LONGTON, STAFFORDSHIRE

'Longton' is a southern district of Stoke-on-Trent, north Staffordshire, and is known locally as the "Neck End" of the city.

Contents

History

Recent developments

Trivia

References

See also

External links

History

Longton ('long village') was a market town in the parish of Stoke in the county of Staffordshire. The town still has a market housed in an attractively renovated market hall.


In March 1865, Longton and Lane End were incorporated as the Borough of Longton. Longton became one of the six towns that joined together to form the new county borough of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910. (The county borough was officially granted city status in 1925). One legacy of Longton's administrative independence from 1865 to 1910 is Longton Town Hall, a prominent landmark in the town centre. In 1986 Longton Town Hall faced demolition by Stoke on Trent City Council amid considerable local protest. Work on stripping the interior had already begun before an injuction was brought and the building saved.
Arnold Bennett referred to Longton as ''Longshaw'' in his novels centered on the Potteries towns.
The district has a long history as a base for the pottery industry, such as Paragon China and Aynsley, and several major manufacturers still have a presence, along with Gladstone Pottery Museum.
Together with Rochdale, east Lancashire, Longton was host to the first Workers Educational Association tutorial classes. R.H. Tawney, known as “the patron saint of adult education”,^[1] taught the classes for three years from January 1908. For a time, until he moved to Manchester in 1909, Tawney was working as part-time economics lecturer at Glasgow University. To fulfil his teaching commitments to the WEA, he travelled first to Longton for the evening class every Friday, before travelling north to Rochdale for the Saturday afternoon class.
Longton is served by a railway station which was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on August 7, 1848.

Recent developments

In 1997 the one-way system was finally bypassed when a new section of the A50 was opened, running past the town in a cutting. The one way system remains, but is no longer the main route into the main town center of Hanley.
In 2003 a new transport interchange and a large Tesco Extra were built and have helped to rejuvenate the town. Since then, other major retailers such as Argos, Next, Pizza Hut, Matalan and Wilkinson have opened new premises.

Trivia

★ Longton is the birthplace and home of Alan Povey's character Owd Grandad Piggott

References

1. Elsey, B. (1987) ‘R. H. Tawney – Patron saint of adult education’, in P. Jarvis (ed.) “Twentieth Century Thinkers in Adult Education”, Beckenham: Croom Helm

See also

★ Longton railway station

External links

★ Longton - Stoke-on-Trent

★ Longton

★ Gladstone Pottery Museum

★ Use interactive maps to find historic photographs and artefacts of old Longton