Longton, Staffordshire

Longton is a southern district of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, and is known locally as the "Neck End" of the city. Longton is one of the six towns of "the Potteries" which formed the City of Stoke-on-Trent in 1925.

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 injunction was brought and the building saved.

Together with Rochdale, then in Lancashire, Longton was host to the first Workers Educational Association tutorial classes. R.H. Tawney, known as “the patron saint of adult education”, 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.

Arnold Bennett referred to Longton as Longshaw in his novels centred on the Potteries towns.

Industry
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. Roslyn Works, which adjoins the latter, is now home to several small-scale manufacturers of ceramics.

Transport
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 centre of Hanley.

Longton is served by a railway station which was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on August 7, 1848. A new bus interchange was opened adjacent to it in 2003 on the site of a former Co-op supermarket.

Retail
A new shopping precinct, the Bennett Precinct, opened in 1962. It is now named Longton Exchange.

In 2003 a large Tesco Extra superstore was built and has helped to rejuvenate the town. Since then, other major retailers such as Argos, Next, Pizza Hut, Matalan, Wilkinson and B & M have opened new premises.

Nightlife
Jollees Cabaret Club was a very popular nightspot in the 1970s, attracting some of the biggest names in entertainment. In the early 1990s, Shelley's Laserdome became widely known throughout the Midlands as a rave venue, but it was forced to close in 1992.

Trivia

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