Burslem: Buildings, manors and estates

BURSLEM

The borough of Burslem consisted by 1910 of the townships of Burslem (fn. 1) and Sneyd, Cobridge (formerly the vill of Rushton Grange), and 166 acres of the Sneyd Green portion of the lordship of Hulton, which were added to the borough in 1891. (fn. 2) This area of 1,862 acres (fn. 3) was bounded on the north by the urban district of Tunstall, on the south by the borough of Hanley, on the west by the parish of Wolstanton, where the Fowlea Brook formed the boundary then as now, and on the east by the urban district of Smallthorne. (fn. 4)

The eastern part of the borough lay along a northsouth ridge between 600 and 700 feet above sea-level; a coal seam runs north-west through this high ground with considerable outcropping, and the area has long been the main scene of Burslem's coal and ironstone mining. (fn. 5) From this ridge two spurs slope westwards to below 400 ft. along the Fowlea Brook, with Burslem built on the northern spur and Cobridge on the southern. Sneyd and Sneyd Green lie at the junction of these spurs with the main ridge. The Scotia (or Sytch) Brook crosses the lower ground between Burslem and Tunstall, and another stream, probably the Cobridge Brook of 1691 (fn. 6) and the Hot Lane Brook of 1833, (fn. 7) flows between Burslem and Cobridge; both of them are tributaries of the Fowlea Brook, but their courses have been partly covered over by building. The Burslem district, with its distinctive bottle ovens, a typical though vanishing feature of the Potteries scene, presents a built-up industrial landscape interspersed with several tracts of wasteland.

Burslem lies at the intersection of roads from Newcastle and from the north-east of the county and the road running north and south through the Potteries. The Newcastle-Leek road runs through Cobridge and the road from Great Chell to Hanley runs as High Lane along the high ground in the eastern part of the former borough. The course of Grange Street and Sneyd Street probably represents the western end of a road connecting Hulton Abbey with Rushton Grange. (fn. 8)

Burslem village grew up around the road junction on the slope falling westwards to the Fowlea Brook, northwards to the Scotia Brook and southwards to the Cobridge Brook. It had fewer than 70 houses c. 1680 (fn. 9) and in the mid-18th century was still an isolated moorland settlement, mainly agrarian in its pursuits apart from small-scale pot-making. By then, however, the ground-plan of the modern town was already distinguishable. It consisted of what are now called Swan Square, Queen Street, St. John's Square, Market Place, Wedgwood Street, Greenhead Street, and Bournes Bank running down to St. John's Church. (fn. 10) The development of this 'scattered town on the top of a hill', (fn. 11) based on its position and its industry, began in the later 18th century, and by 1817 several new streets had been laid out, with houses built of local brick, (fn. 12) while Waterloo Road running south from the town was opened in that year. (fn. 13) In 1829 it was stated that the many wide new streets had 'nearly doubled the size of the town within the present quarter of a century'. (fn. 14) Some of this development was in the Sytch Hollow below the north-western slope of the town, more to the southeast of the town and around Waterloo Road and St. John's Church, and most to the south-west. Even in this last area, however, John Riley's Portland House (still standing as a county technical school) and John Ward's Furlong House (no longer in existence) represented the farthest point of development. (fn. 15) The appearance of the town centre between the old town hall and Shoe Lane (now Wedgwood Street) was considerably altered in the 1830's when the new market hall and the extension of the market-place replaced a potworks and cottages there. (fn. 16)

The next big expansion came in the third quarter of the 19th century. New streets of terraced cottages brought the town to its present extent on the southeast. Others were laid out on the south at the Burslem end of Waterloo Road and around St. John's Church, and on the south-west towards the expanding suburbs of Longport and Middleport (see below). (fn. 17) On the western slope of the town new streets covered most of the Fountain Place Works, its mansion and grounds. (fn. 18) The Sytch Hollow was also being developed during the third quarter of the 19th century; (fn. 19) although many of the cottages there have been demolished, some remain, and there is also housing of the interwar years and later above the former mill. (fn. 20) The area known as the Jenkins to the north-east of the town centre where James Brindley built the flint-grinding windmill for the Wedgwoods of the Big House c. 1750 (fn. 21) was still a public recreation ground in the late 1870's, (fn. 22) but the present terraced streets were built there during the next 20 years. (fn. 23)

During the first half of the 20th century new public buildings have been erected, and retail shops have multiplied. In the period before and after the Second World War some of the terraced cottages were demolished. In 1957 the market hall of 1835–6 was pulled down, (fn. 24) leaving an open space between the public library—the old town hall of 1854–7—and Wedgwood Street. This space was being laid out in 1960 as a garden and car park to mark the golden jubilee of Federation, the work being undertaken by the city in collaboration with the Civic Trust. The layout, designed by Mischa Black, includes a formal approach to the east entrance of the mid-19th century town hall. (fn. 25) Even so the Burslem of today is still recognizable as the 'Bursley' of 1872 described by Arnold Bennett:

. . . On a little hill in the vast valley was spread out the Indian-red architecture of Bursley—tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, the new scarlet market, the grey tower of the old church, the high spire of the Evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflexions, and the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber chimney pots, and the gold angel of the blackened town hall topping the whole. (fn. 26)

Before the cutting of the Trent and Mersey Canal in 1766–77 there were only a few cottages around Longbridge where the road to Wolstanton and Newcastle crossed the Fowlea Brook. (fn. 27) At Trubshaw Cross to the east, where this road was joined by a track leading from Brownhills and Tunstall, there stood an ancient stone cross. (fn. 28) The name Longport was adopted in 1777, (fn. 29) the year when the canal was completed. Several factories, some with large houses attached, were built there, the earliest c. 1773. (fn. 30) Princes Square, near the site of the later Longport station, was built in 1807, possibly for workers at the nearby Davenport factory. By 1832 there were several streets of houses off Newcastle Street in the Dale Hall area. Union Buildings in Newport Lane had been erected by 1817; Mount Pleasant Buildings in Reid Street dated from 1819; and Fountain Buildings in Newport Lane were built by Enoch Wood's workers in 1824. (fn. 31) In the late 1830's Church Square, Newport Lane north of Newcastle Street, and Lyndhurst Street were being laid out around St. Paul's Church, Dale Hall (built in 1828–31). (fn. 32) Longport, however, remained distinct from Burslem, even in 1851 when Dale Hall stood isolated between the two places. (fn. 33) In the third quarter of the century streets were constructed on both sides of Newcastle Street, and the area around Longport station, opened in 1848, was developed. (fn. 34) The streets laid out over the Davenports' Longport Hall estate were being planned by 1885. (fn. 35) By the late 1950's several of the terraces off Newcastle Street had been demolished or abandoned, and a new estate was being built on the site of those in the area around Port Vale Street. (fn. 36)

Middleport and Newport to the south of Longport grew in similar fashion with the erection of factories and large houses after the opening of the canal. There was also some development in the late 1830's: in 1838 Navigation Street, Wharf Street, and Bridge Street (now Milvale Street) by the canal occur as proposed new streets. Streets of terraced houses were built in the third quarter of the 19th century. (fn. 37) Middleport Park was laid out in 1908 on ground that had been the garden of the former St. John's rectory house. (fn. 38)

The Brownhills area lies to the north of the road from Longport to Tunstall, and while in effect a continuation of Tunstall it remains (1960) separated from Burslem by the belt of undeveloped land along the Scotia Brook and the mineral line to the Chatterley—Whitfield Colliery. Brownhills was the name of a plot of pasture owned by the Burslem family at the end of the 16th century (fn. 39) and was an inhabited area by the mid-18th century, developing over the next century around the potteries there. (fn. 40) It consists of factories, housing of the period between the world wars on either side of the Tunstall-Longport road, and a girls' high school built in the grounds of the late-18th-century Brownhills House and incorporating the house itself. (fn. 41) There is also extensive wasteground to the west running down to the canal and Westport Lake beyond.

