Focus on Kidsgrove is a new series which we will be posting on this website.
Written by historical geographer Betty Cooper and international heritage lawyer David Martin, the series will cover the social, economic and administrative history of Kidsgrove, Butt Lane, Harriseahead, Mow Cop, Newchapel and Talke.
The area is rich in history.
Mow Cop is the birth place of Primitive Methodism and St. Saviour’s, the redundant Church of England mission church in The Rookery, is one of the oldest “tin churches” in the world.
The Trent & Mersey Canal kick started the Industrial Revolution that made Britain the Workshop of the World. The two tunnels which take the canal through Harecastle Hill are magnificent feats of civil engineering that merit World Heritage Site status in their own right.
Starting at the end of January, our new series will introduce you to Kidsgrove’s:
legal/administrative history from the medieval Court Leet to the modern town council
coal and ironstone mines and the men women and children who worked in them
light engineering, chemical and computer industries
schools, churches and chapels
roads, railways and canals
heritage buildings.
Photograph Copyright David Martin – The Phoenix Trust 2012
A new group, the Friends of Talke is holding a Public Meeting at Talke Pits Village Hall on Friday, October 14th 7.00 pm to discuss building a memorial to those who lost their lives working in the village’s coal mines. The last colliery in the area closed many years ago. All traces of Talke’s mining industry are rapidly disappearing and the names of the men and boys who died in pit disasters there have been forgotten. The Friends of Talke want to create a memorial to them. The group needs your help to achieve its objective. Please attend the meeting, if you want to be part of the project or would like to know more about it.
Burslem’s Wedgwood Institute which merits World Heritage Site Status in its own right
There is widespread public support for the Phoenix Trust’s campaign to make the North Staffordshire Coalfield a World Heritage Site.
Already, more than 200 iconic historic buildings have been nominated for inclusion in our photographic survey including:
Mow Cop Castle
Biddulph Grange
Brownhills High School
Tunstall Pool
Burslem Art School
Hanley Town Hall
Stoke Minster
Fenton Library
Staffordshire University’s Cadman Building.
The photographic survey will begin in September, 2010 when buildings in Talke, Butt Lane, Kidsgrove, Newchapel, Harriseahead, Mow Cop and Biddulph will be photographed.
Historically, there is nothing to prevent North Staffordshire’s Industrial Landscape, which includes the Potteries, Newcastle-under-Lyme and all the towns and villages on the North Staffordshire Coalfield, from becoming a World Heritage Site. North Staffordshire was at the cutting edge of world economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Economic historians frequently ignore the role pottery manufacturers, like Wedgwood, Adams, Minton and Spode, played in transforming a collection of small towns and villages into a major industrial region of international importance.
The Harecastle Tunnel complex between Kidsgrove and Chatterley is one of the world’s greatest civil engineering feats surpassing the Pontcysylite Aqueduct on the Llangollen Canal, which has already been given World Heritage Site status. Neither the Big Pit nor any museum at Blaenavon can compare with Chatterley Whitfield or the Gladstone Pottery Museum.
In addition to its proud industrial heritage, North Staffordshire was the birthplace of Primitive Methodism whose influence gave the six towns their unique culture and a way of life so vividly described by Arnold Bennett.
Like all the towns on the coalfield, Burslem, where Bennett grew up, has a proud heritage which equals that of other places in the United Kingdom which have become World Heritage Sites. Its 18th century master potters brought the industrial revolution to North Staffordshire. The “old town hall” is one of the finest examples of civic architecture erected by a local board of health. Burslem born architect,Absalom Reade Wood gave the town the Woodall Memorial Chapel, the Drill Hall, the Art School, the Wycliffe Institute, Moorland Road Schools and Burgess Dorling and Leigh’s model factory in Middleport.
Created by local craft persons, the Wedgwood Institute’s unique terracotta facade is an inspiring tribute to the skills of the men and women who worked in the pottery industry.During its long history, the Wedgwood Institute has housed several schools and colleges whose alumni have played a major role in the fields of literature, science and technology. They include:
Oliver Lodge, the first principal of Birmingham University, who invented the spark plug and perfected radiotelegraphy
Arnold Bennett whose novels immortalised the Potteries and
Reginald Mitchell, the 20th century’s leading aircraft designer, whose Spitfire saved the world from Nazi domination.
At the request of local historians, the proposed World Heritage Site has been extended to include Leek and the Caldon Canal corridor, the Cheadle Coalfield and the Churnet Valley, which has been described as a miniature Ironbridge Gorge.
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The Harecastle Tunnels
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