Hatton's posh flats... and dilapidated gates

Another curious structure with an equally unexpected present is the late Victorian pumping station at Hatton.  This quite beautiful Italianate building, which once housed giant machinery, has been converted in recent years into ... luxury flats!  It makes an odd sort of sense...

But quite why the posh folk who live here allow the dilapidated old back-gates (still marked as the property of the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board) to the grounds to remain unrepaired and in situ is puzzling.
Is it a heritage thing?  Maybe.

Gates of Narcissus

Spring is here (well officially anyway).
One is reminded of this by the daffodil shoots that are already sprouting in gardens - and by this design of daffodils on the gates to Broughton Hall.  I don't know why the daffodils are so prominent - maybe the owner has adopted them as his symbol (?), though one wonders if that in turn may have to do with the Daffodil's more exact name, ie Narcissus... !

Puzzling vandalism

Now and again one comes across an instance of mindless vandalism that is so stupid it's startling.  (Fortunately, I don't see much mindless vandalism in my wanderings. Thank goodness).

However, this was odd.  The lock on the 200 year old iron gates to the churchyard at St Luke's in Cannock has been smashed off by someone - who would have had to bring along a sledgehammer with them...
And, erm, there's a permanently-open entry right next to the gates!
Working that one out has flummoxed me.

Three stars on a shield

This very very blue piece of heraldry can be seen on the gates of Cloister Lodge (the former lodge to Whittington Old Hall) in Whittington.  This is a close-up, and what you see beyond is the garden.

I was wondering for a while which family is represented by this coat of arms with three stars on a shield. 
Umm, it belongs to the Whittington family.  Was that obvious?

Broken once-palatial gates

The ancient iron gates that guard the perimeter of Patshull Hall on the extremes of the estate have, a lot of them anyway, fallen pretty much into disrepair, and are leaning over, crumbling, or overgrown.

However, underneath the decay, one can see the splendour that once was there.
This photo shows the top of one gate pillar (next to the estate church), with worn heraldic signs and what could be the broken sculpture of a small bird, but actually could be anything.
I suppose the decoration must be something to do with the Legge family, who owned the estate as the Earls of Dartmouth in the nineteenth century.

The gates that dazzle

A Stafford Knot entwined with a symbolic plant (a Tudor rose, I should think). Strange.
Anyway, this is the design on the gates at Maer Hall, a very grand building indeed.  I can't find out anything about this combination of or why it should appear on these gates.

It's likely the gates were built in the late nineteenth century when the Harrison family, a Liverpool ship-owning family, lived at the hall.

In the sunshine, this design fair dazzles one...

Stafford Knot - railway style

The ‘Stafford Knot’ is the symbol of Staffordshire - as I like to point out in this blog quite frequently!  The symbol is at least 500 years old (though some argue its origins go back a thousand years). Everywhere round here that a reference to the county comes up in a graphic form, you’re likely to see the Knot.

These old gates mark the entrance to a railway property in Stoke, which would have been owned by the North Staffordshire Railway Company up to the company's demise in the last century. The NSR used the Knot as a proud statement of its origins.

Link: Stafford Knot

Alien gates

I’m not sure I much like these school gates at Waterside Primary in Hanley.  There’s something very cold and prison-like about them, and the thin, weedy structures coming out the top of them resemble nothing so much (to me) as alien antennae or unfriendly CCTV.

I haven’t been able to find out the symbolism yet, though the school is called Waterside because it is next to the canal, and it prides itself on an environmentally-friendly policy. I guess the wave-forms could symbolise water…

Anyway, I pity the poor children who have to go through them every day.