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TVAS NORTH MIDLANDS Former Vulcan Pottery Works, Clough Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire Archaeological Evaluation by Helen Daniel, Laura Schenck and Nikk Snape Site Code VPS 19/164 (SJ 8782 4720) Former Vulcan Pottery Works, Clough Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire An Archaeological Evaluation for Car Shops Limited by Helen Daniel, Laura Schenck and Nikki Snape TVAS North Midlands Site Code VPS19/194 March 2020 Summary Site name: Former Vulcan Pottery Works, Clough Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire Grid reference: SJ 8782 4720 Site activity: Evaluation Date and duration of project: 5th November to 17th December 2019 Project coordinator: Steve Ford Site supervisor: Helen Daniel Site code: VPS19/164 Area of site: 2.7ha Summary of results: Ten evaluation trenches were excavated. Seven contained one or more kilns, the other three had limited structural remains. The investigations located the remains of six updraught ovens, two tunnel kilns, one rectangular muffle kiln and one possible circular muffle kiln; all of which dated from the early through to the later 20th century. Finds included ceramics both made on the site by several manufacturers and for several markets, and brought into it (e.g. electrical insulators). As a result, the site is considered to have archaeological potential. Location and reference of archive: The archive is presently held at TVAS North Midlands, Stoke-on-Trent and will be deposited at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on- Trent in due course, with accession number STKMG: 2019.LH.87. This report may be copied for bona fide research or planning purposes without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. All TVAS unpublished fieldwork reports are available on our website: www.tvas.co.uk/reports/reports.asp. Report edited/checked by: Steve Ford 13.03.20 Steve Preston 13.03.20 TVAS North Midlands, 2b Stanton Road, Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, ST3 6DD tel: (01782) 595648 email: [email protected] website: www.tvas.co.uk1 Former Vulcan Pottery Works, Clough Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire by Helen Daniel, Laura Schenck and Nikki Snape Report 19/164 Introduction This report documents the results of an archaeological field evaluation carried out at the former Vulcan Pottery Works, Clough Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire (SJ 8782 4720) (Fig. 1). The work was commissioned by Car Shops Limited, 2 Penman Way, Grove Park, Leicester, LE19 1ST as advised by Ms Helen Martin-Bacon of Avalon Heritage, Dairyhouse Lane, Cheadle, Stoke-on-Trent, ST10 2PW. A planning application (SOT/64907/FUL) has been submitted to Stoke-on-Trent City Council for the erection of a new building for a motor dealership to include a MOT testing facility and external vehicle display area along with revised access, associated parking and landscaping. In response to a pre-application enquiry (SOT/64030/DTS), the archaeological adviser to the Council highlighted that a desk-based assessment (Gorzynski and Tesseyman 2019) had established that several pottery factories and a flint mill once stood wholly or partially within the proposed development area. Principally, the Britannia Pottery (PRN:30664) and the Robson Street potworks (30095) were both active from the mid-19th to at least the mid-20th century, with the Vulcan Pottery (30094) and Fairfield Pottery (30093) each established in the early 20th century. In addition, a 20th-century rope works was situated along its western edge (Goodwin 2019). On this basis the archaeological adviser recommended that the proposals would require a programme of archaeological investigation, the first stage of which should involve field evaluation. This is in accordance with the Department for Communities and Local Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF 2019), and Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s policies on archaeology. The field investigation was carried out to a specification provided by Mr Jonathan Goodwin, Senior Planning Officer and Archaeological Advisor to Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The fieldwork was undertaken by Helen Daniel, Laura Schenck and Nikki Snape between 5th November and 17th December 2019 and the site code is VPS19/164. The archive is presently held at TVAS North Midlands and will be deposited at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in due course with accession code STKMG:2019.LH.87 TVAS North Midlands, 2b Stanton Road, Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, ST3 6DD tel: (01782) 595648 email: [email protected] website: www.tvas.co.uk2 Location, topography and geology The proposed development site is located within the township of Hanley, Staffordshire; one of the six towns of Stoke-on Trent (SJ 8782 4720) (Fig. 1). It is situated approximately 500m west of the centre of Hanley. The proposed development comprises an irregular parcel of land covering a total area of approximately 2.72 hectares. The