Tag: London

Lee Wanger’s Favourite Teacher

Miss Featherstone Was Lee’s Favourite Teacher

From London to Tunstall

My sister, Sylvia, and I moved to Tunstall when my parents left London in the mid-1950s. We moved from Bow, in the East End, where my father’s family lived. Shortly after the war, there was a housing shortage in London, and my parents were forced to live in a terraced house with my grandparents. My mother, who came from Tunstall, heard of a house for sale on Rathbone Street. My parents bought the property, and we moved to Tunstall.

St Mary’s Infants’ School

I was about five years old. My sister, Sylvia was three. We attended St Mary’s Infants’ School on Lascelles Street, which is the first school I can clearly remember. On our first day at St Mary’s, we stood in the playground holding each other’s hands. Sylvia and I were overwhelmed by what seemed to us to be a vast, unfamiliar building. Our strong Cockney accents made us stand out from the other children. They kept staring at us, and we became frightened.

Miss Featherstone

Our fears were quickly allayed by Miss Featherstone, the headmistress. Her warm, reassuring manner quickly put us at ease. Despite her stern appearance and black dress, Miss Featherstone was a remarkably kind and dedicated teacher. She seemed to run the school single-handed and always showed genuine care for every child there. I don’t think she married and had children, but she treated all her pupils as if they were her own children

Many years later, I passed Miss Featherstone on the High Street. She greeted me simply by name as she walked by. I was surprised that she remembered me. It was just a moment in time. A moment that made a lasting impression on me and spoke volumes about her remarkable memory.

An Afternoon Nap

Another vivid memory of my first day at St Mary’s is that in the afternoon, the school hall was filled with small beds where we were expected to take an afternoon nap when play time ended. I found the idea of going to bed puzzling and unnecessary. I often wonder whether this was common practice in infant schools at the time.

Tell Us About Your School Days

We all remember that one teacher who made a lasting difference – the one who inspired us, encouraged us or simply made school a little brighter. Maybe they sparked your love of a subject, believed in you when you doubted yourself, or had a way of making lessons fun. We would love to hear your stories. Your memories can help celebrate the teachers who shaped our lives and remind us of the influence great teachers have on their students.

If, like us, you enjoyed reading Lee’s account of his first day at St Mary’s Infants’ School and his memories of Miss Featherstone, please visit https://northstaffordshireheritage.co.uk/2026/02/03/share-your-story-who-was-your-favourite-teacher/ and tell us about your favourite teacher.

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)

Stagecoaches and Coaching Inns

When they left the Sneyd Arms in Tunstall, stagecoaches going to London followed the Old Lane through the Potteries, stopping at coaching inns in Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.
A Red Rover Stagecoach

During the 1830s, two firms, the Red Rover Company and the Royal Express Company, ran mainline stagecoaches between London and Liverpool.

Between Warrington and the Potteries, the coaches were driven along the Old Lane (the A50) that linked London and the East Midlands with Merseyside and the Northwest. These coaches stopped at the Sneyd Arms in Tunstall to pick up passengers. When they left the Sneyd Arms, the coaches followed the Old Lane through the Potteries, stopping at coaching inns in Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.

On leaving Longton, coaches owned by the Royal Express Company left the Old Lane and went to London via Stone, Rugeley, Lichfield, Birmingham and Warwick. Coaches owned by the Red Rover Company followed the Old Lane to Hockcliffe in Bedfordshire, where it joined the London to Holyhead Road (the A5).

Two Stoke-on-Trent firms, the Hark Forward Company and the Independent Potter Company, ran day return stagecoach services that stopped to pick up passengers at the Sneyd Arms.

The Hark Forward Company’s coach went to Birmingham via Stone, Stafford and Wolverhampton. The Independent Potter Company’s coach ran to Manchester, Congleton, Macclesfield and Stockport. These two coaches left the Potteries early in the morning and returned late at night.

Stagecoaches were pulled by teams of four or six horses and could travel at a speed of eight to ten miles an hour. Travelling by stagecoach was expensive, and tickets had to be booked in advance. Coaches carried first and second class passengers. First class passengers travelled in the coach, and second class passengers sat on wooden seats on the roof.

The cost of the journey depended on its length. First-class passengers were charged threepence per mile, and second-class passengers were charged one and a half pence per mile.

NSH.2023