The Harecastle Tunnels

World Heritage Site status is granted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to a town or region to acknowledge the important role it played in world history. The Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire was made a World Heritage Site because it was where the iron industry developed in the 18th century when Abraham Derby discovered how to use coke to smelt iron ore. Derbyshire’s Derwent Valley became a World Heritage Site because it was where Richard Arkwright perfected the water frame which gave birth to the world’s first cotton manufacturing industry and Blaenavon, in South Wales, was given World Heritage Site status because its industrial landscape illustrates the economic and social history of the South Wales Coalfield throughout the 19th century.

Historically there is nothing to prevent the North Staffordshire Coalfield becoming a World Heritage Site. The Industrial Revolution, which made Britain “the workshop of the world” began when James Brindley, who lived at Turnhust near Chell, devised and constructed a national canal network that linked the new industrial towns with the major ports – London, Liverpool, Hull and Bristol.

Our industrial heritage began 2000 years ago at Chesterton when the Romans built an industrial village where there were furnaces producing iron and workshops making pottery.

During the middle ages coal was mined in the Biddulph Valley. There were ironstone mines and furnaces at Tunstall and Apedale. Earthenware was manufactured in the small towns and villages which later became the Potteries. By the beginning of the 18th century pottery was being exported to North America and the West Indies. During the Industrial Revolution our region was at the cutting edge of economic development. Wedgwood, Adams, Minton and Spode laid the foundations of an industrial conurbation which for over 200 years was the centre of the world’s ceramic industry. At the beginning of the 19th century Hugh Bourne and William Clowes founded Primitive Methodism whose influence gave the six towns their unique culture and a way of life which is so vividly described by Arnold Bennett.

Despite North Staffordshire’s industrial decline, its architectural heritage remains intact.

Tunstall still has its early 19th century market square and late Victorian Civic Centre.

Burslem and Hanley have Heritage Parks which were designed by Thomas Mawson the world’s leading landscape architect.

Pre-federation town halls still survive in the six towns, which have all retained their distinctive character.

We have five major museums – The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, the Wedgwood Museum at Barlaston, the Gladstone Pottery Museum, Etruria Industrial Museum and Ford Green Hall.

A large number of bottle ovens and kilns have survived in Longton but much more importantly we have four things which merit World Heritage Site status in their own right. They are:

• Biddulph Grange
• Chatterley Whitfield Colliery
• The Wedgwood Institute in Burslem and
• The canal and railway tunnels under Harecastle Hill, between Chatterley and Kidsgrove.

Today, heritage tourism is big business. Every year tourists spend £7.4 billion pounds and provide employment for 195,000 people. World Heritage Site status helped to regenerate Liverpool enabling it to become the European Capital of Culture in 2008. More importantly, World Heritage Site status revitalises the economy and provides work for school leavers. Since Blaenavon became a World Heritage Site ten years ago the number of visitors to the Big Pit has increased by 120%. Figures produced by the Welsh Economic Research Unit show that over this ten year period tourists visiting Blaenavon have spent more than £50 million in the town which has benefited hoteliers, shopkeepers and restaurant owners.

Copyright David Martin – The Phoenix Trust 2011