Sneyd township, also called the Hamil by the 18th century from the name of the principal part (see below), occupied the north-east of the borough and amounted to some 550 acres in area. (fn. 42) Although its name suggests a Saxon forest clearing, (fn. 43) it was apparently still a woodland area, at least in part, in the early 13th century. (fn. 44) There were at least three farms in Sneyd in the early 16th century, all owned by Hulton Abbey. (fn. 45) By the 18th century the principal part of the township was around the Hamil, situated at what is now the north-east corner of Burslem Park. (fn. 46) Hot Lane farther south, mentioned in 1669, (fn. 47) was extensively built up on both sides by 1775, (fn. 48) although most of the buildings there have been demolished. Moorland Road was constructed in 1820. (fn. 49) There was little further development in the Sneyd area until the later 19th century, but from then until the 1930's the housing in Hamil Road, in Moorland Road opposite the Sneyd Colliery, and in the streets between the two and to the north of Hamil Road were being built; the housing in the corresponding stretch of High Lane is of the same period, and the roads to the east are all of the 20th century. (fn. 50) Houses were built in Macclesfield Street by Stoke Corporation in the early 1920's to rehouse families moved from Massey Square in Burslem, the first slumclearance project in Stoke-on-Trent. (fn. 51) Miners' Hall at the corner of Park Road and Moorland Road was opened in 1893 for meetings of the North Staffordshire Miners' Federation. (fn. 52) Burslem Park, laid out on some 22 acres of waste land between Hamil Road and Moorland Road, was opened in 1894. (fn. 53) The housing in Scotia Road dates from the last quarter of the 19th century onwards. (fn. 54) The extensive waste in the northern part of the Sneyd district, which in the 19th century was an area of collieries and smallscale industrial undertakings, (fn. 55) is partially occupied by the large Stanfield council estate dating from the years between the world wars. (fn. 56)

Land at 'Smallthorneheede' lay within Sneyd township in 1569, (fn. 57) and land called Smallthorne in Sneyd was held with the Overhouse estate by 1666. (fn. 58) The 19th-century development of the Smallthorne area, however, was on the Norton side of the borough boundary.

The Cobridge district was formerly the vill of Rushton Grange, an area of 420 acres (fn. 59) centring on the farm of that name. Rushton ('Rushy Tun') was presumably an early settlement near the Fowlea Brook, (fn. 60) and there is known to have been a vill of Rushton by 1086. The grange was established on the eastern slope above the brook by the Cistercians of Hulton by 1235. (fn. 61) Cobridge Gate (fn. 62) on the hill-top to the east of the farm was already an inhabited area by the mid-17th century. (fn. 63) It had three or four small houses c. 1680 (fn. 64) and a century later was developing around the potteries there. (fn. 65) In 1817 Cobridge was said to have a 'considerable' population and to be 'a prosperous and increasing place'. (fn. 66) By 1832 building was spreading from the Burslem end of Waterloo Road, (fn. 67) and in the later 19th century there appeared streets of cottages between this road and Elder Road, and also the middle-class houses and terraces of Waterloo Road. (fn. 68) This was 'Bleakridge', the 'residential suburb of Bursley', described by Arnold Bennett in Clayhanger, These Twain, The Card, and other novels and stories. In the mid1850's Lord Granville built 'a little town' for his workers—two rows of superior cottages at the southern end of Waterloo Road and more in several new streets to the east. (fn. 69)

The western part of this Cobridge area around the former Grange farm is still (1960) largely waste, much of it being occupied by the workings of the disused Grange Colliery. (fn. 70) There are two council housing estates in this district. One was laid out off Commercial Street south of St. John's Church in the years between the world wars. The other, south of it, dates from after 1945. (fn. 71) Demolition of the cottages around the Bleak Hill Pottery between Waterloo Road and Elder Road was in progress in 1958 and cottages in Waterloo Road west of Christ Church had been pulled down before the end of 1959. Cobridge Park (9 acres), between Elder Road and the railway, was opened in 1911. (fn. 72)

Sneyd Green, formerly part of the lordship of Hulton, was an inhabited area before the end of the 16th century, (fn. 73) and the courts of Hulton manor were being held there by 1733. (fn. 74) The present Sneyd Street, running from Hanley Road to Cobridge and probably forming part of an old way from Hulton Abbey to Rushton Grange, (fn. 75) was built up by 1775, (fn. 76) and c. 1840 Sneyd Green had 'a considerable population, chiefly of colliers and other cottagers'. (fn. 77) Apart from some later-19th-century housing around and near the junction of North Road and Leek New Road, (fn. 78) there was not much further expansion in the area before the 20th century. The council estate stretching from Sneyd Street and Milton Road over to Leek New Road dates from the years between the world wars and also includes housing at the eastern end built since 1945. The large estate south of Milton Road at the foot of the hill leading down from Hanley Road was built in the late 1950's. (fn. 79)

In 1086 Burslem was inhabited by a villein and four bordars. (fn. 80) There were 41 persons in the township chargeable for hearth tax in 1666. (fn. 81) The population was 12,631 in 1841 and 20,971 in 1871. (fn. 82) Sneyd township had 15 persons chargeable for hearth tax in 1666 (fn. 83) and a population of 1,328 in 1841 and 1,292 in 1871. (fn. 84) The population of Cobridge (formerly the vill of Rushton Grange) was 1,584 in 1841 and 3,299 in 1871. (fn. 85) The population of the area contained in the new borough was 28,249 in 1881, 38,766 in 1901 (after the addition of much of Sneyd Green in 1891), 41,566 in 1911, and 42,442 in 1921. (fn. 86)

The road running north and south through the Potteries was at first only a side way from the main road from Cheshire to Lichfield through Newcastle and Stone. (fn. 87) In 1763, however, it was turnpiked as far south as Burslem—a triumph for Josiah Wedgwood and the potters over the vested interests of Newcastle. (fn. 88) The road from Brownhills to Trubshaw Cross (presumably the stretch known in the 17th century as Smallbridge Bank) was also turnpiked under this Act, and so was the road from Burslem to Trubshaw Cross (Pack Horse Lane). Thus Tunstall and Burslem were linked with Newcastle. (fn. 89) The line of the road from Burslem to Trubshaw Cross was subsequently altered so that it became the present Newcastle Street, and in 1828 the old road was sold. Enoch Wood bought the part which ran through his Fountain Place Works; (fn. 90) the eastern end of this stretch, running from Westport Road down to the entrance of Ford and Sons' pottery, still survives and retains the name of Pack Horse Lane. The course of the road through Longport was diverted in 1848 to run on its present more southerly line, and a bridge was built over the newly opened railway. (fn. 91) In 1858 a new canal bridge was built at Longport and the road there widened. (fn. 92) In 1765 Wedgwood secured the extension of the turnpike road from Burslem along Nile Street and Elder Road to Cobridge and thence to Shelton. Thus he achieved his original plan for a north-south turnpike road through the Potteries. (fn. 93) The 1765 extension was straightened by the building of Waterloo Road in 1815–17 from Burslem to Cobridge; the southern part of this road, from Cobridge to Hanley, already existed in 1814. (fn. 94) The road from Burslem to Tunstall, now Scotia Road, was called 'a new carriage road' in 1825, (fn. 95) but it was still only a private road in the later 19th century although it was then being developed. (fn. 96) The first toll-house and gate on the Burslem section of this road system was that built between 1777 and 1780 at the north side of Longbridge south of the canal. (fn. 97) It was replaced in 1782 by a new house to the west of Fowlea Brook at the end of the road from Longbridge Hays. (fn. 98) A toll-house and gate was erected in Newport Street at Dale Hall between 1848 and 1851 to cover traffic using Port Vale Wharf. (fn. 99) By 1828 there was a toll-gate and weighing machine at Brownhills at the junction of the roads from Burslem and Longbridge. (fn. 100) There were also gates at the junction of Nile Street and Hot Lane and the junction of Waterloo Road and Grange Street in 1832, cover ing the links between the Newcastle to Lawton and the Newcastle to Hassop roads. (fn. 101)

