Tag: Fowlea Brook

Longport 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 Longport in the 1790s.

Longport is situated in a valley between Burslem and Newcastle. There are some good buildings in it and several large pottery factories. Because it is in a valley, there are times when the smoke from bottle ovens and kilns hangs over Longport, making the air disagreeable, if not unwholesome.

The Trent & Mersey Canal passes through Longport, where there is a public canal wharf. Before the canal was constructed, Longport was called Longbridge Hays because there was a kind of bridge that ran parallel for a hundred yards with the Fowlea Brook. The bridge was dismantled when the canal was cut.

The number of buildings increased rapidly when the canal was completed, and the village’s name was changed from Longbridge Hays to Longport.

The Chatterley Valley in the 1850s

William Scarratt’s book Old Times in the Potteries, published in 1906, describes the Chatterley Valley in the 1850s. 

Ironworks sprang up rapidly in North Staffordshire during the 1850s. I recall a workingman who was a forgeman. He predicted that all the land in the valley would be covered by industrial buildings of one kind or another. I have often thought of that visionary’s foresight when I look at the industries there today. 

It was a pretty valley. The Fowlea Brook, surrounded by meadows, ran through it. Willow trees called Osiers grew on its banks. Osiers were small willows with long, flexible shoots used to make baskets. They were grown commercially in damp, marshy fields near the brook.  

A shepherd looked after a flock of sheep in a field by the railway line. People in the valley heard the leading sheep’s bell tinkling. 

Men working on the night shift in local industries would leave work briefly to smoke their pipes. They would go into the valley to catch a breath of spring. Sometimes, they lingered there for a few minutes in the long twilight of a summer’s evening. 

Edited by The History Factory (2025)