The Potteries Loop Line was completed as far as Burslem in 1873. Up to this point the mainline station at Longport had been named Burslem under the ownership of the North Staffordshire Railway Company. But from the day the Loop Line opened it became known as Longport. It is also interesting to note that on a 1902 map Burslem Loop Line station is referred to as Hamil Station; though in truth the station is clearly in Moorland Road.

Although the station was opened 1873 the stationmasters house wasn’t built until 1891. The current owners Carol and Geoff Hassall have lived here for the past 20 years. It is the only stationmasters’ house on the Loop Line to survive.

“The railway was apparently doing great business,” Carol tells me. “The house was built at a cost of £350; a substantial house complete with extensive gardens that were well looked after then and are Geoff’s pride and joy now.”

Stationmasters house on Moorland Road
This house is called Station House and was the Station Masters house when Burslem had a Railway Station. The lines ran along side this house and now form the greenway.
photo: © Futurilla - July 2007

Geoff recalls the house had been empty for 19 years before he and Carol moved in.

“I think it was occupied well after the railway closure,” he says. “A family named Shallcross owned it for some time before us and altered its original interior appearance. I’ve done a lot to restore it to its original form.”

Retired police chief, Tom Parton age 85, who lived the house for two years just after the war, agrees.

“It was a fine house and it is marvellous to see how Geoff and Carol have restored it,” says Tom. “My father Harry was the stationmaster from the early 1940’s until he died in 1968. By this time of course the Loop Line had closed but the company allowed him to stay on.”

Tom’s father lived for and loved the railway.

“I was five when my father was first appointed stationmaster at Norton-in-Hales. My childhood memory is being kept awake by the intermittent ding, ding of the level crossings, but I got used to it,” says Tom. “Harry Parton, as everyone knew him, was extremely well known in Burslem and was very popular in the local pubs. Once when I called at the Durham Ox looking for him I asked the landlord if he’d seen my father to which he answered, ‘Neow youth; he inner due in till 7.23’. A lovely example of Potteries humour.”

One person who knew the Loop Line and Burslem Station well was the author Arnold Bennett.

“He talks about the railway in several of his books and there’s little doubt he travelled on it frequently,” says Steve. “The reunion of sisters Constance and Sophia Baines in The Old Wives’ Tale records the meeting at Stoke Station and the transfer to the Loop Line train is evocative as they two old wives note the passing of forgotten landmarks. The sisters recite the names of the Loop Line Stations in the author’s literary names – Hanbridge, Bleakridge and Bursley where they alight and take a cab to the town centre.”

Bleakridge, Cobridge in reality, was where the Bennett family lived. The station was built for rich people and it is where the most knowledgeable of all Loop Line aficionados are waiting to tell me all about it next week.