Welcome to Our World
During the next few months, Our World will show you some of the photographs taken in North Staffordshire between 1990 and 2010 for Camera in the City, a series of exhibitions and lectures organised by Heritage Associates.
The photograph was taken from the Trent and Mersey Canal’s towpath at Middleport on October 20th, 2008.
Photograph Copyright – Camera in the City/The Phoenix Trust 2013
PH/CC
A lock on the Trent and Mersey Canal at Church Lawton
British Waterways is planting 100 native elms trees by canals and rivers across the country to enhance the nation’s natural waterside heritage.
The elm, which was a favourite riverside subject of 19th century British artist John Constable, has a long-standing relationship with Britain’s canals and rivers as their timber withstands wet conditions, making them the traditional material for making lock gates for more than 200 years.
Before the 1960s, millions of native elms had thrived in our soils for centuries. However, more than 90% of them were wiped out in a decade by a deadly fungus, Dutch elm disease, which is spread by the elm bark beetle.
British Waterways has sourced the elm saplings from The Conservation Foundation, which has taken cuttings from mature parent elms found growing in the British countryside, which appear to have resisted Dutch elm disease. The saplings, which are 50cm tall, will be planted by volunteers working alongside British Waterways’ environment team.
Dr Mark Robinson, British Waterways’ ecologist, explains: “The survival of some of the UK’s native elms is a good example of natural selection in action. By propagating and replanting those that have survived, we can start to bring back this majestic tree, the English elm to our country.
“Elms are important habitat for hundreds of lichen and invertebrate species, including the rare white-letter hairstreak butterfly. Elm wood is also particularly good at resisting water and was traditionally popular for boat building, barge hulls, bridge foundations, cartwheels and even the first urban water pipes. Due to the devastation of the species, we no longer use elm wood to make our lock gates. However, we can help to bring back this much missed and valuable species, and maybe one day they can be used as lock gates once again.”
Photograph © Copyright Roger Kidd and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Stoke Station
The railway age began in 1830 when the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, opened the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
Between 1830 and 1842 numerous railway companies were formed and over 2,000 miles of track was laid. The mainline linking London and Birmingham with Liverpool and Manchester by passed the Potteries. When asked to run the line through Stoke, civil engineers employed by the North Western Railway said there was no way that a rail link could be constructed from Crewe to the Potteries because it was impossible to drive a tunnel under Harecastle Hill between Chatterley and Kidsgrove. Hardly anyone believed them. The Trent and Mersey Canal Company had already built two tunnels there to take the canal through the hill.
In 1845, pottery manufacturer John Ridgway, who owned Cauldon Pottery, and the district’s two Members of Parliament, William Copeland and John Lewis Ricardo, decided to form the North Staffordshire Railway Company.
Ricardo was made company chairman and civil engineer George Parker Bidder was employed to survey routes for the lines it hoped to build.
On Wednesday, September 23rd, 1846 the company’s shareholders held their first meeting in Stoke town hall. The company’s secretary, John Samuda, told them that Parliament had given it permission to build three lines:
Civil engineering contractors Mackenzie, Brassey and Stephenson were employed to build the Potteries Line and its branches. The contract to construct the lines from Kidsgrove to Crewe and Sandbach was given to Grisell and Peto. Tredwells were given the contract to build the Churnet Valley Line and Prices were employed to construct the link between Uttoxeter and Stoke.
When the meeting ended the shareholders had lunch. Afterwards they marched in procession along streets decorated with garlands and bunting to Cliffe Vale where Ricardo cut the first sod. In the evening there was a ball at the town hall and a firework display in Winton’s Wood where Stoke station (pictured) was erected.
Photograph © Copyright Stephen McKay and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
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The Macclesfield Canal at Kent Green
Built to link the Potteries with Manchester, the Macclesfield Canal runs from the Peak Forest Canal to Hall Green, near Kidsgrove, where it joins the Trent and Mersey Canal’s Macclesfield Branch.
Twenty six miles long, the Macclesfield Canal follows a route surveyed by Thomas Telford who designed the cast iron aqueduct that carries it over Canal Road in Congleton. Civil engineer William Crosley constructed the canal using sandstone quarried at Kerridge and Cloud End to build aqueducts, bridges and lock chambers.
Between Marple and Macclesfield, the canal which is 510 feet above sea level, traverses the western slopes of the Pennine foothills passing through deep cuttings and over high embankments. A flight of 12 locks at Bosley lowers it by 120 feet and the canal continues its journey to Hall Green overlooked by Cloud End and Mow Cop.
