 |
Introduction to
the Longport 'virtual walk' |
These
notes have been produced for a history 'walk' around Longport.
The
purpose of the walk is to show how Longport, the new canal port for the town
of Burslem, was created between the 1760s and the middle of the 19th
century.
In
particular the walk will focus on the role played by the Davenport family who
by the early 1840s were the largest pottery manufacturers in Longport.
The
map below, an extract from William Yates’s Map of Staffordshire, shows the
area between Newcastle-under-Lyme and Burslem in 1775.
-
The
thin black line running diagonally across the map is the Fowlea Brook
which formed the boundary between the parish of Burslem and the parish
of Wolstanton.
-
The
thick black line next to it is the Trent and Mersey Canal begun in 1766
and completed in 1777.
-
The
road running across the valley from Burslem to Newcastle was turnpiked
in 1763.
-
The
name Longport does not appear on the map.
Originally
the area was known as Long Bridge and J Aiken, in his book "A
Description of the Country from thirty or forty miles round Manchester”
published in 1795, explained why the name was changed in the mid
1770s:
“Long
Port, situated between Burslem and Newcastle, in a valley; has some good
buildings in it, and several considerable manufactories; but its situation
thereby is rendered disagreeable, if not unwholesome, by the smoke hanging
upon it longer than if it was on higher ground. The Staffordshire canal
passes Long Port, and has a public wharf upon it. This place was formerly
called Long Bridge, from a kind of bridge which ran about a hundred yards
parallel with the water; on the removal of which, and the completion of the
canal, added to its rapid increase in buildings and business, the
inhabitants about twenty years ago changed its name to that of Long Port.”
The
1832 map shows how the area changed during the next
50 years. The houses called “Long Bridge End” located at the bottom of
Porthill Bank give some indication of the extent of the former bridge.
An
extract from William Yates’s Map of Staffordshire,
shows the area between Newcastle-under-Lyme and Burslem in 1775
(1760's - mid 19th C))