The Changing face of Trentham: 1890 – 2003

Trentham has changed from a village to a suburb within a century, as the maps and aerial photographs shown below illustrate but it has a more ancient history.

This sequence starts with a relatively modern map (an extract from OS Pathfinder 809 map revised in 1987) and aerial photograph (below left - source Multimap). They show the main areas of population that define the two halves of Trentham. The less populated west (seen to the left of both images) is sometimes known as 'old Trentham' because it includes the parish church and the remnants of Trentham Hall.

The map gives some idea of Trentham as a place where the local geography has created a concentration of pathways of varying ages. To the left (west) is the M6 Motorway. Junction 15 at Hanchurch is the interchange for the A50, which leads to the East Midlands and the M1 Motorway. The A34 trunk road runs down the middle, just to the right (east) of the River Trent, whilst close by (going further towards the eastern boundary of the map) is the Trent & Mersey canal and, finally the main west coast railway line.

 What neither of these views fully reveals is the steepness of the valleys of the three rivers. The River Trent at its junction with its tributaries is approximately 100 metres (330 feet) above sea level but the ground rises by 30 metres to the east and 50 metres to the west in roughly 1.5 kilometres (1 mile).

The development of Trentham is a continuing process, especially on the eastern (Stoke-on-Trent) side of the river Trent. To give an illustration of the situation in summer 2003, below are four aerial photographs taken from a helicopter that visited Ash Green Primary School, which is located to the north of the Longton Road and west of the canal and appears roughly in the centre of each image.

Below is the view from the south but looking northwards. Trentham High School, where many of Ash Green's pupils move on to from age 11 - 16, is top left.

The view looking southwards. Note the woodland (including a nature reserve) flanking the railway line, Newstead Industrial Estate (top left) and part of the Wedgwood factory at Barlaston (top right).

The view to the south west, below, gives some indication of the park land, pastures and woods around the River Trent, especially on the west bank. The lake in Trentham Gardens is at the top right of the larger view, Trentham Golf Club is top centre and the Trent and Mersey canal is visible at the bottom left. The line of trees curving across the centre of the picture marks the route of the branch railway line, which once led to Trentham Park station (see map from 1938).

The land to the north and east is under development and includes the Trentham Lakes Business Park and new housing that is within the school's catchment area.

Even in Victorian times Trentham was recognisable from the Domesday Book description of agricultural land and woods, as shown by the frequent occurrence of the words 'wood' and 'plantation' in this extract from the first edition of the one inch Ordnance Survey map of Staffordshire, which includes some revisions up to 1890.

 

 

The larger scale map, dated 1900,  to the left, shows the extent of such development as there was, which was concentrated around the Duke of Sutherland's estates, centred on Trentham Hall, and a small number of dwellings just across the river Trent in the area then known as Ash Green. Even today, some of these cottages remain beside the A34 at its junction with the Longton Road (two were re-thatched in the summer of 2003) but their front gardens have been greatly reduced to accommodate road widening that took place about forty years ago. The Mausoleum (a Grade 1 listed building) also remains but the Institute and school disappeared when the A34 was widened to become a dual carriageway.

 

By 1938, when the map, left, was published, development had just started on the 'Dairyfields' housing estate on the west side of the river Trent (building round the ancient burial mound shown on the previous map). There was more new housing on the other side of the river to the north of Trentham Park railway station (itself a new addition to the landscape), around New Inn Lane (towards the right hand edge of this map) and on the eastern side of Barlaston Old Road, just off the map. This development attracted relatively wealthy businesspeople and professionals to move to Trentham from the city centres of Stoke and Newcastle-under-Lyme, to the north. The Hall had been demolished but the Gardens had acquired a new use as commercial pleasure ground. They remained in the ownership of the Sutherland family, who eventually sold their Trentham estates in the 1980s.

It was from the 1960s onwards that the development of new housing estates began to fill the fields behind the ribbon development along the roads on the east side of Trentham: starting in the area closest to the river and then gradually working further east until it has begun to merge with development spreading west from the neighbouring village of Blurton. The line drawing to the left (enlarge by clicking on picture dates from the mid 1960s and shows many of the buildings and views that have been lost.