IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Balliol Street, STOKE-ON-TRENT, ST4 7HQ

The stone reads :- This stone marks the entrance to the former Iron Age Fort and the Domesday Village of Pinchetel a Royal Manor from 1086 to the time of Edward II The hill-top village of Penkhull was probably the earliest inhabited place within the area now known as the Potteries, being settled by the Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons in turn. It was ideally situated by reason of its wooded hunting grounds, its clear views over the surrounding countryside and its closeness to the streams in the Lyme Valley on the western, and the Trent Valley on the eastern side. The village may have been protected by a primitive hill-fort, although no remains of such a construction have been discovered. In 1086, the Domesday Book described the Manor of Penkhull (which it called "Pinchetel") as a village of great size, with over 1,000 acres of arable land stretched out over parts of present-day Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hanley, Shelton, Stoke and Boothen. However, soon after this survey was taken, Penkhull began to decline in importance with the building of a New Castle nearby. A market town quickly grew up within sight of this castle and by the year 1173, the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme ("New Castle under the Elm Trees") had been established. This borough was to remain the largest centre of population and leading market town in the area for the next 600 years until the rise of the six towns now called Stoke-on-Trent. Domesday Listed as :- PENKHULL. Earl Algar held it. 2 hides, with its dependencies. Land for 11 ploughs. In lordship 2; 17 villagers and 6 smallholders with 8 ploughs. Meadow, 2 acres; woodland 1 league long and 2 furlongs wide. Value £6.

The trees help to contrast the old and the new.

The west front and main entrance to The Mount, a mansion built by Josiah Spode II. The house was built on the site of an old farmhouse between Penkhull and Hartshill around 1803-04 and is now a grade I listed building. Later the site of the North Staffordshire School for the Blind and Deaf (from 1897), it became the Willows Primary School in 2003. Neville Malkin's "Grand Tour" of the Potteries No.16 http://www.thepotteries.org/tour/016.htm

Shops on Hartshill Road - the junction with Geen Street just visible at the right. Advert reads: Hercules The modern cycle

Talbot Hotel is at the bottom of Trade Street, Church Street runs along the frontage. "A popular working-class activity, especially during the Wakes, was the game of 'prison bars'. It was played between two adult teams of eleven by the music of a flute or tin whistle and drum. The game entailed venturing from a den, and capturing opponents who would be taken into a 'prison' and held there until rescued by one of their team mates. It was not for the faint-hearted, and injuries were commonplace. It was played on fete days on the field - known as Prison Bar Meadow - attached to Norton Hall Farm, whilst a field behind Wedgwood's Etruria Works had been given in perpetuity to locals and that was christened Prison Bars Field. The Staffordshire Advertiser of August 10th 1850 records that during Stoke Wakes, prison-bar matches took place throughout the week on the race-course at Boothen. The men of Stoke parish beat those from Burslem parish, and all convened afterwards at the Talbot Inn, where the winners received half a sovereign each, and the losers a silk handkerchief each. There were also contests between factory teams from Stoke, Burslem, Hanley and Longton."

This is the lowest lock of a flight of five on the Trent and Mersey Canal in Stoke. I believe it was rebuilt here in the 1960s when the original line of the canal was moved to accommodate the new road system in the city. This lock has been fabricated out of concrete as opposed to the original which would have been made out of brick/stone.

Looking west.