"One of the main pack-horse roads, which left Hanley by Woodisun (Marsh Street), Brook Street (off Marsh Street North), connected with the lane from Newcastle and wound through Cobridge and the lower end of Hot Lane, Burslem, where it branched; one route going approximately via the present Nile Street, Burslem, and the other, a narrow lane behind, and to the west of what is now Waterloo Road, but which was then a portion of the adjacent fields.

Passing Cross Hill and in front of the church yard, it ran by Bournes Bank, a steep incline, to Swan Square. From here the road probably traversed the slope by way of St. John's Square, or through the Market Square, on to Hill Top. From thence it went down the narrow steep passage of the Back Sytch, past the Sytch Water Mill on the Brownhills Hall estate and past the hall, where it would join the road from Newcastle and Longport, into Tunstall and the north.

From Burslem, the Mother Town of the Potteries, an important pack-horse road ran from the Market Square, as already mentioned, via Pack-Horse Lane, winding by St. Paul's Church, Dalehall, via Trubshaw Cross, fording the stream at Longbridge (Longport), by the present road past a group of houses called Longbridge Hayes. From thence it went round the Bradwell side of what is now Longport Station and up the hill, now traversed by the road (made about 1875) and so on to Wolstanton and Newcastle."

A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, E J D Warrillow