Medieval and Early Modern

In past times Hartshill was part of the township of Penkhull and Boothen and of the royal manor of Newcastle-under-
Lyme. Before the Conquest it formed part of the estates of Algar, the earl of Mercia, the son of Earl Leofric and Lady
Godiva. The sons of Algar, Edwin who succeeded his father as earl of Mercia and Morcar,earl of Northumbria, rebelled
against King William I, and by the date of the Domesday Book of 1086, the manor of Penkhull was a royal manor,
together with Wolstanton and Trentham, which at that time may have included Newcastle.

There is a mention of Hartushyll in 1509 and Hartshill appears in 1596 in a document relating to Stoke Church “ the
Harts hilles and other lands lying to it”. The name is undoubtedly taken from the 13th century King’s Park known as
Cliff Hay or Castle Cliff, a steep wooded area along the slopes of the Fowlea Valley where deer (harts) and wild boar
were kept for hunting, which is mentioned in 1204. Names such as Cliff Vale, Cliff Ville (the house which became St
Dominic’s School) and Cliff Bank, the latter at the junction of Honeywall and Hartshill Road, all attest to its existence.
William Muriel was the keeper of the “the wood of the castle which is called Le Clif”. c. 1243. He owned a house in
Newcastle, possibly in Merrial Street, which is thought to perpetuate the family name. Hartshill Park is probably the
last remnant of the original wood. A field, part of an enclosure of the Park called Trumpeshay dating from the
fifteenth century, survived until the twentieth century. It lay at the junction of Hartshill Road and Victoria Street.
Lansdowne Road and Claridge Road are built upon part of it.

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

The first mention of a person as “of Hartshill” is probably the Daniel Edwards who was baptised at Stoke St Peter’s
Church 8 October 1656, the son of John and Catherine Edwards. He married Jane and their eldest son, Daniel junior
was baptised 6 April 1679 at Stoke. He is mentioned in the Stoke-upon-Trent Churchwarden’s Accounts as supplying
timber and tiles to the church in 1696. He was buried at Stoke 8 November 1732 when he is recorded as “de Harts
Hill husb(andman)” – a farmer.

By his will dated 26 August 1732 Daniel Edwards, Yeoman, of Hartshill, parish of Stoke-upon-Trent, left the following
property – House and lands at Hartshill, purchased from Joseph Wood, gentleman. Brickworks at Hartshill (to be
carried on by son Thomas Edwards) and houses and lands in the parishes of Stoke-upon-Trent and Wolstanton (not
specified). This property was divided between his wife Jane and son Thomas, who each received half of the Hartshill
estate, other estates and goods. His other children received legacies.

Thomas Edwards died in 1768 and was buried at Stoke 12 November. His will included the following property:
My dwelling house at Hartshill. (Hartshill Farm?)
Fields: Great Hough, the Longfield, the three Hook’d Piece, the Trumpers Hays Meadow, and the little meadow, the
Meadow piece, the Lower Hartshill and the Spinney adjoining, the Upper Hartshill, the three Smithy Hills, Miln, the
Collins Wood, the Sampsons patch, the Smithy Croft, the Broad Meadow, the three Smithy Hills meadow.

On 21 May 1770 widow Edwards of “heartshill” was buried, she is likely to have been Thomas’s widow.

On 10 April 1770 Thomas Bacchus bought from the Trustees of Thomas Edwards deceased and Daniel Edwards, his
son, those closes of land called the Longfield, Trumpers Hay meadow, the Little Hay meadow or Trumpers Hay
meadow adjoining the Calf Croft and the three cornered field or Gorst Croft, lying in Penkhull. [This became the
Noah’s Ark estate - Thomas Bacchus had built the Noah’s Ark by 1781].

What remained of Thomas Edwards’ land on the north side of Hartshill Road, which was turnpiked in 1759, when the
present route through the village was possibly created in preference to one utilising Stoke Old Road and Farm Lane
which served Hartshill Farm in Cumming Street, became the Hartshill Farm estate and was sold to Jonathan Shelley
who had built the Windmill on the site of the present church by 1780 – lately erected – which he leased for 99 years.

On the south side of Hartshill Road and on the same day in 1770 Humphrey Ratcliffe bought from Thomas’s estate:

“All those two closes or parcells of land, lying in Penkhull, called the Long Leasowe and the meadow thereto
adjoyning, (except a way thro’ the same to the lands late of John Fenton, Gent., dec’d) and all ways (etc.) [This
included the land on which Longfield Cottage and Longfield House were built after it was sold by the Ratcliffe family,
probably at the time of Humphrey Ratcliffe’s death in 1798 on which the houses were then built]. The family had a
potworks at the junction of Hartshill Road and Albany Road by Egerton House, since the 1750s. It is shown as an
encroachment on the plan drawn by Richard Richardson mentioned below (no. 42).

1
By 1775 when William Yates published his Map of Staffordshire the population was centred at the junction of Hartshill
Road and Stoke Old Road (known as Stoke Lane) where the Red Lion Inn dates from the mid 18th century. It is a
small scale map but indicates that the farm which became Gorton’s Farm (on the site of the Coroner’s Court) was
there as well as buildings on the opposite side of the road where the Old House at Home is and between there and
what may be the original Red Lion.

A plan drawn by Richard Richardson in 1777 on behalf of the Duchy of Lancaster to show how buildings had been
built on land adjoining roads without permission gives some 20 instances of where this has been done and shows
other properties centred on what is now the Harpfield Service Station and Nirvana, (later known as Proctor’s Row)
with other houses extending towards the Newcastle boundary and into Stoke Old Road, (possibly including the
original Red Lion Inn) and buildings on the land which became the later Cotton or Cotton’s Row, which are not shown
as incroachments. In the 1790s there was a small potworks, there which later became a cotton weaving shed hence
the name and then converted into nine houses by 1824, when it mentions that they are near the junction of the
turnpike road with the old Hartshill Lane, leading to Hartshill Farm.

Some of the incroachments mentioned:-

39 William Backhouse (Bacchus)?

(Thomas Bacchus built the Noah’s Ark sometime before 1780 – is the first name a mistake?)
40 – 42 members of the Ratcliffe family and their potworks.
45 John Rowley detached house and land on site of present Nirvana
46 - 50 these are the houses on the site of what was later known as Proctor’s Row.
55 Richard Harvey 4 houses on south side of turnpike near present hoardings by school.