Etruria Park

The area around Etruria Park

The park was built next to St. Matthews church on a triangle of land between Lord Street, Etruria Vale Road and the Trent and Mersey Canal.
Lord Street (Now Etruria Road) is a main road from Burslem and Hanley to Newcastle under Lyme.

1898 Ordnance Survey map of the area where Etruria Park now
The park was not yet built at the time of this map.
 

Etruria Road (was Lord Street) in 2008
Etruria Park is to the right

NHS blood transfusion Service - off Etruria Road
On the site where St. Matthews Church and Vicarage stood.

The Church of St. Matthew in Etruria
taken 1948 by E.J.D. Warrillow

The church was designed by Henry Ward and Son of Hanley and stood at the corner of Etruria park.

Subsidence, due to mining, has been a problem in Etruria. By the early 1950's there was a drop of two feet ten inches from west to east in the church and and eighteen inch drop from north to south. In 1938 the escape of expanding air from the mine workings caused "a deluge of tiles" to fall from the walls onto the choir. One day the Rev. Horwood was in the church and there was a noise "like the rushing of a mighty wind" and he was a column of water rising at the end of the church to a height of fifteen feet.

By 1960 most of the walls were out of the perpendicular and had been secured by iron ties. Two of the stone arches of the nave were supported on wooden strutting. Later the church was demolished because of its poor condition.