Paradise Street, Tunstall
Lost and forgotten roads of Stoke-on-Trent

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Paradise Street, Tunstall

The development of Tunstall:

Tower Square, Tunstall - looking westward
Tower Square, Tunstall - looking westward

Tunstall was an early centre of Methodism in the Potteries. The only surviving early chapel is the 1821 chapel of the Methodist New Connexion which can be seen in the above photo to the left of the tower in Tower Square.

 

The land behind the square was laid out by the Tunstall Building Society.

Ward records.....

 "A Building Society, begun in 1816, and of which many of the working Potters were members, gave rise to forty small houses, and the formation of two new streets, called Paradise Street, and Piccadilly, extending from the market-place westwardly." 

The Articles of Agreement show that the society was formed on the "twenty second day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixteen.." ... the society originally met at "the house of Mr Richard Walley, the Swan Inn Tunstall"

The society acquired land from the Sneyd family in the early 1820's and the houses were built between 1821 and 1823.  

The picture below shows the houses in Piccadilly Street in about 1955. The houses built of brick and tile with sash windows and separate with privies and ashpits were far superior to the cottages which most of the inhabitants of the town lived in the early 1820s. 

Analysis of the 1839 tithe award for the parish of Wolstanton shows that the most of them were owned by local tradesmen and skilled workmen and let out for rent. 
The owners included Joseph Capper. the blacksmith a later noted Chartist The houses set the standard which was adopted for the hundreds of similar terrace houses which were constructed the the adjacent streets of Tunstall. 

 

The Paradise
The Paradise
Virtually all of the Tunstall Building Society houses have been demolished.
Two however have survived in Paradise Street as the Paradise Inn. The narrow alleyway between each row of houses is also still clearly visible at the back.


next: the development of Paradise Street

15 May 2008