Old Town Road, Hanley

Old Town Road, Hanley
Lost and forgotten roads of Stoke-on-Trent

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next: Hanley Green area

Old Town Road, Hanley
High Street, Hanley ran from Market Square, past St. John's Church, to Providence Square at what was Upper Hanley at the top end of Northwood Road.

In the early 1950's High Street was renamed Town Road (this was because there were about 12 "High Streets" in the Potteries).

In 1986 the development of the A50 "Potteries Way" cut across a number of the adjacent streets.
The part of Town Road near Hanley Deep Pit colliery was moved to provide feeders to the Potteries Way and the top part of Town Road was renamed to "Old Town Road"

At the end of the 1960s the whole area of the brick works, Hanley Deep Pit and Shelton Colliery was a bleak, empty wasteland but by 1971 the £300,000 reclamation scheme was completed. Most of the regenerationarea was the land and the spoilheaps of the Hanley Deep Pit which closed in 1967, which at its peak employed 1300 men.

The following pages follow the feature of the High Street, with a special look at "Old Town Road"

next: Hanley Green area

Over 100 years separates these two maps - but key features can still be found on both maps
The blue line shows the original route of the High Street (renamed Town Road in the early 1950's)
The purple line shows the approximate route of the redirected road when the Potteries Way was built.
Marked in green are roads which can be found on both maps:
on the left: Union Street at the top and Lamb Street at the bottom.
on the right: Mayer Street, Hillchurch Street (was Church Street),
Glass Street and Huntbach Street (was Market Street)
In red are marked the National Westminster Bank (was the Manchester and Liverpool District Banking Company)
and a chapel, which later became a Spiritualist Church.
The blue boxes show St. John's Church on the left and
on the right the Upper Hanley pottery and Weatherby's