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Newcastle-under-Lyme Canal
 
"canal hero who gave his life to save a drowning girl"


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Historian Fred Hughes writes....   

Trow memorial obelisk , London Road, Stoke
Trow memorial obelisk , London Road, Stoke
 
on the monument
 

The actions of 21 year-old tram conductor Timothy Trow on April 13th 1894 were certainly above and beyond the call of duty. It was around 4pm that Friday afternoon when the young Stoke man leapt from his footplate and vaulted over a line of iron railings into the murky Newcastle Canal as it flowed along London Road. Four-year old Jane Ridgway had been playing on the towpath when she tumbled in and, thanks to the brave conductor who’d heard her screams, the child was saved. But non-swimmer Timothy lost his life, sucked to the bottom of the foul water.

“This was an amazing act of bravery,” historian Steve Birks asserts. “And it was lucky for the girl that the tram had stopped. In those times the engine was powered by steam and it would have been extremely noisy. His funeral apparently was an extraordinary affair and the community was so moved that it collected money to erect a public memorial. The granite gold-inscribed obelisk, standing today opposite James Street in London Road, is a tribute to a true Potteries hero.”

Our journey following the bed of the ill-fated Newcastle canal has brought us to this point. It’s a spot that former paramedic Frank Deakes, age 73, knows well for he was born and brought up in nearby Water Street, so-named because of the waterway’s proximity.

“The monument has always been here as far as my memory serves me,” says Frank. “In fact when I was a boy there was still some water in it and we used to catch tiddlers here.”

 

 
Sherburne Road, Stoke
Sherburne Road, Stoke

This is the West End district of Stoke and it’s full of surprises. Like, for instance, the story of Gold Coin. Sherburne Road faces the Trow memorial. Now, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about this row of excellent 19th century terrace houses except that each has two lines of gold-glazed bricks running above and below the upper windows. And on each brick the words ‘Gold Coin’ is scrolled. Frank is as baffled as I am. But local window-cleaner Geoff Smith offers a strange explanation.

“My father who had the window round before me told me that the man who built the houses was a familiar face at the Racecourse at Sideway,” says Geoff. “Apparently one day he won a lot of money which he invested in building these houses. Being pleased with his success he incorporated the line of gold bricks all the way up the street telling the tenants that he’d put a gold sovereign behind one of the bricks of each house for luck. But he didn’t say which brick. Amazingly after all these years very few bricks have been disturbed. And the name of the winning horse was – as you’ve already guessed – Gold Coin.”

 

Before the Michelin came in 1927 the racecourse played a prominent part in the districts known as Boothen, West End and Sideway. All this was in Frank’s backyard.

“My grandfather had a shop in London Road Just opposite Corporation Street. Coming towards Oakhill there was a fancy bridge near Nursery Street and something like a turntable bridge at the top of All Saints Road. This was where the new Michelin factory, built by Peter Lindt who I think was a Dutch engineer, began. My father was one of the first to work on the site and the Michelin built the row of houses in Water Street. They’re still there and so is number 35 where we lived,” recalls Frank. “When I came on the scene Michelin was massive in size and was a major city employer. It occupied all the land lying between Campbell Road and London Road and it continued to grow into the 1960’s. There was a high wall all around it with three main entrances called Chester Gate, Bolton Gate and Oakhill Gate. The canal travelled along Michelin’s boundary between this wall and London Road. In fact some of the wall is still standing by the Oakhill Gate along a greenway.”

As you approach Oakhill past the Trow memorial, this pleasant pathway has continued to extend even since the dramatic scaling down of Michelin’s factory. It has now become a continuous tree-lined thoroughfare that could easily be mistaken for some Parisian boulevard.

The footbridge over the Newcastle Canal was near to Nursery Street
The footbridge over the Newcastle Canal was near to Nursery Street
This view looks towards Stoke - near to the place where Timothy Trow drowned

“This layout began as long ago as 1953,” says Steve. “It was opened in the year of the Queen’s coronation and is named Coronation Gardens in tribute to it. Before this both the road and canal bed ran side by side up Oakhill to the Cottage pub where they parted company.”

One of Steve’s maps clearly shows this division before Michelin arrived. It also shows Oakhill as a small cluster of houses surrounded by fields. The canal travelled along the down slope into these fields to the outskirts of Trent Vale and Hanford before turning sharp right into the Lyme Valley towards Newcastle.


 “Kensington Road Oakhill follows the canal line continuing past Rookery Lane,” says Steve. “Up to now it’s been relatively easy to follow the lost canal. Then it suddenly and spectacularly vanishes beneath the continuously changing road complex. But never mind, we shall pick it up again when we find more evidence of it along Riverside Road over the A34.”

more on the Newcastle-under-Lyme canal

 

21 July 2008


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Newcastle-under-Lyme Canal Pt 3
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Newcastle-under-Lyme Canal Pt 1