The road from Burslem to Leek may originally have run along Hamil Road to the Smallthorne area, (fn. 102) but by 1775, possibly as a result of the turnpiking of the road from Burslem to Cobridge, the Leek road ran along Nile Street and then up Hot Lane to Smallthorne. (fn. 103) Moorland Road was built in 1820 to provide a more direct route from the town-centre to Smallthorne. (fn. 104)

The road from Newcastle to Leek originally ran via Cobridge along Elder Road and Sneyd Street to Sneyd Green, continuing thence to Milton and Endon. There it joined the road from Burslem to Leek. (fn. 105) The course of the road had been altered by 1775 (probably under the Act of 1765 turnpiking the road from Newcastle to Leek and Hassop) to run from Cobridge along Elder Road to Hot Lane where it joined the road from Burslem to Leek. (fn. 106) By the end of the century Sandbach Road had been built, providing a more direct route to Smallthorne from the Cobridge end of Elder Road. (fn. 107) This road from Cobridge to Leek was, however, superseded when the present Leek New Road was built c. 1839. This leaves the old turnpike road at a point to the north of the junction of Elder Road with Sneyd Street and passes under High Lane north of the Sneyd Green cross-roads. North Road (now North Street) was built from Hot Lane toll-gate to link Burslem town with this new road. (fn. 108)

The road from Great Chell to Hanley, which runs as High Lane through the eastern part of the area, was turnpiked in 1770. (fn. 109) Toll-gates were erected at the junctions with Hamil Road, (fn. 110) with the road from Newcastle to Leek at Nettlebank near Smallthorne, (fn. 111) and with Sneyd Street at Sneyd Green. (fn. 112)

The Long Bridge, carrying the pack-horse road between Burslem and Newcastle over the Fowlea Brook and the marshes around it, was described in 1624 as 'a great passage out of the north parts unto divers market towns within the county'. (fn. 113) It was built or rebuilt c. 1544 when John Adams of the 'Bruckehouse' in Wolstanton bequeathed 3s. 4d. towards its construction. (fn. 114) It was in a bad state of repair by 1624 when the inhabitants of Tunstall Court, who were responsible for its upkeep, petitioned the justices in Quarter Sessions for help towards the cost of repair; the justices granted £20 and appointed four overseers to supervise the work. (fn. 115) By the mid-18th century the crossing consisted of a range of stepping-stones making 'a kind of bridge which ran about 100 yards parallel with the water'; with the development of the area after the cutting of the canal a raised highway was built over the swamps. (fn. 116) 'The foot-bridge across the brook between Crocketts Meadow and the common footway from Tunstall and Wolstanton' was mentioned in 1689 and 1690. (fn. 117) This was presumably Small Bridge which carried the road from Tunstall to Wolstanton over Scotia Brook near Burslem Mill and the widening of which was ordered by the turnpike trustees in 1782. (fn. 118) In 1833 it was stated that the footpath through Hot Lane Brook in Hulton manor, presumably where Elder Road crossed a stream south of the junction with Hot Lane, required planks and a handrail to be passable in times of flood. (fn. 119)

By 1790 Burslem was served by daily mail coaches between London and the North, evidently from the Legs of Man Inn where daily coaches between London and Liverpool called by 1802. (fn. 120) These ran from the 'Leopard' also by 1818, and there were then coaches between Birmingham and Liverpool three times a week from these inns. (fn. 121) By 1834 there were return coaches to Birmingham and Manchester each weekday. (fn. 122) By 1824 there was a local 'safety coach' between Hanley, Burslem, and Leek once a week, (fn. 123) and by 1851 there were omnibuses from the posting-inns to the station at Longport and to Hanley, Stoke, and Longton. (fn. 124) From 1862 the Potteries Tramroad Company was running horse-drawn tramcars between Burslem market-place and Hanley along a 'street railway' built by George Train of Boston, Mass. (fn. 125) These were replaced by the North Staffordshire Tramway Company's steam-driven cars in 1882 when the Stoke to Longton tramway was extended to Hanley and Burslem. (fn. 126) Electricity was substituted for steam in 1899 after the Potteries Electric Traction Company had taken over the trams, and lines were opened from Burslem to Smallthorne along Moorland Road in 1899, to Tunstall and Goldenhill in 1900, and to Newcastle in 1905. (fn. 127) Services were also begun between Trubshaw Cross and Tunstall in 1900 and between Sneyd Green and Hanley in 1905. (fn. 128) Motor-buses were introduced from 1914 and gradually replaced the trams between 1926 and 1928. (fn. 129)

The landlord of the 'Legs of Man' was postmaster by 1790, (fn. 130) and by 1834 there were post-offices at Longport and Cobridge as well as Burslem. (fn. 131) There was a horse-post from Newcastle to Burslem, Longport, and Cobridge and a foot-post also to Cobridge from 1835 until 1854 when the station post-office at Stoke replaced Newcastle as the postal centre of the Potteries. (fn. 132)

The first sod of the Trent and Mersey Canal, opened in 1777, was cut below Brownhills in 1766 by Josiah Wedgwood, one of its most strenuous promoters. (fn. 133) A branch canal was completed in 1805 from the main canal at Newport to the end of Navigation Road which was run from the town centre. (fn. 134) Public wharves were built at Longport (by 1790), (fn. 135) at Small Bridge (apparently by 1802), (fn. 136) at the end of the Burslem branch canal, (fn. 137) and at Port Vale (by 1832); (fn. 138) all four were in use c. 1840 in addition to several private wharves. (fn. 139) By 1854 the public wharves in use were those at Longport, Port Vale, and on the branch canal, (fn. 140) but by 1860 only the last two remained, together with a wharf at Brownhills. (fn. 141) The Port Vale wharf ceased to be used early in the 20th century, (fn. 142) but the Brownhills wharf continued until at least 1940. (fn. 143) The wharf on the branch canal at the end of Navigation Road was the only wharf in use in this part of the city by 1958, although the branch canal was by then liable to minor subsidence. (fn. 144)

The railway from Stoke to Crewe and Manchester touches the western boundary of Burslem at Longport where a station was opened in 1848. (fn. 145) The small station building in the 'Tudor' style with Dutch gables and dark brick ornament is characteristic of its period. The Potteries Loop Line was completed as far as Burslem in 1873 with stations there and at Cobridge; the station on the main line was then named Longport instead of Burslem. (fn. 146) Waterloo Road Station on the Loop Line at the southern end of Waterloo Road was opened in 1900 and closed in 1943. (fn. 147) A mineral line built from the main line at Etruria to the Shelton Colliery at Hanley c. 1848 crosses the southern end of Waterloo Road near Granville Place. (fn. 148) Two further mineral lines were built from the main line under an Act of 1864; one, opened in 1875, from Longport through the Sytch area, Tunstall, and Great Chell to the Chatterley-Whitfield Colliery, with a branch, which has now disappeared, from the Sytch to the High Lane Colliery in Chell; the other, opened in 1872, from Etruria to the Grange Colliery and Commercial Street. (fn. 149)

