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Philip Clarke Drive, STOKE-ON-TRENT, ST4 6FJ

This house at the corner of Minton Street and Vicarage Road appears to have once been the start of something bigger. Beyond it is the Hartshill Local Nature Reserve.

I snapped this interesting back alley whilst I was making my way into Newcastle in rush hour traffic one night. The house at the end seems a mish mash of styles - there is a fairly ordinary house; then there is a fairly new garage; then there is that huge gate which spans the whole of the back garden, probably to allow someone to drive their car in. Those huge gateposts look like they belong to a much larger property. And the grass is so long - it looks like it's been some time since anyone has driven a car up there!

Formerly the school.

Seen from Vicarage Road to the north of Holy Trinity church.

Holy Trinity Church was built in 1842 at the expense of Herbert Minton, the pottery owner, by George Gilbert Scott. The church has an apse end of the chancel which was added later in the 1860s or 1870s. Inside there is a fantastic display of Minton tiles, so commonly used in Victorian churches but probably nowhere in such quality and quantity. There are tiles almost everywhere in the church - including the vestry beside the north entrance, along the aisle walls, behind the altar, and in the choir. There is also a memorial tile marking the grave of Herbert Minton himself

Parish church.1842 by George Gilbert Scott and Moffatt. Stone with plain tiled roof with scalloped bands. Decorated style with west tower and spire, nave with 2 aisles and clerestory, chancel.4-stage west tower with clasping buttresses terminating in pinnacles. West door with paired shafts to triple chamfered arch. 3-light window over then an oculus. Paired bell chamber lights. Trefoiled frieze below parapet. Spire with 2 tiers of lucarnes. South porch with shafts to moulded arch repeated on inner doorway. Nave of 4 bays divided by gableted buttresses, each with a 2-light traceried window. Corbels support projecting parapet. Low clerestory above, with quatrefoil windows. Ornate chancel: shafts with foliate capitals and hood moulds to windows. Inside, high arcade of 5 bays with clusters shafts carrying rib vaulted ceiling. Encaustic floor tiles throughout and tiled dado with high glazed frieze and quatrefoil memorial tiles inset. Original pews with poppy-head bench ends. Deep-moulded chancel arch. Wood reredos with interlace in panelling and riddle posts, installed as war memorial. Painted panelled ceiling to chancel, and vaulted roof over apse. Early-medieval-style stained glass to chancel, with small lozenges containing scenes, and Mannerist-style glass in south aisle of 1902-1904. The church was endowed by Herbert Minton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartshill,_Staffordshire http://www.thepotteries.org/listed/66a.html

Looking east.