A photo walk around Ash Hall, Werrington Stoke-on-Trent Job Meigh & the Ash Hall Estate

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Ash House

 

In the mid 1850s William Mellor Meigh (1st - the son of Job Meigh II) gave up farming and Ash Farm was run by a farm bailiff. This change probably coincided with the demolition of the original Ash House and its replacement by the present building (show in the photos below), like Ash Hall it was constructed of local stone. 
Unfortunately, the foundation stone recording this event has been covered over by an extension to the Ash Bank Hotel but it stated: “This corner-stone was laid by Job and Elizabeth Meigh of Ash Hall, on the eleventh day of May 1857. Bemgno Numine.” 

 

The building is now occupied by the Ash Bank Hotel.

photos: July 2000

The original Ash House was occupied by William Mellor Meigh I, the son of Job Meigh, from at least 1841 until he moved across the road to Ash Hall in 1870. 

He married Miss Eliza Goodman, of Gothic, Kentishtown, at St Pancras Church, London, on the 15th of August 1837. He was then living at Shelton but by the beginning of 1840 the couple were staying at Ash Hall (with his father Job Meigh II) because the burial of the first son, William Mellor Meigh, aged ten weeks, is recorded in the Bucknall parish registers on the 19th of January 1840 as of “Ash Hall”. 

However, when the second son (also called William Mellor Meigh), was born on the 18th of April 1841, the family were at  Ash House  where the family was recorded at the time of the 1841 census as:

In the 1841 census for Ash House:

William Mellor Meigh’s principal occupation was that of flint and colour grinder, at Dresden Mill, off Bucknall New Road, Hanley, a business which he took over from his father c. 1840. 
He was still running the colour mill in 1851 when he described his occupation in the census of that year as “Farmer”:

1851 census for Ash House:

In the mid 1850s William Mellor Meigh gave up farming and Ash Farm was run by a farm bailiff. This change probably coincided with the demolition of the original Ash House and its replacement by the present building, like Ash Hall constructed of local stone. 

In the 1861 census William Mellor Meigh described himself as “Merchant” and he lived in the new house with his wife, seven children and three female servants.



When William Mellor Meigh I moved to Ash Hall in 1870 (after the death of his father Job Meigh II), Ash House was let to a succession of tenants including John Forsythe (1872), and Charles Ford, China Manufacturer, with a works in Cannon Street, Hanley, who moved from The Hollies in Shelton. 

1881 census for Ash House:

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