Opened in 1777, the Trent and Mersey Canal carried bricks, coal and pottery to Manchester via Preston Brook where it joins the Bridgewater Canal. Realising that these cargoes would be lost if the Macclesfield Canal was built, the Trent and Mersey Canal’s owners were openly antagonistic and tried to prevent its construction. When these attempts failed, the Trent and Mersey Canal Company charged boat owners exorbitant fees to use its branch canal from Kidsgrove to Hall Green, where the long narrow waterway joining the two canals was controlled by stop locks.
The Macclesfield Canal was opened on November 9th, 1831 when 52 boats left Hall Green and sailed northwards to meet a flotilla coming south from Marple. Leading boats in both fleets contained canal officials, their friends and a band. They were followed by pleasure craft and narrow boats carrying salt, timber, cotton, groceries, coal and household goods.
Colliery owner Robert Williamson, who lived at Ramsdell Hall, laid tramways from his coal mines at Harriseahead to a canal wharf at Kent Green. The coal was loaded on to boats and taken to Goldendale Iron Works at Chatterley. A canal side alehouse, the Bird in Hand, where boatmen could moor overnight was built near the wharf.
Unable to compete with the railways built to link North Staffordshire with Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s, the canal gradually ceased to be economically viable. Hall o’ Lee the last colliery on the North Staffordshire Coalfield to use the canal to transport coal closed before the First World War and by the 1930s the only boats on the canal were pleasure craft belonging to members of the North Cheshire Cruising Club. Very few boats used the section of canal between Congleton and Hall Green and it became home to moorhens, herons and water voles. Alder and white willow trees lined the banks. Bulrushes and water lilies grew alongside the towpath while perch, roach, pike, common carp and other fish swam in its still waters.
At weekends char-a-bancs brought anglers from Crewe and Stockport to Kent Green where fishing competitions were held. When twilight fell, they put their rods away and crowded into the Bird-in-Hand’s small back room to drink the landlord’s own brewed ale brought from the cellar in a large white enamel jug.
(Betty Cooper – The Phoenix Trust)
Photograph © Copyright Roger Kidd and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Stoke-on-Trent Station
Cut off from the rail network being built to link London, Liverpool and Manchester, industry in North Staffordshire faced an uncertain future.
Despite pressure from local people, the Grand Junction Railway refused to run its main line from Crewe to Stafford via Stoke.
Engineers said it was impossible to build a tunnel under Harecastle Hill between Kidsgrove and Chatterley. Nobody believed them. There were already two canal tunnels which took the Trent and Mersey Canal through the hill. The Grand Junction Railway did not have the money to build a tunnel. Its mainline by passed the Potteries although a station was built at Whitmore, a village near Newcastle.
Led by pottery manufacturer John Ridgway, leading industrialists and colliery owners wanted the region to have its own railways and in 1846 they formed the North Staffordshire Railway Company.
Parliament gave the company permission to build three lines:
Work started on September 23rd, 1846 when the company’s chairman John Lewis Ricardo cut the first sod at Cliffe Vale.
Railway contractor, Thomas Brassey was employed to construct the Potteries Line and its branches to Newcastle and Norton Bridge. Starting from a temporary station at Wheildon Grove, Fenton the line to Norton Bridge was opened in April, 1848 and on August 7th the first passenger trains ran along the Stoke to Uttoxeter Line.
Men worked to complete the Potteries Line. Viaducts were constructed at North Rode and Congleton to carry it over the River Dane and the Dane in Shaw brook. Track was laid between Stoke and Congleton and Elizabethan style stations, designed by London architect Henry Hunt, were erected.
At Kidsgrove where the Crewe branch joined the Potteries Line over 1,500 men spent two years building a tunnel to take the railway under Harecastle Hill. Approached through an arched roofed cutting and two open cuttings separated by a short tunnel 183 yards long, the main tunnel is 1,768 yards long, 25 feet wide and 22 feet high. More than 15 million bricks were used in its construction, Both tunnels remained in use until 1966 when the line was electrified and diverted through Bathpool Park.
In Stoke workmen were laying out Winton Square where houses for senior staff and the North Stafford Hotel were being built. Stoke station, a Jacobean style building faced the square. Designed by Henry Hunt the station which cost £30,000 had two platforms with their own entrance halls, booking offices, waiting rooms and restaurants. It opened on October 9th, 1848 when passenger trains started running from Stoke to Crewe and Congleton.
Copyright Betty Cooper – The Phoenix Trust 2010
Photograph of Stoke Station © Copyright Row17 and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
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