Chell, Staffordshire

"[7] In 1772 the celebrated canal engineer James Brindley died at his home, Turnhurst Hall, on what is now Turnhust Road, Great Chell.

[8] In 1757 the then owner, Thomas Baddeley of Newfield, contracted James Brindley to fit the mill with machinery for grinding flint and also pumping water out of a neighbouring mine.

He is noted for founding and championing the global Lidice Shall Live campaign that sought to raise awareness of, and rebuild, the Czech village of Lidice, destroyed by the Nazis in 1942 in revenge for Reinhard Heydrich's murder by British trained Czechs.

It was the largest mine in North Staffordshire and in 1937 it became the first colliery in the UK to produce 1,000,000 tons of saleable coal in a year.

[18] On 28 April 2014, Greene King Brewery opened a new £4.5m pub named The Chatterley Whitfield on the western outskirts of Chell.

[19][20] The Wolstanton And Burslem Union Workhouse was opened in 1839 in Turnhurst Road in Great Chell, at a cost of £6,900 to house 400 inmates.

[21] The workhouse remained in use beyond the Federation of Stoke-on-Trent whereupon the newly formed county borough took over the running of the facility.

[22] In local novelist Arnold Bennett's book Clayhanger, the characters referred to the Chell workhouse as the Bastille.

[24] Scotia Brook is a designated Natural Heritage Site and is home to an important number of water voles.

Chell Heath lies east of both on the eastern flank, separated from Ball Green village by reclaimed spoil from Chatterley Whitfield Colliery.

The nearest workings were at Chatterley Whitfield, bordering Chell Heath, which was the first UK mine to produce more than 1 million tons of coal per annum.

[27][28] Just to the west of the Chells, lay Wolstanton Colliery, which at 3197 ft once had Europe's deepest mine shaft.

[10] The area is predominantly residential with a good mix of private, council, detached, semi-detached and terraced properties.

To the north and west of Chell the land peters out into the open countryside and heathland of the Staffordshire Moorlands.

The Vine, a rare Victorian (c.1875) backstreet local, is a grade II listed pub in the adjunct Pitts Hill area.

[33] The Sustrans National Cycle Routes 5 and 55 pass west and east of Chell respectively and help to delineate the extent of the area.

Chell Workhouse circa 1839
The landscaped spoil heap of the former Chatterley Whitfield mine, viewed across a lake of Whitfield Valley nature reserve.
Church of the Saviour, Chell Heath