Broad Street, Hanley, from Ashworth's chimney

Staffordshire's potteries working at full blast

At Hanley, Staffs, one of the original Five Towns made famous by Arnold Bennett’s novels, kilns and smokestacks are seen working at full blast in this scene observed from above by the camera in 1930. Hanley was an important manufacturer of china and earthenware from the 18th century onwards. Since 1910 with the other Potteries towns, it has been subsumed in the borough of Stoke on Trent, but is still an important commercial and ceramics centre