Buildings

More buildings have survived from before the middle of the 19th century in Burslem than in any of the other Pottery towns. The marketplace, dominated in the centre by the former town hall, is still mainly Georgian in scale and contains many brick and stucco frontages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At its north-west corner the front of a chemist's shop retains its original glazingbars and fluted Doric pilasters. On the south side several houses which have been refronted appear to be of early or mid-18th-century origin; among them is the Leopard Hotel (fn. 150) where the central doorway is flanked by three-storied semicircular bays probably added in the 1830's. A little farther west is a tall frontage of stone ashlar, built in 1836 'in the Italian stile' for what was then the new Commercial Bank. (fn. 151) The original Venetian windows to the ground floor have been replaced by modern shop fronts, making it hard to recognize that this was once 'the most striking private building in the centre of the town, indeed almost the only one having the character of elegance'. (fn. 152) At the south-east corner of the marketplace, its front facing Moorland Road, is the fine mid-18th-century building now occupied by the Midland Bank but formerly known as the Big House. Built by the brothers Thomas and John Wedgwood in 1751 (fn. 153) it was, as its name suggests, the most important residence in the town at that period. It is still the only house of any quality to survive from before the last years of the 18th century. The front, of red brick with stone dressings, is of three stories and five bays, the central bay projecting slightly and being surmounted by a pediment. The windowlintels are of rusticated stone and the central windows are emphasized by stone architraves; below them is a pedimented porch supported on Doric columns. A walled forecourt and entrance gates were removed in 1956. (fn. 154) Internally the house contains much contemporary panelling and a fine oak staircase with three turned balusters to each step. To the east of the Big House stands the Red Lion Inn, probably the oldest surviving house in Burslem. Its front carries an embossed tile (fn. 155) dated 1675 with initials R D S, but the roof line has been raised and a late 19th-century wing has been added at its western end. More recently the original brick front has been covered with plaster and imitation half-timbering.

To the west of the market-place one or two plain buildings of the late 18th and early 19th centuries survive in St. John's Square. These include the house and shop at the lower end of the square which Arnold Bennett used as the setting of The Old Wives' Tale. A three-storied brick range at the junction of Westport Road and Pack Horse Lane, although converted into modern shops, is still distinguishable as part of the frontage of Enoch Wood's Fountain Place Works (1789). (fn. 156) Farther north in Westport Road the imposing Classical façade of Samuel Alcock's Hill Top Pottery (fn. 157) forms a striking group with the Hill Works (1814) (fn. 158) and the Methodist Chapel (1837). (fn. 159)

The area immediately south of Newcastle Street, where some larger residential houses had been built by the early 19th century, was later in the century covered by streets of working-class housing. Furlong House, built before 1834 by John Ward, a solicitor of Burslem and the historian of Stoke-uponTrent, and still occupied by him in the early 1840's, (fn. 160) has disappeared completely. The house formerly known as the Hadderidge (fn. 161) still stands at the junction of Wycliffe Street and Lower Hadderidge, but an extension of the modern factory which adjoins it has been built across the front of the ground floor. The appearance of the two upper stories suggests that it was a rather plain brick house of the late 18th century. Portland House, the home of the Riley family in the early 19th century (fn. 162) and one of the earliest residences to be built by a pottery owner away from his works, still stands in its own grounds. Now used as a county technical school, it is a square brick house of three stories, its front having flanking Venetian windows to the two lower floors and semicircular windows above; a stone bay window and a stone porch are later additions. Furlong Place in Furlong Lane, consisting of a pair of tall stucco houses dated 1836 and an adjoining brick pair of similar size, is an example of middle-class terraced housing rare in the Potteries until the later 19th century.

A long three-storied building which was erected in 1817 as a National school (fn. 163) is still standing to the east of St. John's churchyard and is now (1960) used as a printing works. In its original form it had a pediment on its west side and a cupola on the roof and was said to have 'the outside character of a cotton or silk factory'. (fn. 164)

At the east end of the town-centre Chapel Bank is dominated by the tall stone front of the Central Methodist Church, built in 1801 and refronted in 1870. (fn. 165) Farther south, at the junction of Queen Street and Waterloo Road, stands the late-18thcentury brick house which, with its outbuildings, is the original of the printing establishment in Bennett's Clayhanger. The George Hotel—the 'Dragon' of Bennett's novels—was formerly an 18th-century building with a pair of two-storied semicircular bay windows; the present hotel, designed in the neoGeorgian style by Longden and Venables, dates from 1928–9 when it replaced several adjoining properties as well as the former inn. (fn. 166) During rebuilding parts of a still earlier structure were found on the site. (fn. 167) Opposite the hotel several late-18th-century brick frontages have survived at the upper end of Nile Street.

Waterloo Road, constructed in 1815–17, (fn. 168) contains much small-scale housing of that time at its northern end. Farther south, the older part of the front range of the Washington Works has a dignified treatment of recessed brick arcading dating from the 1830's. The three-storied bow window of the American Hotel opposite is similar in detail to those at the 'Leopard' and is probably of much the same date. (fn. 169) As Waterloo Road approaches Cobridge the houses become larger, more pretentious, and progressively later in date, representing the first middleclass area of 19th-century Burslem. The various mid-19th-century architectural styles include the gabled 'Tudor' of Camoys Terrace (fn. 170) and the Italianate stucco of the detached house now occupied as the Russell Hotel. At Cobridge itself a brick terrace dating from c. 1880 contains the double-fronted and bay-windowed house which was opened in 1960 as the Arnold Bennett Museum. (fn. 171)

There have been three town halls in Burslem. The first was erected in the centre of the market-place c. 1761 and was a rectangular brick building of two stories, having open arches to the ground floor and a large room with sash windows above. It was later coated with cement and surmounted by a balustraded parapet and a central clock turret with a bell cupola. (fn. 172) The building served as a lock-up and as a storage-place for market stalls; the eastern end was occupied by the police by 1834, and the remainder was used as a newspaper room, a hall for public business, and, after 1839, a court room. In 1851 the ground floor was converted into a fish market and the upper floor was extended. (fn. 173) A new hall, which is still in use as a public library, was built in 1854–7 on the site of the old one. (fn. 174) It is a massive stone building designed by G. T. Robinson of Wolverhampton in a mixture of Classical styles with features of the Greek Revival predominating. Above a rusticated and sharply battered base is an applied Corinthian order and a deep eaves cornice surmounted by acroteria. At the west end is a projecting portico with arched entrances below and free standing Corinthian columns to the principal story. Above this an elaborate clock turret is supported by caryatid figures, the whole being crowned by a gilded angel. This angel, poised high above the surrounding buildings, is a noted Burslem landmark. Internally there is an impressive entrance hall at the west end, having tall cast-iron columns and a double staircase. In 1911 a third town hall was built, (fn. 175) occupying much of the east side of the market-place. It was designed by Russell and Cooper and has a long neo-Classical front of stone ashlar with a colonnaded portico near its north end.

The first covered market, designed by Samuel Ledward, (fn. 176) was built in 1835 on ground to the east of the town hall which had previously been occupied by a potworks and other old buildings. It was a singlestoried stone structure in the Classical style, raised at the south end, where the ground fell away, on a rusticated base surmounted by iron railings. In the centre of the south front was a projecting Doric portico of three bays. (fn. 177) The building was demolished in 1957. (fn. 178) The present market hall between the market-place and Queen Street was erected in 1878–9. (fn. 179) It has a Gothic frontage of red brick with stone dressings facing Queen Street and incorporating shop fronts under pointed arches, now mostly altered. The interior contains fine cast-iron detail of the Gothic Revival period.

