map showing the locations in  North Staffordshire 
covered by the Pirehill and Totmonslow Hundreds

- those marked in red eventually became the Stoke-on-Trent area - 

Pirehill

• Named after Pire Hill, south of Stone.

• Probably the site where the Hundred court met.

• The name may mean "look-out hill" or possibly refer to a beacon hill.

Totmonslow

• Named after a mound or hill near Draycott in the Moors.

• Derived from an Old English personal name ("Tatmon") plus hlaw (mound or hill).

• The Hundred court met there.

Pirehill  (Summary of a 1851 gazetteer entry):

Pirehill was the largest of Staffordshire’s five Hundreds, covering much of the central and southern part of the county, including the area that would later become the Potteries. It was notable for both its fertile agricultural land and its important centres of industry, particularly earthenware and china manufacture in North Staffordshire, and the shoe trade at Stafford and Stone.

• The Hundred stretched from the Trent valley south-eastwards for around 28 miles, and was bounded by Totmonslow to the north-east, Offlow to the east, Cuttlestone to the south, and Shropshire and Cheshire to the west. 

• The River Trent and the Trent and Mersey Canal formed key transport routes through the area, later reinforced by major railway lines.

• Pirehill included the boroughs of Stoke-upon-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme, together with parts of Stafford and numerous market towns and villages, many of which formed the early settlements of the Potteries. 

• Its population increased rapidly during the nineteenth century, driven largely by industrial growth.

Totmonslow (Summary of a 1851 gazetteer entry):

Totmonslow (or Totmanslow) formed the north-eastern Hundred of Staffordshire and covered much of the upland Moorlands, a landscape of hills, valleys, and moorland broadly similar to the neighbouring Peak District.

• The area is shaped by the river valleys of the Dove, Churnet, Dane, Blythe, and others, which cut through the higher ground and provided the main centres of settlement. 

• It was bounded in part by the River Dove to the east and the River Dane to the north, stretching from the moors near Flash down to Uttoxeter.

• Although largely rural, Totmonslow included several important market towns such as Leek, Cheadle, Uttoxeter, and Longnor, along with many smaller parishes and townships. In the nineteenth century it was increasingly connected by canals and railways, improving links with the industrial Potteries to the west.

Gazetteer entry for Pirehill - 

"Pirehill, one of the most populous and largest of the five Hundreds of Staffordshire, is as remarkable for the fertility of its soil, for the beauty and diversity of its scenery, and the number and beauty of its seats of nobility and gentry, as it is for the extent and importance of its manufactures of earthenware and china, in the long chain of towns and villages called the Potteries, and of shoes at Stafford and Stone.

It is about 28 miles in length, and from 8 to 15 in breadth, and is bounded on the north-east by Totmonslow, on the east by Offlow, on the south by Cuttlestone Hundred, and on the west and north-west by Shropshire and Cheshire.
The River Trent rises at its northern extremity, and flows through it in a south-easterly direction, passing the noble seats of Trentham, Ingestre, Shugborough, and Wolseley, and nearly parallel with that river runs the Trent & Mersey Canal, which has branches to Stafford, Newcastle, etc.

This large Hundred is also traversed by the North Staffordshire and the Grand Junction (or Birmingham & Liverpool) Railways, which have several branches.

It includes the boroughs of Stoke-upon-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme, and part of Stafford, and is divided into 43 parishes, which comprise about 150 townships, liberties and hamlets, and many chapelries or district parishes. Besides Stoke, Stafford and Newcastle, it has seven other market towns, Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley & Shelton, Longton, Stone, Eccleshall, and Abbot's Bromley.

It is divided into North and South Divisions, and is all in the Northern Parliamentary Division of Staffordshire, in the Diocese of Lichfield, Archdeaconry of Stafford, and Deaneries of Newcastle and Stone.

Its population has increased rapidly during the last half century, from 64,946 in 1801, to over 150,000 in 1851. The great bulk of this augmentation has occurred in the three parishes of Burslem, Stoke-upon-Trent, and Wolstanton, which include the Potteries."

From History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, William White (Sheffield: William White, 1851).

Gazetteer entry for Totmonslow Hundred -

"Totmonslow, or Totmanslow, is the north-eastern Hundred of Staffordshire, and contains that mountainous region called the Moorlands, which adjoins and partakes of the general character of the Derbyshire Peak, abounding in lime, coal and stone.

This bleak and alpine district exhibits many of the wildest and most stupendous features of nature, as well as some of her more chaste and fertile beauties, the latter of which are confined chiefly to the narrow and picturesque valleys of the rivers Dove, Manyfold, Hamps, Tean, Blythe, Dane, and Churnet, which have their principal sources in this Hundred, and here receive many small but rapid streams from the high, peaty moorlands and rocky mountains which rise in picturesque disorder, and shut in the fertile pastures of the glens and valleys.

The Hundred is of irregular, oval figure, stretching from the three shires stone, above Flash, southwards to Uttoxeter, a distance of 25 miles, and averaging from 10 to 15 miles in breadth. The River Dove forms its eastern boundary for nearly 30 miles, and separates it from Derbyshire, and from about 10 miles at its northern extremity, it is divided from Cheshire by the River Dane.

The southern and eastern parts of it are traversed by the Uttoxeter and Caldon Canals, and by the Churnet Valley and North Staffordshire Railways.

It contains four market towns, Leek, Longnor, Cheadle, and Uttoxeter, and about 70 townships, comprised in ten chapelries and thirty parishes. They are divided into North and South Divisions, and Mr William Keats, of Leek, is the High Constable of the former, and Mr J Kidney, of Uttoxeter, of the latter. The whole Hundred is in the Northern Parliamentary Division of Staffordshire, and in the Rural Deaneries of Alstonfield, Cheadle, Leek, and Uttoxeter."

From History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, William White (Sheffield: William White, 1851).