THREE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS AGO

This may seem to be a ridiculous place to start. Stoke-on-Trent hardly existed as a City 300 mya, even the Dinosaurs had yet to make an entrance. However, the swamps at this time formed an important step towards the evolution of the Potteries.

It was these swamps that created the rich coal seams that were to make the area popular for industry. From them grew a coal, steel, pottery and brick-manufacturing centre. Marl deposits saw the manufacture of pottery far out reach the other growth industries locally except maybe the precious coal mining.

The area was not heavily populated before the Industrial Revolution, but there was settlements in the area going way back. Indeed, stone monuments exist from prehistoric times, when the climate was similar to the modern day Mediterranean. A famous local one is called the Bride Stones but that was much later than 300 mya.

The Bride Stones

---

THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO

This village would be typical 3000 ya. The roundhouses would be wattle and daub with a thatched roof. A central fire would provide cooking and heating for this one room family accommodation in a desirable area. Okay, so you're not looking to buy...

The people are harder to describe. According to popular history Celts have not yet settled the Holy Islands as Britain and Ireland were known. The previous settlers undoubtedly encompassed the peoples referred to as 'Beaker People' from the Med and the lifestyle was particularly alike with the later Bronze Age Celtic culture. Their religion was very similar to the Celts also and an easy alliance of the two belief systems evolved but the stones seem to be attributed to these earlier inhabitants. As the Celtic influence and population grew, the stones fell into disuse, the Celts favouring their beloved woodland as it brought them closer to their gods within creation. Celts were here though and the most well known settlement was on top of a large hill that was later named Penchetel. The village also became known as Penchetel. After the Celts settled here though someone else came along and settled , the Romans.

The Beaker People were so called as they made crockery such as the type of ceramic mug (or beaker) that is popular today. They were quite adept potters in fact but there is no hint that they started the ball rolling here. It's a fun thought though!

In saying that, it had been popularly believed that pottery making came into its own here during the great Industrial Revolution but recent finds at the Millennium have proved that at least one cottage industry thrived here 600 - 800 ya. It is unlikely to have been an isolated workshop.

The next significant step towards local history was undoubtedly the Annexation of Britain by the Roman Empire. We've skipped the Iron Age and the golden days of Celtic Britain but in many ways, lifestyle changed little throughout that time and no special Potteries connection can really be made yet.

Figure 1 below shows settlement in the area before the Roman occupation.

Fig. 1a		Fig. 1b

The Roman influence was felt throughout Britain and although the Potteries was towards the Northern fringes of this influence, signs and records exist of Roman settlement though this may have been insular adoption of Roman ways and signs of advanced trading. No records exist to prove a definite link but it is likely that the Legions had identified an ancient travel route between the Welsh and Pennine mountain ranges. In this case, extensive settlement will not be evident but all the hallmarks of supply stops and the natural trading settlements can be picked out. See figure 2 below:

Fig. 2a		Fig. 2b

After the Romans left, the area fell once again into Celtic rule until the weight of numbers of Saxon settlers saw the Celts ever pushed into mountainous and coastal areas in the West and North. The importance of travel saw a continuance of settlement in the area with some places such as Penchetel mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 and an important Abbey was established in medieval times at Hulton (the nearby modern settlement is now called Abbey Hulton). Penchetel still thrives under the name of Penkhull and it stands above the town that grew up much later and gave its name to the City.

In fairness though, we need to get to the formation of the City and to do this we will jump ahead for a general overview. From there the reader will have the opportunity to step back again to the origins of the towns that form the City of Stoke-on-Trent. Now is perhaps the time to mention a long begrudged insult and why the City is unique.

A famous son of the City, Arnold Bennett, wrote successful fiction that put the area in the front row so to speak. Bennett wrote fictional work about a Northern City that was an amalgamation of towns. If this sounds like a pretty transparent inkling of it being non-fiction then reading the work doesn't prove otherwise. It was evident that Bennett's fictional places were really the towns of Stoke-on-Trent and little was done to mask the truth. And this is where the hurt began. Six towns form the actual City yet Bennett talks of only five towns.

The work was read with apprehension. Who had been left out? Which town had Bennett thought so insignificant as to be left out of his work? Who had been spurned?

The answer was Fenton. So transparent were the towns in Bennett's work that it was glaringly obvious who was tossed aside, and it was met with fury. The people of Fenton were not only unhappy they were livid. The insult was extreme. And the hurt lingered for many long years.

Perhaps Bennett only wished to emphasize the work as fiction and not to be about Stoke-on-Trent at all and therefore only chose five towns for this imaginary place. In which case it was an ill thought out plan when the towns, the politics and the events were a slimly veiled cover of the City. Perhaps he held contempt or only disregard for Fenton. All these things are possible and maybe an even simpler explanation is true, either way the die was cast and Bennett was hated by a population with a focus in times when there was little to do but survive each miserable day in a dense industrial town.

The amalgamation of the six towns is the clue to the unique status of the City. Most cities grew from a settlement into a village, then into a town and finally a city. Because of this pattern of growth, cities form in a somewhat circular manner (not very geometric its true to say). None the less this is true. As a city grows it swallows up towns that used to be several miles away but still it grows outwards, maintaining the growth pattern in all directions.

Earlier, when discussing Roman settlement in the area it was pointed out that there was a natural transport corridor, a communications link as we now say, right through the Potteries that connects North and South between the two mountain ranges to the east and west. This led to a string of settlements going way into pre-history within this corridor.

The pre-Roman settlement map shows active population in the region even though the soil was not good for agriculture. This indicates other means of income. The type of income enjoyed on a trade route. Smiths, potters, weavers, traders, tanners, all would be active in such a place. Indeed any craft or skill in demand would be practised.

Evidence of these old settlements is scattered and disparate but we know that the area has always enjoyed a continued populace for millennia. So, what of the modern towns?

The towns today follow the ancient trade route and string north to south in a staggered line. With growth the towns, closely located, interrelated and started to form an indistinguishable mass along the main travel route. Talk of amalgamation began long before federation finally happened in 1910.

This makes the City linear. A condition only usually experienced in villages and to a lesser extent in towns. The modern City stretches between 16 - 20 miles north to south but is only a few miles wide. Indeed, ten minutes driving east or west will see you in open countryside.

There was another unique element that ceased to be in the latter stages of the twentieth century when more towns were upgraded to city status. Stoke doesn't have a cathedral and this was unknown for a City. Indeed, many of the objectors to the 1925 city award saw this as a more significant reason than the region really being an elongated link up of towns instead of the usual criteria of one town growing into city status.

In the next section the author will discuss a general growth of all the towns in the area and the move to form the City. It will be general by nature and more specific details on the individual towns and their contribution will be given in a section dedicated to the six towns that form the City.