Secret
2 total works
Why did the young girls of Longton rush to touch lamp posts, iron pillars or railings whenever they saw the local rector? Who were the Potteries ‘resurrectionists’ involved in body-snatching from St John’s churchyard, Burslem, in 1831? Why did some Hanley people fear that the world was about to end in 1835? In which Potteries town did rat-baiting take place in 1867? And which fine vocalist was banned from singing at Goldenhill church on account of his being a boxer?
This is no pub quiz, nor is it a book of tall stories, but a unique insight into the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Here is a feast of little-known facts relating to the city’s history ‘below the surface’. By turns quirky, shocking, investigative and always original, it reveals much about the Potteries of the past and proves the old adage that fact is far stranger than fiction. Local historian Mervyn Edwards has been collecting ephemera on Stoke for twenty-five years. Now he shares it with the public.
This is no pub quiz, nor is it a book of tall stories, but a unique insight into the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Here is a feast of little-known facts relating to the city’s history ‘below the surface’. By turns quirky, shocking, investigative and always original, it reveals much about the Potteries of the past and proves the old adage that fact is far stranger than fiction. Local historian Mervyn Edwards has been collecting ephemera on Stoke for twenty-five years. Now he shares it with the public.
Both the town of Newcastle-under-Lyme and its name almost certainly owe their existence to the building of a 'new' castle there in the mid-twelfth century. The town's importance gradually grew from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, by which time Newcastle was referred to as the 'Capital of North Staffordshire' and the place to go for markets, fairs, doctors, banks and lawyers. The twentieth century wrought huge changes on Newcastle-under-Lyme, but traces of the town's fascinating history are visible to the enquiring eye. Join local author Mervyn Edwards as he delves into the past in this unique approach to the town's history, blending the serious with the frivolous, seeking out Newcastle-under-Lyme's hidden secrets.