Houses - nos. 1 & 2 The Villas, Stoke

Houses - nos. 1 & 2 The Villas, Stoke

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Pair of houses. Erected between 1851 and 1855 by Charles Lynam.

Stucco over brick with concrete tiled roof, and some Welsh slate on rear elevation. Italianate style, balanced asymmetry with projecting gables each side of central range in angle with advanced outer gables.

Round-arched sash windows arranged as single lights over doorways, and elsewhere variously grouped as 2, 3 or 4-light mullioned windows. Additional gabled range to SW, and tower to rear. Gable and axial stacks.

Built as part of a private development of middle class housing laid out as a small estate which originally comprised 24 houses.

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no 1 The Villas

photos:  Steve Birks  July 2000

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Louis Marc Emmanuel Solon was born in France, in 1835. He became a potery artist,  joining the Sevres Pottery, where he experimented with the pate-sur-pate process. Solon moved to Minton's, Stoke upon Trent, just before the Prussians besieged Paris in 1870. There he was encouraged by Colin Minton Campbell to continue with his pate-sur-pate work.

About 1873 Solon married Maria, daughter of Leon Arnoux, the art director of Minton's, and they had eight sons and one daughter. The family lived at No. 1, The Villas, Stoke upon Trent, where he died in June 1913.

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part of The Villas estate

aerial photo: MS Virtual Earth 2008

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on Charles Lynam

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