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a walk along the Caldon Canal Eastwood, Hanley
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Eastwood,
Hanley
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The canal enters into the Eastwood, Joiners Square and Ivy House Estate area - which was a very industrial area with a number of large pottery companies. Some industry still remains.
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the route of the Caldon Canal
from Etruria to Froghall
The Eastwood area on the
Caldon Canal
Bridge
number 8 carries Lichfield Street over the Caldon Canal
Google Maps
in this 1880 map the
canal passes under Lichfield Street and enters Eastwood
A large number of brickworks, mills and pottery factories surrounded the canal area
Lichfield Street as it passes
over the canal
In purple is the Eastwood Works was built
in 1887 by Charles Meakin
- the works is now run by Emma Bridgwater, none of the bottle kilns remains.
Shown in green is the location of the former Bullers pottery factory - one of
the bottle kilns
remains - it is partly enclosed in the foyer of a housing
complex.
Google Maps
the Eastwood Works of Charles
Meakin - now operated by Emma Bridgewater
fronting the factory is Lichfield
Street running from Joiners Square at the bottom to Hanley at the top
| The Eastwood Works, a Nineteenth Century version of the
Eighteenth Century potworks model (it looks like a stretched version of
Boundary Works), sits alongside the Caldon Canal - which was still
used to transport ware to different parts of the site in relatively
recent times - off Lichfield Street in Hanley.
Eastwood Works was built in 1887 by Charles Meakin, and followed the late-Nineteenth Century trend of using iron beams and columns for support, and ensuring that rooms were larger than those in older potworks - the rooms at the Eastwood Works are 250 feet long - and larger windows and doors were used in order to create a greater sense of space and light. To the rear of the works stood a group of seven large bottle ovens known locally as 'the Seven Sisters'. However, the way in which the ovens were grouped meant that from whatever direction they were viewed, you could only see six at one time. The Seven Sisters have long since disappeared from the site, and just space remains. |
The 'Seven
Sisters' - J&G Meakins Eastwood Pottery
photo: 1958 © Donald Morris
The Caldon Canal ran in front of these amazing
bottle kilns - although there
were seven kilns in the group, only six were
ever visible to the viewer -
no matter where you stood one or another was
always hidden.
1907 advert for the Meakin
Eagle and Eastwood Works
advert from.....
1907
Staffordshire Sentinel 'Business Reference Guide to The Potteries, Newcastle
& District'
the Bridge public house on Lichfield Street c.1974
- the name of the pub comes from the bridge which carried Lichfield Street over
the Caldon Canal -
the vast frontage of the
Eastwood pottery factory casts a shadow across the road
in the right middle
ground the Inland Revenue offices "Blackburn House" are being built
photo: Ken and Joan Davis c.1974
Advert for Bullers at their
Joiners Square Works
from....
Prestige and Progress - A Survey of
Industrial North Staffordshire
1955 publication of North Staffordshire Chamber of
Commerce
Views from bridge No.8 on Lichfield Street
Emma Bridgewater's Eastwood Pottery
- on the right the bridge over the Caldon Canal
view from the bridge - just
past the loading point on the left stood the 'Seven
Sisters' bottle kilns
on the opposite side of the
canal to Bridgewaters is the bottle kiln of the former Bullers Works
Bridge No.8 in the foreground -
in the background is Endeka Ceramics
and to the right is the remains
of George Goodwin's Westwood Mills
Previous: Mousecroft,
Westwood