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Rev W. Basil Buckland
The church of St. James-the-Less
showing the close proximity of the bottle kilns
photo: c.1950's - Lovatt Collection
The church in the
winter of 2004
notice that the church has
been cleaned to remove the decades of pottery smoke and grime
photo: 2004 - Eileen Hallam
From: "The Borough of
Stoke-upon-Trent" John Ward - published 1843
"A spacious new church has been erected
in Longton by the Commissioners for building additional churches and
chapels, and, under the powers of the Stoke Rectory Act of 1827, has
been made parochial, and endowed with £10,000 from the rectory funds,
the advowson having, in the year 1839, been purchased by John Carey,
Esq., an opulent manufacturer of Fenton and Lane End.
The church is a very
good specimen of plain Gothic architecture of the perpendicular style,
built from a design of Trubshaw, the architect of Stoke church, of
Hollington stone. It occupies an area of 120 feet in interior length
by 64 feet in breath, has a lofty clerestory supported by pointed
arches, resting on eight pillars on either side the nave, and
embattled side aisles; a small chancel forms five unequal sides of an
octagon, to which are attached a Vestry on one side and a Sacristy on
the other.
There are side
galleries, with five tiers of pews, and a deep western gallery, in
which is a small organ. The interior is arranged for a large
congregation (2000 or upwards)..."
"A very good
Rectory-house has been built by the Patron, with the aid of the
provision made by the late Rector of Stoke, Dr. Woodhouse, as
previously mentioned. The house, which is a handsome square building,
in the Italian style, coated with cement, stands within a quarter of a
mile from the church, on the edge of the parish adjoining to that of
Trentham, is removed from the contiguity of manufactories or
collieries, and agreeably seated within a newly planted curtilage."
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