, cold beef cut from a mammoth ox and a large loaf of bread. The stout head waiter comes, puffing under a tray of hot viands. On the tray are kidneys, roast beef, rashers of bacon, poached eggs, buttered toast, muffins, tea and coffee. The table can never hold it all. The cold meats are taken off the table and put on the sideboard. They were there for show and to give us an appetite. And now fall on gentlemen all.

“Tea or coffee sir?” says the head waiter coming round to Tom.

“Coffee, please,” says Tom, with his mouth full of muffins and kidneys. Coffee is a treat to him; tea is not.

Our coachman has breakfast with us. He eats cold beef and drinks a tankard of ale brought to him by the barmaid.

For breakfast, Tom had kidney and pigeon pie. He drank coffee, and his little skin became ‘as tight as a drum.’ After breakfast, he paid the head waiter and boarded the stagecoach to continue his journey.

Edited by The History Factory (2024)

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.