"The situation of Brownhills house, the seat of John Wood, Esquire, commands some fine scenery, consisting of the woods of Brad-well, and the diversified banks and Church of Wolstanton, with more distant eminences on its West and South; and a near intermediate front view of the new and stately Church of St. Paul's, Burslem."

"We trace the Brownhills' property to the hands of John Burslem, of Dale Hall, as life-tenant, in the year 1590; when it was settled, with " a messuage called Dale Hall," and thirty-five customary acres of land, formerly the inheritance of John Baddeley, and other estates in Burslem and Sneyd, upon the marriage of Thomas, the son of Thomas Burslem (eldest son of John), with Margaret Ford, of the Moss.

This part of the settled property was described as one pasture, called Brownhills, then under lease to John Leigh. The issue of Thomas Burslem and Margaret Ford were two daughters, one of whom married Gilbert Wedgwood, and had by him a son, Burslem Wedgwood, whose son, of the same name, sold the Brownhills, in 1676, to his uncle Aaron Wedgwood ; from whom, after three descents, it passed to another Burslem Wedgwood, who died in 1762, without issue; when it went to his younger brother, Carlos, who also dying without issue, in 1771, the property passed to his sister, Catherine, the wife of Thomas Lovatt, from whom it was purchased, in 1782, by Mr. John Wood, an eminent manufacturer, who erected here a handsome house for his residence, and a manufactory adjacent; and upon the death of this gentleman, in 1797, the property descended to his sun, the present possessor ; who, in 1830, took down the manufactory, planted and beautified the grounds, and enlarged and improved the house, which may now, for amenity of situation, challenge any residence within the Borough."

Ward - The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, 1843