Crumbling mausoleum

The old mausoleum housing the remains of the Parker-Jervis family is so completely overgrown and hidden that it's virtually impossible to get a photo of it.
It's sunk into a pit at the back of St Saviour's Church in Aston-by-Stone village, and even climbing down into the pit, to try to gain access to its door, is pretty difficult now (as you can see!).

Even though it's a listed building, now a 150 years old, it is showing signs of collapse too.

The whole churchyard at St Saviour's is littered with the graves of members of the Parker-Jervis line, which owned the adjacent Aston Hall too.

Link: Parker-Jervis Family Vault

This post has been featured on Taphophile Tragics (the cemetery-enthusiasts' website) 

Great mosque shows hubris

The City Central Mosque in Hanley is a fairly special building. As you can see, it has a huge great green dome, and, as it stands near the top of a hill, it can be seen from afar. It is one of the biggest places of worship in the whole of north Staffordshire. The Sunni Muslims who run it had hoped for great things from it.
However, especially in this month of Ramadan - a time for reflection -, this grand edifice is a warning as much as a triumph.

The fact is that, after five years of building, it is still not finished. Yes, there was a very unpleasant arson attack on it by a pair of racists, which did hold up work, but that was eighteen months ago; and it's now a puzzle as to why work seems to have been at a standstill for so long.


It seems like the Muslim community has just run out of money - despite having got the land for a peppercorn rent of just £1 a year. Admittedly we are in the midst of one of the worst economic recessions for a century, but, yes, something has gone wrong.
In the bid to make something huge and grandiose, pride has, in this instance, led to a considerable fall.

The Stoke-on-Trent Muslim Welfare and Community Association, which has responsibility for the project, say that the work will get back on track eventually, which it better be because already (see picture, left) the basic fabric is showing signs of disrepair, decay, and simple lack of maintenance. 


I, for one, really do hope that it is finished sometime. This district of Hanley needs a boost, and a finished, shiny new mosque would give it that boost.
But it's hard to know when completion will happen.

I am reminded by all this of Shelley's poem 'Ozymandias'

Staffordshire name slips away

The Staffordshire Building Society folded sometime ago - and I was only reminded of its existence when I came across this old photo of one of its Tamworth branches, which I had in one of the (very) deep folders on my computer.
Accordign to Wikipedia, The Staffordshire merged with The Portman in 2003, and The Portman in turn merged with nationwide in 2006.

I thought I'd mention this as it looks like the final form of the Staffordshire Regiment is now to be merged completely out of existence too under new government proposals.

Nationally-represented organisations with the name Staffordshire in them seem to be slipping away.

Skeleton in the window

The skeleton grins fiendishly out of this window at the walker who passes by this house in the village of Tong.

I had a theory that the owners were so fed up of people looking in the window (Tong is a very pretty village, and attracts tourists) that they placed the skeleton there to frighten them from doing it.
...but it draws attention to the window too, of course. So, that theory is not as solid as it might be.

Anyway, a resident told me it was doctors who live in this house - and maybe that explains the skeleton, which may be a sort of medical tool. Maybe.

A little bit of China

The so-called 'Pagoda Fountain' at Alton Towers is well away from the rollercoasters that the park is better known for.
Older folk (or people just tired of the hustle & bustle) can just take a left turn at Nemesis (which is a really terrifying ride), and find themselves in the tranquillity of the old landscaped gardens, which were created in the 1820s/30s.

The pagoda dates from the 1830s. To be honest, it is not so much authentic Chinese as a fantasy of China, but I like it.

The grave of, er, Little Nell...

But… Little Nell is a fictional character, from Charles Dickens’ novel 'The Old Curiosity Shop’ – I hear you cry – so how can there be a grave for her?!!   And you are quite right.

In the nineteenth century, an unscrupulous verger at Tong Church set up a rough grave with a few stones, and showed it, for a fee, to gullible tourists saying that this really was the little heroine’s last resting place.  The verger even faked a burial registry!
(Dickens had apparently revealed by this point that Tong had been the original for the village in which Nell dies in the book).

Of course, this deceit couldn’t go on, so the church authorities stepped in to stop it.
But the villagers wanted to keep the legend going, so the authorities didn’t actually ban the idea, they just insisted the word ‘reputed’ be put in…  
A very English compromise.

This post has been featured on Taphophile Tragics (the cemetery-enthusiasts' website) 

Art Deco faces bulldozer

This fabulous Art-Deco decorative piece on the front of The Bird In Hand pub in Oakhill tells a sad story. The pub closed down a while ago, and doesn’t look like re-opening.

To hear of yet another pub closing is not new, but people forget that some pubs really do have some remarkable assets in terms of popular art.
The rest of the pub’s façade is pretty dull; but I hope this section will be saved.

Kids' ceramic project

I was thinking about yesterday’s post – the one about the marvellous porcelain statuette made in the Potteries – and realised that not only are a lot of pottery skills like that being lost, but that nobody is teaching them any more.

It might come as a shock (it did to me) to realise that pottery is no longer a degree course at Staffordshire University. It has been subsumed into something called ‘3D Design’. Trouble is: few students want to learn pottery skills.

So shocked were some people by this that they started ‘Firing Up’, a ceramic project for schools, which is supported jointly by Staffordshire University’s Design Department and the Crafts Council.
This is some of the kids’ work.

Potteries Venus

The Staffordshire ‘Potteries’didn’t just produce cups and saucers. This beautiful piece, in Parian porcelain, was produced at the Ridgways factory (John Ridgway, Bates & Company – to be exact) in Hanley in 1858. It was based on the statue 'Venus & Cupid' aka Venus Verticordia by the famous sculptor John Gibson

It’s astonishing to me that such a fine piece could be fired from what is basically... clay.

You’ll find this piece in the Industrial Gallery of Birmingham Museum. I guess the Museum sees it as a factory item, not a work of art in its own right. Hmm.

Bored teenagers

Are there bored teenagers all over the world?

This pair were unimpressed by all the activity around them at this village festival. Out of picture is a rock band trying very hard to put on a show for everyone.  These two were definitely not interested...