The Wedgwood Memorial Institute in Queen Street, built between 1863 and 1869, has an elaborate and remarkable front, mainly in the Venetian Gothic style. A competition for the design of the building was originally won by G. B. Nichols of Wolverhampton, but his elevation of 1860 was modified in 1863 to include terra-cotta panels and other decorative features. A further competition was held and designs submitted by Robert Edgar and John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, were adopted. The street front of the building is of two stories and twelve bays. The upper story consists of a blind arcade, the arches containing terra-cotta figures representing the months of the year designed and executed by Rowland Morris; above these are signs of the Zodiac carried out in mosaic. Between the stories is a series of ten panels depicting processes in the pottery industry, designed by Matthew Eldon and executed by Rowland Morris and others. The statue of Josiah Wedgwood, which stands above the richly ornamented central doorway, was completed in 1873 and is the work of Rowland Morris. (fn. 180) Opposite the Wedgwood Institute in Queen Street is the School of Art, which dates from 1906–7.

At Trubshaw Cross, Longport, where an ancient cross once stood, a modern stone cross was erected at the centre of the traffic roundabout in 1949. It stands on a base of 1750 which at one time formed part of a lamp standard set in the middle of the road junction. (fn. 181) To the north-west of the roundabout, between Davenport Street and the canal, stood the factory buildings (recently demolished) and dwellinghouse dating from about the close of the 18th century and at one time belonging to the Davenports; they were an example of a master potter's house with its works attached. (fn. 182) Another house, of slightly later date, became the Duke of Bridgewater Inn about the middle of the 19th century; (fn. 183) it stands in Station Street on the south side of the canal bridge and has a symmetrical three-storied brick front with altered ground-floor windows. Longport Hall, demolished in the 1880's, stood in its own grounds to the south of Trubshaw Cross. (fn. 184) A view of the garden front in 1843, when the hall was the residence of William Davenport, shows an early-19th-century house with a three-storied central block of three bays flanked by projecting two-storied wings of equal height; another wing is visible at the back. (fn. 185) Between later buildings on the south side of Newcastle Street stands a row of six cottages (nos. 119–29) apparently of 18thcentury date. (fn. 186)

Brownhills House, now part of a girls' school, lies halfway between Burslem and Tunstall and dates from c. 1782. (fn. 187) It is built of red brick with stone window-lintels and is L-shaped on plan, its principal front facing south. There was originally a single bowed projection on its west side, but additions of 1830 appear to have included a stone bay window in the same wall and a stone porch at the centre of the south front. (fn. 188)

Rushton Grange, which occupied a site at Cobridge to the west of Waterloo Road, was demolished in the present century. (fn. 189) A view of the house in 1800 shows a long timber-framed front range with a thatched roof and dormer windows, a massive chimney at one end, and a projecting wing at the rear; at this period the building appears to have been divided into cottages but c. 1840 it was referred to as a farm-house and had been 'in a very slight degree modernised'. (fn. 190) A single-story structure, forming part of the front range, was used as a Roman Catholic chapel until the late 18th century. (fn. 191) The only buildings at Cobridge which have survived from before the 19th century appear to be part of a row of cottages with front gardens in Grange Street and the Black Boy Inn with an adjoining house in Cobridge Road. (fn. 192) Among older pottery buildings both Furnival's works in Elder Road (dating from the late 18th century) and the front range of the Soho Pottery in Waterloo Road (1848) are of architectural interest. (fn. 193)

Much of the early working-class housing in Burslem was considered generous by contemporary standards: in 1829 reference was made to the 'many wide and spacious new streets of excellent dwelling houses', (fn. 194) and in 1844 it was said that most of the houses had four rooms and were occupied by only one family and that 'there are few places in the king. dom where the poor have such ample house room'. (fn. 195) These comparatively good conditions were partly due to the existence of adequate open land around the town over which new streets could be built to accommodate the rapidly increasing population. Again, in contrast to older and larger industrial towns, there were scarcely any middle-class houses from which the occupants had moved to the outskirts and which had been taken over as tenements by the poorer workers. Near the town-centre, however, there were a few congested areas where older cottages had been hemmed in by potworks and later buildings. These included the Massey Square district between Moorland Road and Chapel Lane in which a collection of old courts containing 90 houses was cleared away in the early 1920's. (fn. 196) Another black spot was the so-called 'Hell Hole' near the junction of Waterloo Road and Nile Street, demolished between 1890 and 1900. (fn. 197) One who had lived there as a child some 50 years earlier remembered not only dilapidated cottages but also that 'drunkenness and semi-starvation, broken pavements, open drains, and loud-mouthed cursing and obscenity seemed its normal conditions'. (fn. 198)

The articles of the Burslem United and Amicable Building Society, founded in 1807, (fn. 199) included particulars of three types of proposed houses and specified that in all cases there should be passage-ways between every two houses and land for gardens at the rear. This was to ensure that each house had its own yard and back access and to eliminate the system of communal yards and shared privies which was then so general. The largest type of house included a parlour and a third bedroom, but the two smaller types appear to represent the standard four-roomed plan of the period, having a living room or 'house place' with a kitchen behind it, a pantry beside or under the staircase, and two 'lodging rooms' above. This arrangement persisted in the Potteries until well after the middle of the 19th century. (fn. 200) There appear to have been no 'back-to-back' houses, nor was it usual to build workers' houses with cellars or with more than two stories. In a few outlying areas of Burslem the terraced cottages had small front gardens but usually the front rooms opened straight on to the street. Examples of small planned groups, all of which were probably the work of building societies, were Amicable Buildings in Upper Hadderidge (1818), Union Buildings in Newport Lane (before 1817), and Mount Pleasant Buildings in Reid Street (1819). (fn. 201) Fountain Buildings in Newport Lane, also known as Tuppenny Row, consisted of terraced cottages flanking a central shop and were built by Enoch Wood's workers in 1824 through their own building society. (fn. 202) All these groups had been demolished by 1960. The partly demolished Princes Square near Longport Station, a three-sided close of terraced cottages with small front gardens, was built in 1807, possibly for workers in the nearby Davenport factory; its former central range carried a dated pediment.

Another attempt to produce well-built workers' houses was made in the late 1830's when the trustees of William Adams of Cobridge Hall (d. 1831) were selling land to the south and east of St. Paul's Church to be laid out in accordance with conditions imposed by themselves. Thus in Church Square and Newport Lane, on land sold to John Mayer, a builder, and Samuel Mayer, the younger, a potter, the houses were to have 'dress bricks, sash windows and panelled doors' with a stone string course; they were to be set back two yards from the street and this space was to be 'enclosed with iron palisadoes'. Paved footpaths and water gullies were to be provided and the roadway was to be adequately surfaced. (fn. 203) A few of these houses at the north end of Newport Lane (now Newport Street) are still recognizable by the small enclosed spaces in front of them and by their well-designed details; these include round-headed doorways with moulded archivolts, decorative fanlights, and six-panelled doors. (fn. 204)

The provision of projecting wash-houses (fn. 205) opening out of the back rooms does not appear to have become general in the Potteries until the later 19th century. For example, at Elder Place in Cobridge, a terrace of superior cottages with long front gardens built in 1851, (fn. 206) the present back kitchens are obviously later additions. In this and hundreds of other cases they were probably added only when piped water became available. The privy (or later the water-closet) was sometimes built behind the wash-house but more often at the farther end of the yard.

The most striking advance in 19th-century housing in Burslem—or for that matter in the Potteries generally—was made on Earl Granville's Cobridge estate, built for his workers at the south end of Waterloo Road in the mid-1850's (fn. 207) and still standing in 1960. Most of the houses had front gardens, while all had wash-houses and yards with separate access. In several of the terraces superior houses, let at higher rents than usual, were planned with small entrance halls and a third bedroom. Private drainage works were completed in 1855 and by 1857 there were 126 water-closets on the estate, 116 of which were said to be in good order. (fn. 208) Apart from this scheme the first terraced houses to have passage halls and a third bedroom appear to have been those in Elm Street on the east side of Waterloo Road, evidently built c. 1880. (fn. 209) According to Arnold Bennett these 'lobbied cottages' were at once occupied and, as a consequence, cottage property in the centre of the town depreciated. (fn. 210) Nevertheless houses of the older type with their front doors opening straight into the living room continued to be built in most of the new streets at least until the end of the 19th century.