site is bounded by Clough Street to the north, Slippery Lane and Robson Street to the east, Sun Street to the south and by industrial units along its western edge (Fig. 2). Prior to the evaluation the development area was a disused brownfield site containing the remains of demolished walls and structures and expansive areas of hard-standing. The topography of the site features a slight slope from an elevation of approximately 137m above Ordnance Datum (aOD) in the east down to 132m aOD in the west. The underlying bedrock geology is recorded as Pennine Upper Coal Measures Formation - Mudstone, Siltstone and Sandstone (BGS 2020). Archaeological background The archaeological potential of the site has previously been detailed in a desk-based assessment (Gorzynski and Tesseyman 2019), which is summarized below. There is little evidence for prehistoric, Roman or early medieval remains recorded in the HER within the site’s immediate area. Whilst there is no mention of Hanley in Domesday Book, the elements of the place-name indicate a pre- conquest origin in their derivation from Old English; heah meaning ‘high wood’ and leah a ‘woodland clearing’ (Mills 2011, 223; Cameron 1996, 203). Yet, whilst Hanley is situated at a fairly high altitude, the nearby town of Burslem is even higher still so in this case at least, ‘high’ may refer to the settlement’s level of status rather than its elevation (Gelling and Cole 2000, 239). The first known documentary reference for Hanley is from the Book of Fees in 1212 which mentions a William of ‘Henle’; by 1227 the Charter Rolls record the community as 'Hanlih'. Industry has long been a feature of the towns that comprise Stoke-on Trent and as early as 1297 there is reference to coal mining in the adjacent township of Shelton. However, the only evidence of medieval activity within the area is a watermill mentioned in written sources. Pottery manufacture and coal mining were staple industries in Hanley by the 17th century (Taylor 2003) and led to the expansion of the town. By 1685, Thomas Miles of Shelton was producing white stone ware and a little later, around 1720, the use of Devonshire ball clay was documented in north Staffordshire. This development has been attributed to the Shelton potter John Astbury (Shaw 1829, 126), and along with the introduction of flint into clay bodies, which Shaw also credits to Astbury, contributed to the eventual TVAS North Midlands, 2b Stanton Road, Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, ST3 6DD tel: (01782) 595648 email: [email protected] website: www.tvas.co.uk3 development of a more palatable white or Creamware. The growth continued with the opening of the Etruria factory by Josiah Wedgwood in 1769 on the side of what was to become the route of the Trent and Mersey Canal. By the 19th century, the development of the canal and rail networks had contributed to the area becoming a strategic centre for the trade and was home to over thirty ceramics works. This growth was reflected in Hanley, where its status resulted in a significant rise in the population and subsequent expansion of workers’ housing (Jenkins 1963). Shelton was incorporated with Hanley in 1857 and its High Street was renamed ‘Broad Street’ to avoid confusion with Hanley High Street. The wider general area is now universally known as ‘The Potteries’ and encompasses the six towns which now make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent: Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall. The archaeological interest in the site itself stems from the fact that several pottery factories and a flint mill once stood wholly or partially within the development area. These manufacturers were, principally: the Britannia Pottery to the south (PRN 30664); the Robson Street pot-works to the east (30095); Vulcan Pottery to the north (30094) and Fairfield Pottery in the centre (30093) (Goodwin 2019). None of these structures remain extant. Both the Britannia Pottery and the Robson Street works were active from the mid-19th to at least the mid- 20th century. They are marked on the Ordnance Survey map of 1879 although neither is named. Although no kilns are depicted on the 1900 revision, the buildings that housed them are in place. Archival research has demonstrated that the history of these two is unclear. The origins of the Britannia Pottery are particularly confusing as there were a number of factories in the locality which bore the same name or very similar, however by 1963 the site was occupied by an electrical engineering firm Electrical and Ordnance Accessories who manufactured range of ceramic items from insulators to latex-glove moulds. The works on the corner of Robson Street was recorded on mapping simply as manufacturers of ‘earthenware-china’, making identification of the operating firm very difficult. The Vulcan Pottery and the Fairfield Pottery were both established at least by the early part of the 20th century. Ordnance Survey mapping features the buildings on these sites from 1900 although they are not named until the 1924-25 and 1937-38 revisions respectively (Figs 12 and 13).