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Bennett's and the Potteries

Locations in Bennett's novels


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St. Luke's Church

"the mean, black, smoke-palled streets that huddle about St. Luke's Church"
 


St. John's - the Parish Church of Burslem
St. John's - the Parish Church of Burslem
[Bennett's St. Luke's Church]

to the left is the National Schools

pictures: Ewart Morris Collection
 

In Bennett's writings:

 

"Another procession - that of the Old Church Sunday school - came up, with standards floating and drums beating, out of the steepness of Woodisun Bank, and turned into Wedgwood Street, which thenceforward was loosely thronged by procession and sightseers.
The importance of the festival was now quite manifest, for at the end of the street could be seen St. Luke's Square, massed with human beings in movement."

Bennett: Clayhanger Book 2 Chapter 11


"the dark, squat tower of the parish church, sole relic of the past stood out grim and obdurate amid the featureless buildings which surrounded it."

Bennett: Anna of the Five Towns

"....before the days of the park lovers had no place to walk in but the cemetery; not the ancient churchyard of St. Luke's (the rector would like to catch them at it!) - the borough cemetery! One generation was forced to make love over the tombs of another - and such tombs! - before the days of the park."

Bennett: Helen with the High Hand
 

 

Actual location / building:

St. John the Baptist Church [St. Luke's Church] is at the bottom of Bournes Bank [Woodisun Bank]

Alongside the church was the Church Yard Pottery - this small pottery site was occupied and worked by the Wedgwood family from 1656, when Josiah Wedgwood I’s great-grandfather first took possession of it. 

Josiah served his apprenticeship there. The site derives its name from the nearby Church of St John’s, where Wedgwood himself was baptised on 12th July 1730

St. John the Baptist Church - with its Norman tower
St. John the Baptist Church - with its Norman tower

 


Bottle kilns at the entrance to St. John's church

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next: Oldcastle Middle School
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