Manors

BURSLEM was held before the Conquest by Alward, but by 1086 it had passed to Robert de Stafford and was then assessed at ⅓ hide. (fn. 211) By 1243 it was held of the Stafford barony as ½ knight's fee, and the overlordship remained with the barony until at least 1460. (fn. 212)

In 1086 Burslem was held of Robert de Stafford by Ulviet, (fn. 213) but by the beginning of the 13th century it had passed to Adam de Audley (fn. 214) (either the father or the son). The manor then remained in the Audley family, (fn. 215) but it had been absorbed into their manor of Tunstall by the end of the 13th century (fn. 216) and thereafter descended as part of that manor. (fn. 217) The courts for the two-thirds share of Tunstall manor were frequently held at Burslem from 1549. (fn. 218)

James de Audley received a grant of free warren in his demesne lands in Burslem manor in 1252. (fn. 219)

RUSHTON was held before the Conquest by Ulviet but had become part of Robert de Stafford's barony by 1086 when it was assessed with Hulton at ⅓ hide. (fn. 220) The overlordship descended in the barony until at least 1284 when Rushton and Hulton together formed ½ knight's fee. (fn. 221)

In 1086 the Saxon tenant was still in possession, holding of Robert de Stafford. (fn. 222) By 1223 the vill had passed to Henry de Audley who in that year included it among the endowments of Hulton Abbey. (fn. 223) By 1235 the abbey had established a grange at Rushton (fn. 224) which in 1291 consisted of 3 carucates worth £1 each. (fn. 225) In 1535 Rushton Grange consisted of arable, meadow, and pasture, together worth £4, (fn. 226) and on the dissolution of the abbey in 1538 it passed to the Crown. (fn. 227) The 'manor or grange' and its lands were granted to James Leveson of Wolverhampton in 1539 at a rent of £7 5s., (fn. 228) and in 1540 James conveyed the grange to Richard Biddulph of Biddulph for £130 7s. (fn. 229) The estate then descended in the Biddulph family until 1835. (fn. 230) It was sequestrated by 1645; (fn. 231) in 1784 it was described as 'the manor or reputed manor of Rushton Grange' in the possession of John Biddulph, but much of the land was sold during the 17th and 18th centuries, the remainder being the estate centring on the Grange farmhouse. (fn. 232) This farm was leased by the Roman Catholic Biddulphs to the Bagnalls, also Roman Catholics, between at any rate the mid17th century and the end of the 18th century, (fn. 233) and it had become a Roman Catholic centre by the 18th century. (fn. 234) One of the Bagnalls was making butterpots there in the early 18th century. (fn. 235)

On the death in 1835 of John Biddulph of Burton upon Trent, the last of the senior male line of the family, his estates were divided between his coheirs, Thomas Stonor (Baron Camoys, 1839) of Stonor Park (in Pyrton parish, Oxon.), and Anthony George Wright of Burton-upon-Trent who in 1837 assumed the name of Biddulph. (fn. 236) They still held it in 1840, (fn. 237) but by 1842 the 220-acre Grange estate (fn. 238) had passed to Lord Camoys, (fn. 239) whose grandson still owned it in 1885. (fn. 240) Although by 1829 the part of the farmhouse formerly used as a Roman Catholic chapel was 'a mere thatched shed', (fn. 241) the farm still existed in the early 1920's, (fn. 242) but by 1958 the site was occupied by a small demolition works, the disused workings of the Grange Colliery, and a post-1945 housing estate.

Henry de Audley's grant of Rushton Grange to Hulton Abbey in 1223 included land called 'Mannesmor'. (fn. 243) Meadow called 'Monsmore' was part of the estate in 1539, (fn. 244) and in 1838 Mansmore was a large piece of land, including meadow, to the west of the farmhouse and crossed by the Trent-Mersey Canal. (fn. 245)

Other Estates

Bank House in Sneyd within Tunstall manor was occupied by William Stevenson in 1619 when the property was enfranchised by the Sneyds. (fn. 246) William was probably living there by 1598, (fn. 247) and he died there in 1653. (fn. 248) It was the home of his son William in 1657. (fn. 249) A Richard Badley was occupant in 1678, (fn. 250) but the Stevenson family were again living there between at least 1686 (fn. 251) and 1704. (fn. 252) By 1742 it was held by Thomas Harrison (fn. 253) whose family remained there until at least 1807 when another Thomas Harrison died there. (fn. 254) It was on the same site that in 1828 Richard Riley built the present Bank House, 'a showy mansion on the summit of the ridge' above the Hamil, on the east side of the present High Lane. (fn. 255) Riley died before taking possession, and the house, though offered for sale in 1829, (fn. 256) was owned in 1848 with some 10 acres of land by Mary and Elizabeth Riley who had leased it out. (fn. 257) Still a private residence in 1916, (fn. 258) the house was taken over after the First World War by the Burslem Suburban Club and Institute, (fn. 259) its present (1960) occupants. It is a tall square stucco building with castellated parapets and angle turrets.

The Big House, which stands on the corner of Wedgwood Street and Moorland Road, was built in 1751 by Thomas and John Wedgwood, fifth and sixth sons of Aaron Wedgwood (d. 1743) and the first master-potters to make the manufacture of pottery a large-scale commercial undertaking rather than a domestic industry. (fn. 260) Thomas died childless in 1776 and John in 1780 when the Big House estate and potworks passed to Thomas, John's second son. (fn. 261) By 1816 Thomas had sold the Big House potworks, which was situated to the rear of the house, (fn. 262) but he continued to live at the house, dying unmarried in 1826. (fn. 263) It presumably passed to his elder brother John, of Bignall End, who died in 1838 and whose disputed inheritance eventually passed to the Woods of Brownhills, the heirs-at-law as descendants of John Wedgwood of the Big House. (fn. 264) The house was the home of his friend Enoch Wood's eldest son Enoch in 1829, (fn. 265) but by 1834 was in the hands of John Irvin Holden. (fn. 266) In the 1850's the house was occupied by John Wedg Wood of the Woodlands Pottery, Tunstall (d. 1857), a younger son of John Wood of Brownhills and a greatgrandson of the John Wedgwood who built the Big House. (fn. 267) The home in 1860 of George Alcock, (fn. 268) the house had by 1879 become the premises of the Burslem Conservative Club, (fn. 269) which retained it until 1922 when the Midland Bank, the present occupants, took it over. (fn. 270)

The Birch House, on the west side of what was later Swan Square, (fn. 271) was occupied in 1569 by Richard Daniel (fn. 272) and was held of the Sneyds' manor of Tunstall by members of the Daniel family until at least 1677. (fn. 273) It was evidently enfranchised with most of the land in the Sneyds' part of Tunstall manor in 1619. (fn. 274) In 1742 the tenant was Urian Leigh (fn. 275) and c. 1750 Joshua Ball. (fn. 276) The house was still standing in 1838 (fn. 277) but no longer exists.

