Penkhull
| Penkhull | |
|---|---|
 The Greyhound Inn | |
 Flag | |
  Penkhull Location within Staffordshire | |
| Population | 6,518 (2011.Ward. Penkhull and Stoke)[1] |
| OS grid reference | SJ868448 |
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | STOKE-ON-TRENT |
| Postcode district | ST4 |
| Dialling code | 01782 |
| Police | Staffordshire |
| Fire | Staffordshire |
| Ambulance | West Midlands |
| UK Parliament | |
Penkhull is a district of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, part of Penkhull and Stoke electoral ward, and Stoke Central parliamentary constituency.
Penkhull is a conservation area, and includes Grade II listed buildings such as the church and Greyhound Inn public house.[2]
Etymology
[edit]The name Penkhull is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086 in the form Pinchetel.[3] Moving beyond nineteenth-century speculations,[4] twentieth-century place-name researchers have identified the origin of the name Penkhull as two Common Brittonic words: *penno- (head) and *kēto- (woodland), corresponding to modern Welsh pen coed. Thus the name once meant "end of the wood". This Brittonic place-name was adopted by speakers of Old English, who added the Old English word hyll ("hill") to the end.[3][5] The idea of a 'head' or 'end' is topographically apt, since the village is sited on the elevated end of a long strip of valley-side woodland which begins at the ancient Bradwell Wood five miles to the north.
History
[edit]The early origins date from 2500 BC, and there have been three archaeological finds from this period. A study by the local city Council stated of Penkhull that... "it has held a settlement for over four thousand years".[6]
The Domesday Book records it as two hides of land in the Hundred of Pirehill and that it was held by Earl Algar.[7]
Penkhull was a Royal Manor from the time of William the Conqueror 1086, and the last record of its title as a Royal Manor was in 1308 under King (Edward II).
Penkhull was developed by Josiah Spode II as a dormitory suburb of Stoke-upon-Trent, the town from which the city of Stoke-on-Trent took its name.
The Church
[edit]
The ecclesiastical parish was created out of the parish of Stoke in 1844[8] when the church of St. Thomas[9] was built.[10] The church is by Scott and Moffatt. The Revd Thomas Webb Minton, the son of Thomas Minton and Rector of Darlington, gave the sum of £2,000 to be invested from which the interest provided an income for the Vicar. The aisles were added in 1892 by Edward Prioleau Warren.[11] The Village Hall was built at the same time and was at that time a Church of England school for the poor.
Music and Performing Arts
[edit]Penkhull has a number of music and performing arts events, including annual Mystery Plays and community pantomime. There is also a Domesday Morris every January to celebrate good health and a successful fruit crop for the year ahead[12].
Notable people
[edit]
- Thomas Whieldon (1719 in Penkhull - 1795) significant English potter[13] who played a leading role in the development of the Staffordshire Potteries
- Josiah Spode II (1755–1827) built the large residential hall 'The Mount',[14] and many properties for the employees who worked at his factory in the town of Stoke.
- Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge FRS (1851 in Penkhull – 1940) British physicist [15] and writer involved in the development of radio and sparking plugs. He identified electromagnetic radiation. He was a Christian Spiritualist
- Professor Alfred Lodge MA (1854 in Penkhull – 1937), English mathematician, author, and the first president of the Mathematical Association
- Sir Richard Lodge (1855 in Penkhull – 1936) British historian and was Professor of History at the University of Glasgow from 1894 to 1899 and then Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh from 1899 to 1925
- Edward Prioleau Warren (1856 – 1937) British architect and archaeologist. In 1892 he worked on the addition of aisles at St Thomas's Church, Penkhull
- Eleanor Constance Lodge CBE, (1869 - 1936). Vice-Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 1890 to 1921 and then Principal of Westfield College, Hampstead, in the University of London from 1921 to 1931
- John Wain (1925-1994) Poet, novelist, playwright, biographer, critic, academic. He spent his childhood at Bromley Hough, Penkhull. [1]
- Charles Tomlinson, CBE (1927 in Penkhull– 2015) British poet,[16] translator, academic and illustrator. He grew up in Basford
- Neil Morrissey (born 1962) English actor, voice actor, singer, comedian, and businessman. He spent much of his childhood in Penkhull Children's Home and attended Thistley Hough High School.[17]
Sport
[edit]- Reg Forester (1892 in Penkhull – 1959) English footballer who played for Stoke City F.C. and Macclesfield Town F.C.
- Sir Stanley Matthews (1915 – 2000) the only footballer to be knighted while still playing.[18] He moved to "The Views" Penkhull[19] (also birthplace of Sir Oliver Lodge) in 1989 where lived until his death in 2000.
- John Poole (born 1932) English former football goalkeeper who made 33 league appearances for Port Vale F.C. between 1953 and 1961.
- Bill Bratt MBE (born 1945) former chairman of Port Vale F. C., from 2003 to 2011.[20] He lived in numerous children's homes in Penkhull, before becoming a miner at Chatterley Whitfield
- Peter Ridgway (born 1972 in Penkhull) cricketer,[21] a left-handed batsman who bowled right-arm fast-medium
References
[edit]- ^ "Stoke ward population 2011". Retrieved 21 December 2015.
- ^ Website of Neville Malkin's "Grand Tour" of the Potteries retrieved Feb 2017
- ^ a b Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), s.v. Penkhull.
- ^ John Ward, The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent (1843) had suggested the possibility of the Celtic British Pen (head) and Kyl (kiln).
- ^ The Victoria History of the County of Stafford: Volume 8 (1965).
- ^ Stoke-on-Trent City Council. Penkhull Village Conservation Area Appraisal report, March 2008.
- ^ Domesday Book Staffordshire 1086, Phillimore & Co Ltd, Chichester 1976.
- ^ Richard Talbot; The Church and Ancient Parish of Stoke-upon-Trent, Webberley Ltd, Hanley, 1969 (page 57)
- ^ Church of England website retrieved Feb 2015
- ^ Website of Neville Malkin's "Grand Tour" of the Potteries retrieved Feb 2017
- ^ Nikolaus Pevsner; The Buildings of England: Staffordshire, Penguin Books Ltd, 1974. ISBN 0-14-071046-9. Page 263.
- ^ "Local Events". PRA. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
- ^ thepotteries.org website, local history of Stoke-on-Trent, England retrieved January 2018
- ^ Website of Neville Malkin's "Grand Tour" of the Potteries retrieved Feb 2017
- ^ . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). 1911.
- ^ The Charles Tomlinson Resource Centre website archive retrieved January 2018
- ^ "Neil Morrissey revisits his children's home roots". The Guardian. 22 March 2011. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
- ^ SoccerBase Database retrieved January 2018
- ^ Website of Neville Malkin's "Grand Tour" of the Potteries retrieved Feb 2017
- ^ BBC Sport, 29 July 2011 retrieved January 2018
- ^ ESPN cricinfo Database retrieved January 2018
External links
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