In this section:


• History of the Moorland Road Building
• Photographs of the Junior Technical School
• Recent photographs
• Renovation of the building by Burslem Community Development Trust
• New Site Plan of the Building after renovation
• 2007 photographs

  On another page
  

• Rest of the school history
• Haywood Story Leaflet 2008
  

History of the Moorland Road Building

Thanks to Don Henshall for the postcard images of Haywood Hospital in 1902 and 1903.

Foundation Stone

The main block originally held fourteen patients but this was rapidly found to be insufficient so additional wards were built in 1889, at a cost of £1000 and opening in 1891, and again in 1907. When the Hospital moved further east to an even larger site, the buildings became firstly a Junior Technical School and subsequently a college annex. Students last occupied the College in 1990.


Kelly’s Directories 1904 extract from Alan J Jones

Previous Page or Top

Recently discovered mural

"The mural comes from the original Haywood Hospital building on Moorland Road. The building recently fell into disrepair and its owners, Stoke-on-Trent College, expected to demolish the building. Vandals attacked the mural, breaking many of the tiles and daubing it with graffiti. With the demolition in mind, one of the tutors of Art and Design at the college removed the mural, restored the broken tiles and cleaned off the graffiti early in 1999. It is due to his quick thinking that the mural was rescued, allowing restoration and reinstatement.

It is uncertain as to when the mural was commissioned but it is most likely to have been put in place between 1887 and 1900. Such tiled murals fell out of favour after the turn of the century.

Painted by local painter and teacher, Frederic Harper, the mural stood 1.98m (6ft 6in) high and 1.22m (4ft) wide."

In August 2002 Alan Brodie sent me this
"My name is Alan Brodie and I was part of the first 11+ intake at the school in 1951. At that time, the "old" school was a previous hospital building in Moorland Road, Burslem, and the "new" school, on High Lane, consisted of a single corridor with rooms on either side. We had classes in both premises and, in the 5th and 6th forms, we made the journey between buildings even during mid-morning and afternoon breaks. On leaving school, I joined the telephone side of the then GPO, until I emigrated to Australia in 1968. After some years with Telecom Australia, I left to enter Theological College and was ordained in the Anglican (C of E) Church in 1985.

In late July this year, I was asked to return to England to conduct the funeral, in Alsager, of one of my early bosses in British Telecom. Although it was a fleeting visit, I did manage to make the journey to Moorland Road to look at the "old" school building once again. One of my memories concerned a mural on the wall of the classroom on the right of the hall, as you entered through the front door of the building. The classroom was then the English room and the teacher was Mr PH Mountford. On the wall of the classroom, which we were given to understand had been the Children's Ward in the days when the building was a hospital, was a large mural of 6" tiles depicting Jesus with the children and the caption: "Suffer the children to come unto Me".

John Whitmore says
"I have been in contact with the Burslem Community Development Trust and they tell me that the mural was removed from the wall in what was in my day the 'English Class' room.
If one stands in Moorland Road outside the building, this room is on the ground floor immediately to the right. The door to this room would lead off the west end of the main hall. I still have no recollection of this in situ. I can only think it was covered by some other item." (See plan below).

In October 2008 Alan Brodie sent this update
"I contacted the Bishop of Stafford and he seems to have taken an interest, as we received word that the mural was to be re-located to the Swan Bank Methodist Church in Burslem. ...[a contact] informed us, last week, that the mural had now been restored and it is to be mounted as part of some other renovations at the Church. I'm glad that this piece of STHS history has not simply been consigned to the local rubbish dump.

Photographs of the Junior Technical School

Use magnifier for larger pictures

Recent pictures of the building

Derek Johnson

Use magnifier for larger pictures

2007 pictures of the renovated building

Use magnifier for larger pictures

Renovation of the building

The unstable twentieth century extension needed to be demolished in order to rescue the earlier front range of buildings. The front range, the original section and the most architecturally interesting and ornate, will be restored and converted to a suite of offices. [You can see the extension if you compare the 1903 postcard with the 1988 photo by John Whitmore - Derek]

The back range of buildings will be retained as a valuable training resource for the Trust's Building Restoration Training Scheme.

Thanks to the Trust for their notes which I have adopted for this site and for the photographs of the Mural and the Foundation Stone which are their copyright and which are reproduced with their kind permission.

New Site Plan of the Building after renovation

Use magnifier for a larger picture

Plan of the converted building. We have overlaid information about the original function of the room on this plan.

John Whitmore supplied this information about the usage of the rooms in the Junior Technical School days:

"My recollections in the early 1940's are as follows;

Office 1.................Maths. Mr Potts.
Meeting Room.......Assembly Hall with cloaks off.
Front Entrance.......I never knew this to be opened.
Office 2 ................English. Various Teachers.
Office 3.................Spare office.
Office 4.................Headmasters office. Mr Collinson.


Upper Floor.
Office 5.................Maths. Mr Collinson.
Office 6.................No recollection.
Office 7.................Geog. and History. Mr Taylor.
Office 8.................No recollection.
Office 9.................Spare classroom.


Ground Floor.
Following corridor past Headmaster's office, on left Mechanics Lab, Mr Kent. Further down on left Physics Lab. also Mr Kent, turn left Chemistry Lab on right Mr Mills.

Outside, School Yard. At the rear on the left was the Woodwork Shop, Mr Cooksie. In front of the double gates was a forge. On the right was Metalwork/Machine Shop.

The Three Storey Building to the right of the main building contained a Washroom and relics of the Hospital Kitchen on the ground floor, unused. First Floor was used by the Teachers. Top Floor was Technical Drawing. Mr Howell."

Roy Davies, who was at the JTS from 1940 to 1942, adds

"I was interested to see the photographs and floor plans for our old school as well as your comments as to the usage of the various rooms. From my memory I would have identified them a little differently. Office 1 I thought was used by Collinson where he taught Geometry and Trigonometry and on the first floor in Office 5 Potts taught Algebra. Collinson also occasionally used Office 2 and there once a week we had a First Aid lesson. English I always thought was on the First Floor in Office 9 as I have recollections of gazing longingly through the trees at the park instead of paying attention to Westlake or his female replacement. All your other identifications are as I remember them.

It is surprising when one starts to think about these things how much can be recalled. The excuse to miss assembly by being part of the detail to visit the air raid shelters to check they were not under water (bail out with a bucket), the pre lunchtime trip to the Princes Hall (the British Restaurant) to collect the heated containers with school dinners, lunchtime in the Park with the girls from The School of Commerce, happy days. I am not sure John if you stayed at school at lunchtime or if you went home, it was always an interesting part of the day. "