Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Stoke-on-Trent comes from the Old English stoc , dairy farm, and Trent is British Celtic for
flooding river.
In 1487 the Battle of Stoke resulted in the defeat of impostor Lambert Simnel, who was
then put to work as a palace turnspit after this last battle of the Wars of the Roses, bringing
an end to the Lancastrians and, perhaps, medieval England. A hard-fought battle, it involved
more combatants than Bosworth.
The Wedgwood Visitor Centre and museum has demonstrations, an art gallery and a res-
taurant with food served on fine Wedgwood china. One of the largest china factories in the
world was established here after a move to this location from the city centre in 1940. Barla-
ston Hall is a notable 18th century Palladian building constructed for attorney Thomas Mills.
Few towns are so clearly welcoming of canal traffic as Stone. There is obvious pride that
this is where the canal began. A tree at the bottom of a canalside garden has a nestbox moun-
ted with a television aerial, a juxtaposition that suggests they give their wildlife every pos-
sible amenity. Stone takes its name from the cairns on the graves of two 7th century Mercian
princes, killed by their pagan father, King Wulfhere, for practising Christianity. The Crown
Inn was designed in 1779 by Henry Holland for mail coaches and it was the coaching that
led Defoe to feature the town in Moll Flanders . Just above the A520 crossing are a restaurant
and the Star, the latter with its only entrance on the towpath at the bottom lock. The town has
an annual food festival.
Etruria Industrial Museum. In the spring the lock is surrounded by blossom .
Where Amerton Brook enters, a track leads up to a lane to Hixon. On the other side of the
river, Ingestre Hall was the Earl of Shrewsbury's Jacobean building, damaged by fire in 1882
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