Pevsner and the Buildings of Stoke-on-Trent
 

Stoke

"Although Stoke has the grandest town hall of the six towns and remains of the medieval parish church, it has no civic centre. Leave the place where town hall and parish church are seen together, and you are at once, visually, in a small town."


next: more on inner Stoke
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St Peter ad Vincula.

In the garden to the s are the picturesquely displayed remains of the medieval parish church. Piers, responds, and arches of the C13 were re-erected in 1887 by Lynam. Two responds are meant to indicate the length of the n aisle, two half-arches look like flying buttresses.


The railed area in front of the arches is
 the tomb of Josiah Wedgwood I


The pier base of the earlier church can be seen through the arch
In the background is the current St. Peter's Church
built in 1826-9.

 

The new church is of the Commissioners' type and was built in 1826-9 to designs of Trubshaw & Johnson.

W tower, five bays of long three-light Perp windows, chancel of two bays with a five-light e window. Battlements and pinnacles.  Three galleries inside.

Stoke Minster
St Peter ad Vincula
Stoke Minster

photo: 2000

 

-reredos. Marble scenes; 1888.
-sculpture. Small c17 ivory Crucifix, called Spanish (pulpit).
- stained GLASS. The E window by David Evans, referred to in 1830.
- plate. Two Flagons, 1809 by Peter & William Bateman.


- monuments. Here are the monuments of three members of the greatest pottery families.

Josiah Wedgwood 1795 by Flaxman. Brilliant portrait, three-quarter view, in a medallion.
Josiah Spode II  1827.
Kneeling, mourning female figure.
John Bourne  1835.
Large, melodramatic angel. By Behnes.
- Also by Behnes John Tomlinson  1839 with a frontal bust on top.
John Chappel Woodhouse 1832. Profile bust.

 

on St. Peter's Church

 

N of the church is Brook Street, a terrace of various neo-Jacobean houses of yellow brick. It is of before 1830, and thus remarkably early.

Numbers 2 to 6 Brook Street
Numbers 2 to 6 Brook Street
These buildings are situated on the north side of Brook Street which crosses the line of the culverted Fowlea Brook - hence the name Brook Street.

architect: Henry Ward


Town Hall.

By Henry Ward, begun in 1834, but the wings completed only c.1842 (n) and after 1850 (s).

Originally the centre was built for a market. It was converted into the Council Chamber etc. in 1888. T

he King's Hall was added behind in 1910-11 (T. Wattis &J. A. Bowater). Nineteen bays' frontage, ashlar. The centre has a giant upper portico of unfluted Ionic columns and a big, heavy attic piled on top. The angles have three-bay pedimented pavilions.

 

Stoke Town Hall 
Stoke Town Hall 
The view from Brook Street. 

on Stoke Town Hall

 


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previous: outer Longton