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Cobridge on the Potteries Loop Line


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Historian Fred Hughes writes....   

The North Staffordshire Railway Study Group was formed in October 1995 by people not only interested in the Knotty but explicitly to examine its common function and the communities it served. I could have benefited by meeting this group at any point along the Loop Line for its members know all there is to know about the legendary railway. Anyway Cobridge Station seems as good a stop as any to meet group members Mark Smith and David Moore.

Cobridge station looking towards Hanley
Cobridge station looking towards Hanley
Sneyd Street can be seen on the horizon
 

 

 
“Our society is entirely funded by members, many of whom come from across the world,” explains Mark a research manager at Keele University’s Institute for Science & Technology in Medicine. “The group formed in 1995 and to say we have an enthusiasm for railway is an understatement – we really are at the serious end of passion. It’s not simply the technology or love of steam trains but the social and economic history that goes with it. My interest comes from childhood. You could blame Thomas the Tank Engine, but realistically it was an uncle who was obsessive about steam trains.”

The attraction of the Knotty was its compactness. Retired IT technician David tells me it was the third smallest in the LMS group when it was taken over in 1923.

“Our group covers all aspects of the Knotty not just engines and trucks but the signalling and the stations and the compact aspect of the industry that it served,” he says.

“Potteries’ social history is explicit to our interests,” Mark continues. “The Knotty as a company held a unique place in the interrelationship with the district’s development. It wasn’t simply a network designed to link cities or to connect regions. It was designed by the people of the Potteries for the people of the Potteries because they realised their industry was expanding and railway was crucial to its progress.”

The first main line, constructed in 1840, was nowhere near the Potteries.

“In fact,” says David, “The nearest station serving the district was Whitmore where a horse-and-carriage facility was set up to carry passengers to the Potteries. This unsatisfactory service continued for some years before the Knotty was built, delayed to some extent by the owners and users of the Trent and Mersey Canal. You see the pottery industry had invested a huge amount of money in the canal system and it wasn’t about to lose its economic control without a fight. The success of the project relied on railway champions who were powerful people then.”
 

 

Historian Steve Birks theorises about the lack of railway champions today.

“There’ve been all sorts of tinkering with local railways,” he says. “Stone Station closed and reopened. Etruria gone and Longport closed. A good idea would be to build a station near the Festival Park serving the centre. But there seems to be a distinct disinterest by the districts administrators. There were champions in the 1840’s who responded to the needs of the people of the Potteries. If they hadn’t, it’s possible the railway would never have come here. Imagine what would have happened then. Would the industry have relocated? Certainly the best place for steel production is the coast. Clay was already being imported so the only resource being produced in North Staffordshire was coal.”


David takes up the point.

“Local railway pioneers, and particularly the Stoke MP and railway company director JL Ricardo, were important to our history,” he says. “They were social engineers as well as leaders. MPs were crucial because of the legislation required giving compulsory purchase powers to buy-up any land they needed. They also gathered common support by promoting the benefits of employment opportunities which independently brought economic growth to the district.”

Mark adds, “The major landowners in the Potteries were already making a mint out of mining so they had a vested interest in rail,” he says. “As shareholders they stood to gain from rival manufacturers in rail carriage. George Stephenson designed the Knotty route but left the mineral lines to the industrialists which subsequently accounted for the many miles of connecting rail from the manufacturing source.”

By the late Victorian period Cobridge passenger station was being used by the new rich who had settled in the big houses along Waterloo Road. The entrance to the station descended steeply from Elder Road where the cobbled gangway remains as a last reminder. David reckons Cobridge Station was an afterthought, which is probably why it was built of timber.

“Added in 1874 it was beautifully kept with immaculate gardens that probably reflected the status of those who occupied the new big houses,” he says. “From here the Loop Line ran through a tunnel immediately after leaving Cobridge Station reappearing near Vale Place where it entered a cutting through Century Oils.”

The knowledge the NS Railway Study Group has assembled on the Loop Line is vast, much of which is contained in its bi-monthly newsletter called Loop Lines. I’m pleased to say we’ve agreed to meet again at the end of the line in Etruria in a couple of week’s time.

 

more on Cobridge on the loop line

22 Dec 2008


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