The Brick House, on the east side of what was later St. John's Square, was occupied in 1657 by John Adams (d. 1687), whose pottery there is said to have been the earliest important potworks in Burslem. (fn. 278) The house and works were owned by this branch of the Adams family until the 19th century, although in the hands of tenants (including Josiah Wedgwood from 1762 until 1770) for most of the period after the death of John Adams in 1757. (fn. 279) In 1836 the property was divided, part of it being sold as the site for the Independent Chapel opened in 1838, part leased to Beech and Jones, potters, and the rest divided among several other tenants. (fn. 280) In 1840 the plot east of Brickhouse Street was sold to the tenant, a plumber and glazier, and after changing hands several times was conveyed c. 1879 to the Burslem Corporation for the extension of the Wedgwood Institute. (fn. 281) The remainder, except for Deans's printing works, was sold to William Beech in 1846, and after his death in 1864 the potworks was run by Beech and Podmore. (fn. 282) In 1876 part of these premises was sold to the Burslem local board for the new covered market and the rest to a Mr. Beardmore. (fn. 283)

The house, which was probably built before the middle of the 17th century, when the use of brick instead of timber was unusual enough to account for its name, was a small rectangular building with end gables and dormer windows to the attic story. (fn. 284) The mullioned and transomed windows may have been of stone. By the 19th century the works consisted of a large irregular group of two-storied brick ranges surrounding five bottle ovens. (fn. 285) The name survives in Brick House Street, running north from Queen Street and indicating the approximate site of the buildings.

Brownhills House and a pottery nearby were built by John Wood, son of Ralph Wood, after his purchase in 1782 of the property from which the Brownhills district takes its name and which had descended first in the Burslem family from at least 1590 and later in a branch of the Wedgwood family. (fn. 286) John Wood was murdered in 1797 by Dr. John Oliver, the disappointed suitor of John's daughter Maria. (fn. 287) He was succeeded by his son John who in 1830 demolished the factory, enlarged the house, and laid out the grounds, so that c. 1840 it was considered that Brownhills House could 'for amenity of situation challenge any residence within the borough'. (fn. 288) A 20-acre estate in 1848, (fn. 289) the property was still owned by the Wood family in 1912, (fn. 290) but it is now (1960) occupied by a girls' high school.

Brownhills Villa, 'an elegant house' to the west, was built in the 1830's by Howard Haywood and his brother Richard Howard Haywood, who had a brick and tile factory nearby. (fn. 291) It remained their home for some 40 years (fn. 292) but is no longer in existence.

Bycars (or Bycroft) House and farm in Sneyd, lying to the north-east of Burslem town where the name still survives in Bycars Road and Bycars Lane, was the home of Thomas Mitchell in 1658 (fn. 293) and of Daniel Nixon in 1742. (fn. 294) In 1760 an estate called 'the two Bicars', tenanted by Brindley and Rogers, was bought from Charles Crewe by John Wedgwood of the Big House. (fn. 295) The farmhouse had been pulled down by the 1830's when the name survived in the Bycars Colliery and Flint Mill. (fn. 296)

A house and lands to the south-east of Burslem church, the later Churchyard estate, were granted by one of the Audley barons to Thomas Crockett and his heirs apparently in the later 15th century. The rent of 20s. was to be paid to Burslem church to secure prayers 'for ever'. (fn. 297) By the early 16th century the estate had come into the hands of John Asbury whose son Thomas was curate of Burslem c. 1540– 55 and lived in 'the priest's chamber' in the house. (fn. 298) The estate passed to John's daughter Elizabeth and John Shaw her husband. (fn. 299) John Shaw died in 1599, (fn. 300) and in 1639 his son John, sexton of Burslem (d. 1640), being childless, sold the estate to John Shaw, son of his brother Thomas. (fn. 301) In 1640 the Rector of Stoke made an unsuccessful attempt to secure the estate as glebe; the 20s. rent was still being paid at this time. (fn. 302) John Shaw conveyed half the house and 50acre estate, with the reversion of the other half, to his daughter Margaret and Thomas, son of Gilbert Wedgwood, on their marriage in 1653. (fn. 303) Thomas, who built the potworks attached to the estate, (fn. 304) died in 1679, and in fulfilment of the terms of his will his widow and his father-in-law conveyed the house and lands to his son John Wedgwood. (fn. 305) A further unsuccessful attempt was made in 1679 to secure the estate for the church, this time by the curate of Burslem, (fn. 306) who, however, married Thomas's eldest daughter in 1681. (fn. 307) The estate passed to John Wedgwood's younger brother Thomas in 1680 when their mother remarried and John moved to the Overhouse. (fn. 308) Thomas was succeeded in the Churchyard estate in 1716 by his second son Thomas (fn. 309) and he in 1739 by his son Thomas who later inherited the Overhouse and moved there. (fn. 310) The Churchyard estate, still of 50 acres, passed to Thomas's son Thomas in 1773. (fn. 311) In 1780 it was sold to Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria, who was uncle of this last Thomas. (fn. 312) Josiah had himself been born at the Churchyard House in 1730 and had served his apprenticeship to his eldest brother at the adjoining works from 1744 to 1749. (fn. 313) Thomas may have retained a lease of it, for in 1788, the year after his death, it was let to Joseph Wedgwood, a distant relative of Josiah and husband of his niece Mary. When Josiah died in 1795 the estate was sold to Thomas Green, (fn. 314) and the house was probably demolished at this time to allow for the extension of the factory buildings. (fn. 315)

Eliza Meteyard, writing c. 1865, gives an engraving of the building and a detailed description of its internal arrangements. (fn. 316) Much of her information is evidently based on memories handed down from a previous generation. It appears to have been a typical small farmhouse of the late 16th or early 17th century, timber-framed and with a thatched roof.

The Cobridge Gate estate was originally part of the Biddulphs' Rushton Grange property and was sold by them in 1672 to the Stevensons, who were already tenants. (fn. 317) In 1729 the Stevensons sold most of the estate, then in the tenure of Randall Bagnall, to John Adams of Birches Head and Ralph Taylor of the Old Hall, Hanley. (fn. 318) John Adams sold a small part of his share in 1750 to Joseph Warburton, husband of his distant relative Mary Adams, (fn. 319) and the remainder of this moiety was divided at John's death in 1753 between his two youngest sons, Joseph and Benjamin. (fn. 320) In 1769 Joseph's portion was bought by William Adams of the Brick House (fn. 321) who in the same year bought a potworks at Cobridge (fn. 322) and who in 1777 acquired Benjamin's share from Benjamin's son Thomas. (fn. 323) The Adams's moiety included Cobridge Gate House, cottages, lands, coal mines, and the Bull's Head Inn at Sneyd Green. (fn. 324) In 1790 William Adams also bought the other moiety from Ralph Taylor's nephew and great-nephews, the Heaths. (fn. 325) From c. 1769 to 1806 he was acquiring other land in Cobridge from the Daniel, Bourne, Hales, and Warburton families, and besides making pottery he was also mining extensively in Cobridge. (fn. 326) He demolished Cobridge Gate House c. 1780 and built on its site Cobridge Hall with gardens, a park, and a drive running up from what is now Vale Place, the southern extension of Waterloo Road. (fn. 327) He died in 1831 (fn. 328) and the hall and a 31-acre estate remained the home of his unmarried sons and daughters, the youngest of whom, Mary, died in 1869. (fn. 329) This branch of the Adams family then came to an end, and most of the property passed to the descendants of Mary's aunt Lucy Daniel. (fn. 330) The hall was being demolished in 1913. (fn. 331)

Cobridge Cottage, situated off Elder Road in the area of the later Grange and Mawdesley Streets, was occupied by Ralph Stevenson, a potter, between at least 1803 and 1818. (fn. 332) In the 1820's it was a convent (fn. 333) and by the 1830's the home of Samuel Alcock, a potter. (fn. 334) Cobridge Cottage had been demolished by 1913. (fn. 335)

