Staffordshire getting a flag

To see the flag of Staffordshire flying anywhere is pretty rare, but then there is some confusion about what the flag is.  The flag in this photo is actually the flag of Staffordshire County Council.  
I saw this example in Tunstall, outside the Brittain Adams company offices. (Brittain Adams is a long standing local firm).

With Staffordshire Day coming up soon, there is a proposal to adopt this flag as the proper one for the county.  However, one action group is lobbying hard for a version of the flag that omits the heraldic lion altogether. If you live in Staffordshire, you can vote online for which version you prefer. Voting ends this Sunday.

A separate flag design, based more profoundly on the Stafford Knot than this one, has not yet matured I believe.

Past in the present

Lambert Street in Tunstall is another of those terraced streets in the former industrial quarters of Stoke-on-Trent which has probably not changed much in appearance for a hundred years.

Yes, the 'backs' has had a fresh layer of tarmac (over cobbles probably) and a modern street-light has been installed, but the brick-walls would be as familiar to the families who lived there in 1900 as they are to those who live there now.

Where Stoke-on-Trent all began

This is - arguably - the place that the Potteries was launched as a modern industrial centre. 
Here at the very undistinguished Bridge 129 (Brownhills) Josiah Wedgwood made the first cut, in July 1766, on what was to become the Trent & Mersey Canal, one of the great highways of central England.

Without the canal, would the Potteries have been able to develop?

Memorial gardens' skateboarder

The community mural at the Tunstall Memorial Gardens is a little chipped and faded now, but still has a charm.  I particularly like the blue skateboarder pictured at the base of Tunstall's famous clock tower.

The poppies and wooden crosses remind the viewer that the mural forms part of the town's war memorial space.

Big words in Tunstall

They took themselves very seriously, the burghers of old.  Here on the facade of the town hall at Tunstall, one of the great Victorian industrial towns, you can just see the words 'Truth and Justice' inscribed above the capitals, though they are much faded now.
(In fact, the town hall is much faded - being just a shell of a building, most of it).

Would anyone dare write such portentous words on any public building today?

Houses with style

I can't help thinking that these decorative porch tiles are lovely - and worth preserving.  It's not unusual to see them in older houses in Stoke-on-Trent, though there are fewer as householders often pull them out nowadays; I saw these in Stanley Street in Tunstall, in a row of late Victorian houses.

Yes, the arrangement is a bit predictable, being all in patterns of squares and rectangles, but - can you imagine modern housing estates incorporating anything like so darned attractive as these?  They just add... some style.

This post was featured on the City Daily Photo's Theme Day pages

Just missed it at the Floral Hall

With photography, you often wonder what 'might have been'.  This could have been a great photo, but the people are out of symmetry to the window-frame; and I didn't realise at the time that a poster is coming out of the girl's head.  Ah well.

The shot was taken in the cafe at the Floral Hall, the slightly old-fashioned pavilion & dance-hall sited deep in Tunstall Park.  I like going there; it's quiet, and the atmosphere makes one feel one is being transported back to the 1950s.
But the volunteers who run the cafe are cheerfully casual and friendly.

Sign reflects Victorian confidence

This marvellously intricate piece of wrought-iron work hangs outside Tunstall Library, and says on it 'Tunstall Free Library'.  Quite why the sign is needed is a mystery as Tunstall Library, a great piece of Victorian Gothic architecture, is absolutely massive, and you couldn't miss it if you wanted to.

However, such a grandiose piece of artwork (and the library building itself) shows the huge confidence of those late Victorians. Tunstall was then an important industrial town, in the middle of a country that commanded the largest empire ever seen on Earth. I guess this sign rather reflects that feeling.

Robbie Williams lived here...

The city of Stoke on Trent has recently been celebrating the fortieth birthday of the pop singer Robbie Williams.  Robbie was born in Stoke.

For a while he and his family lived on Victoria Park Road in Tunstall, opposite the park - and now a blue plaque on the park's gate-posts marks the fact.

I always thought that the best local tribute to Robbie came from the BBC Staffordshire website, which depicted his life in a series of photos - in which a doll stood in for the pop-hero!  You may agree (or not) - click here to see the life-story.

Clay pit - makes pool

Huge 'marl holes' dot much of North Staffordshire - places where clay was dug out and dug out and dug out... and dug out.
Abandoned marl holes flood - and then create pools.  Like this one near Tunstall.

Philanthropist's tower

This rather elegant clock-tower stands in the centre of Tunstall, one of the six Potteries towns. It was erected at the end of the nineteenth century.

It has a rather touching dedication, being in honour of local aristocrat Sir Smith Child who "sought to brighten the lives of the working classes" through his philanthropic donations.

Mitchell memorial

Yes, this is a SuperMarine plane etched into the bank of this roundabout. I'm sure you guessed that.

This shape, on the northern Tunstall by-pass, is a tribute to the aircraft designer RJ Mitchell, who was born hereabouts.  He also designed the more famous Spitfire.

The work is already beginning to show wear, sadly. 
It is not even that clear what it is, unless you know.
I have a feeling it won't be there much longer.

Misty day in the cemetery

Misty autumn day today, though the temperatures are still in the 'mild' range.

Tunstall Cemetery runs up the side of a long hill, so the graves at its top look out over the valley.

Landlord is just a walk-over

Arthur Rigby was, the story goes, such a popular landlord at The Wheatsheaf Pub in Tunstall that the regulars had this mosaic threshold made in his memory when he died in 1937. He'd been the publican there for almost thirty years.

The Wheatsheaf holds on to its traditions so much that the mosaic is still there to this day, and you too can remember Arthur as you walk in its front door.

Tunstall Shard sucks up light

The Tunstall Shard is a spectacular piece of large modern sculpture standing slap bang in the shopping area of Tunstall.
It’s made of stainless steel and reflects sunlight fiercely. Local people are really proud of it.  More than one stopped to talk to me and praise it as I stood looking at it.

Somehow, in the taking of this photo, the light from the sculpture sucked up all the luminescence, making the rest of the scene look dark somehow.
Don’t know how that happened.

Contemplating nature in a pit

There aren't many spots in grimy old Stoke on Trent where one can truly relax and also contemplate Nature.

Westport Lake may be an exception. It's still quite busy with dog walkers and so on, and it's now acquired a visitor centre, but it seems a calm place to me.
You'd hardly believe that it's hidden behind one of the most run-down parts of the city, though, yes, it is a regeneration project - in which a nature reserve has been created out of what was an old marl pit.

There is a story that it was the site of a former ground for Port Vale FC before the ground just sunk away and forced the club to move on. That can't be true, can it?