This picture looks up Pall Mall towards Albion Street
the Town Hall can be seen on the left of the picture at the very end of Pall Mall
On the right the first large imposing building was the Museum and further up the road was the free public library. Both these buildings were demolished in the early 1970's.

“Although it’s a deserted street now Pall Mall was once a busy place housing a large number of important public buildings like the library, the central museum, the School of Art, the Mechanics Institution and the Theatre Royal,” he says. “Hanley people were so proud of the spacious and well paved streets lined with elegant public offices that they named them after London locations, Pall Mall, Cheapside and Piccadilly. Early maps show Pall Mall to be a much wider thoroughfare than its neighbours. It travelled straight from the town hall in Albion Square across Piccadilly into Marsh Street. It’s where the civic fathers chose to quarter the buildings that defined Hanley’s cultural status.”

This then was the cultural quarter of Victorian Hanley. In addition to Steve’s list of civic buildings the Theatre Royal stood out as a special place. Today it’s a nightclub and bears no resemblance to its former incarnation as Stoke on Trent’s premier playhouse where queues snaked around the corner to see classical and popular shows.

“The Theatre Royal had a chequered life,” says Steve. “Built in 1871 it replaced an existing playhouse in Brunswick Street known as the Royal Theatre and People's Hall. This theatre was considered dingy and inconvenient so they built the new one facing into Pall Mall with the stage door in Brunswick Street. It was enlarged in 1888 and partially reconstructed in 1894. Then it famously burnt down in 1949 when the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company was performing here. After a couple of years lying derelict it was rebuilt. But fashions change. By the 1960’s it had become a Bingo Hall and in 1981 that closed. However it was rescued for a short time in 1997 opening for its last spell as a theatre under the management of local entrepreneur Mike Lloyd. But it was a short-lived venture.”

These days many of the imposing buildings along the south side of the grand mock-Regency street have been demolished. Some have been replaced by mismatched expediency structures. Others have been replaced by car parks.

“I think it’s a shame that a car park stands on ground that once housed these important cultural edifices,” Steve continues. “The Mechanics Institution was founded originally in nearby Frederick Street to promote learning among the working classes with lecture rooms, a library of 1,500 books and a science laboratory. All these facilities came under one roof in the new building in Pall Mall in 1887 when the library was increased to 8,185 books. Its architecture was impressive to say the least with neo-classical stone dressings with Doric pillars and cast-iron railings and gate-piers.”

But there’s still one interesting building left in Pall Mall near the top by Albion Street where a faded notice on the gable end announces it was once the British Workman Public House.

“This is not to say it was a pub,” Steve informs me. “Each of the three leading political parties had meeting rooms. The Liberal Club was in Percy-street, the Labour Party HQ was in Glass Street and the Conservative Workingmen's Club was this one in Pall Mall."