A house called the Hadderidge was built after the middle of the 18th century on land of that name which lay on the road leading south-west out of what was later St. John's Square. (fn. 336) The land had been in the Adams family since the 16th century or earlier, (fn. 337) and in or after 1736 was leased with a potworks by Ralph Adams of the Brick House to his son-in-law John Shrigley, who moved away c. 1750. (fn. 338) Ralph's son William Adams sold the house, pottery, and much of the estate to his brother-in-law Thomas Heath in 1806. (fn. 339) Dying unmarried in 1829, Thomas was succeeded by his sister Sarah Adams (d. 1846), a widow from 1829; her sons for a time ran the Hadderidge works and later leased it out. (fn. 340) On the dissolution of the family partnership in 1853 William Adams, one of these sons, took over the Hadderidge and Greenfield (Tunstall) estates and works, having in 1836 bought the Lower Hadderidge—part of the Hadderidge estate not included in the 1806 sale— from the Cobridge Hall branch of the Adams family. (fn. 341) The estate passed to William's son William, who succeeded in 1865. (fn. 342) The name of the estate survives in the streets called Lower and Upper Hadderidge, and the house and works still stand. (fn. 343)

By the 1750's the Ivy House, with potworks attached, stood to the north-west of the Big House. (fn. 344) Owned by John and Thomas Wedgwood of the Big House, the property was leased in 1759 to Josiah Wedgwood, their distant relative, who then began working on his own account for the first time. (fn. 345) He gave up the house and pottery in 1762, moving to the Brick House, (fn. 346) but c. 1774 he made an offer to buy the Ivy House and works from the Big House Wedgwoods who, however, would not sell. (fn. 347) The property evidently passed with the Big House to John Wedgwood's son Thomas (d. 1826), (fn. 348) and it was sold in 1831 and 1834 to the market commissioners who demolished the buildings and incorporated the site in the new market-place. (fn. 349) The Ivy House itself appears to have been little more than a cottage, built of brick or stone and having stone mullioned windows. It probably dated from the later 17th century. (fn. 350)

A house and land called Jackfield in the Hamil in Sneyd were occupied by Richard Leigh in 1640. (fn. 351) This had probably been the Leigh family's home since at least the beginning of the century (fn. 352) and thus the estate in Sneyd held by Thomas Leigh which the Sneyds enfranchised as lords of Tunstall manor in 1619. (fn. 353) The Leighs remained there at least until the death in 1748 of Margaret Leigh, 'the Burslem witch', (fn. 354) and c. 1758 the estate was in the hands of Joseph Booth. (fn. 355) By 1760 it was held by the Bennett family, (fn. 356) and by the late 1830's John Bennett was evidently owner as well as occupier. (fn. 357)

Another estate at Jackfield was held in 1657 by John Malkin whose son Thomas succeeded him there in 1683. (fn. 358) Thomas Malkin, probably Thomas's son, (fn. 359) was making black and mottled pottery at the Hamil in the early 18th century. (fn. 360) In 1752 Jonah Malkin sold this Jackfield estate to his wife's brother, John Wedgwood of the Big House (d. 1780), who left it to his youngest son Richard (d. unmarried 1787). (fn. 361) It passed to John's eldest son John Wedgwood of Bignall End (d. 1838), and after a long dispute the ownership probably passed to the Woods of Brownhills as heirs-at-law of this branch of the Wedgwood family. (fn. 362) In 1848 the farm was held by John Dean who was still living at the Hamil in 1860 as a farmer, colliery agent, and brick and tile manufacturer. (fn. 363)

The whole Jackfield area is now occupied by housing of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (fn. 364)

The Burslem family were living at Burslem by the end of the 13th century. (fn. 365) By the end of the 16th century their Burslem house was Dale Hall, (fn. 366) but they had also acquired the Park estate in Oldcott. (fn. 367) By 1616 they had moved their Burslem home to the Overhouse on Burslem Bank, (fn. 368) and on the division of the family estates in that year the Overhouse and Dale Hall were assigned to Thomas Burslem, his younger brother Robert taking the Park estate. (fn. 369) When Thomas died in 1628 both the Burslem properties passed to his younger daughter Katherine and her husband William Colclough. (fn. 370)

Katherine died at the Overhouse in 1669 and under the terms of the will of her son John Colclough (d. 1666) the house and some 100 acres in Burslem and Sneyd passed to her nephew Thomas Wedgwood of the Churchyard House, second son of Katherine's elder sister Margaret and her husband Gilbert Wedgwood. (fn. 371) Thomas Wedgwood died in 1679 and on his widow's remarriage in 1680 the Overhouse passed to his son John (fn. 372) who died in 1705 with his daughter Katherine as his heir. (fn. 373) Thrice widowed, she died as Katherine Egerton at the Overhouse in 1756 and the house and some 160 acres in and near Burslem, 59 acres of it in hand, went to Thomas son and heir of her cousin Thomas Wedgwood of the Churchyard. (fn. 374) In 1742, however, Thomas was either already living at the Overhouse or working the pottery attached to the estate. (fn. 375) His son Thomas succeeded in 1773 and died in 1787 with a son Thomas, a minor, as his heir; the potworks was by then leased out. (fn. 376) In 1810, a year after the death of this next Thomas, the Overhouse estate was sold to a Christopher Robinson, and he later sold it to John Wood who in turn sold it to a Mr. Challinor c. 1860, (fn. 377) probably Edward Challinor who had bought the pottery in 1819. (fn. 378) The house, rebuilt as a small double-fronted structure of brick evidently in the late 18th or early 19th century on 'the site of the old timber-built manor-house', (fn. 379) was occupied by the Twigg family about the middle years of the century (fn. 380) and was still a private residence in 1924. (fn. 381) It still (1960) stands, though in an altered form, and is occupied as offices. The potworks is still in operation.

Dale Hall, in the tenure of a Thomas Robinson in 1666, passed on Katherine Colclough's death in 1669 to Burslem Wedgwood, her great-nephew. (fn. 382) He may have been living there in 1673, (fn. 383) but the hall had evidently been abandoned by the early 18th century. (fn. 384) The site is thought to be in the built-up area south-east of St. Paul's churchyard. (fn. 385)

Sneyd farm was in existence by 1657 when it was occupied by a Thomas Bayley. (fn. 386) By 1719 it was held of Tunstall manor by George Parker of Macclesfield (Earl of Macclesfield from 1732), who was then mining there. (fn. 387) The farm was in the hands of a tenant, William Baddeley, in 1742. (fn. 388) The house, called Sneyd House by the early 19th century, (fn. 389) and a farm of 162 acres were owned by the Earl of Macclesfield in 1848 and tenanted by a William Heath. (fn. 390) The property was described c. 1838 as 'abounding, like all the rest of the hamlet, with mines of coal and ironstone'. (fn. 391) The house was still a private residence in 1940 when it was destroyed during an air-raid, and the site has since been taken over by the National Coal Board. (fn. 392)

James Tellwright ('Telryche') held a house and copyhold estate at Sneyd within the manor of Tunstall in 1549. (fn. 393) The house and land, known as Stanfields by the early 19th century and situated on the hillside below High Lane, (fn. 394) were enfranchised by the Sneyds in 1619 (fn. 395) and remained in the occupation of the Tellwright family until the death in 1828 of John Tellwright, a coal master, 'a man of primitive speech and manners, wholly unalloyed by the refinements of modern times'. (fn. 396) Most of the property passed to his eldest son, William Tellwright of Biddulph, formerly a tilewright and c. 1838 described as 'a respectable yeoman'. (fn. 397) By 1848 the 33-acre Stanfields farm was held of him by Samuel Cork, still the tenant in 1854. (fn. 398) Some outbuildings still standing on the waste-ground north of Dolly's Lane (1958) may have belonged to this farm.