Wow never seen Burslem look so full! The buildings and roads look very well look after as well, nowadays the roads are falling apart and the buildings are half destroyed and in ruins, boarded up shops and pubs everywhere and a smack head in every corner, looking back on these old videos makes me think we have fallen so far
Born and bred in burslem top of Scotia road,great memories,and the pubs,wow everyone packed every weekend,then a short stroll,to the adulte,my local was the foaming quart,run by Graham and Mary leese, fantastic couple,who knew everybody by name,just like any other pub in burslem,hi bert pinta lager,as soon as you walked through the door,great memories, great people, great town,now decaying,just like the surrounding towns, heartbreaking,,
Hi mate…I too was was born and raised at the top of Scotia Rd…I think I know who you are actually lol. We lived at number 10 and I think you may have lived at number 6 ? Looking back they were good days…everyone had each other’s back and it was a safe place to grow up…really enjoyed this.
What a super film of memories and how the town was in my youth. Sadly after years of neglect by the City Council it looks as it does today drab, uninviting and sadly devoid of people and life. The shame lies with poor planning and pie in the sky ventures that have achieved little. It was and has always being a Market Place which was crushed by those in power to focus upon Hanley. ..and see what that ambition has created other than another desert. Bring back a proper market and make parking free as the saying goes 'the people will come'
Have you read Arnold Bennett's 1908 novel 'The old wives tale?' It brilliantly portrays Burslem during the mid Victorian to Edwardian periods and the subsequent changes it went through. In the novel he calls it Bursley. Well worth a read especially if you're a local like yourself.
What a lovely film and what a brilliant approach the giving the area a lift. This contrasts with some of the city council's disastrous later attempts at social engineering. I can still remember practicing with a band I played in in the basement of the old town hall on a Thursday night. What a terrible shame about the recent 'accidental' fire in The Leopard 🤔
It’s a shame there’s nothing there now but run down pubs and refuse sites. The leopard pub burned down a few days ago. The council are robbing the area of its heritage by spending public money on car parks. They’re talking about neglect of the buildings in this video and it looks so much nicer than it does today.
I come from Burslem and still live in Stoke on Trent. I was 10 in 1974 when I remember Burslem as a busy and vibrant town and a pleasure to visit with a good variety of quality shops which were all occupied and not boarded up like today. So sad to see it so neglected now. It started to decline when all of the emphasis was given to Hanley in Stoke on Trent but Hanley is now looking shabby. In 1974 Hanley was also busy and vibrant and a pleasure to visit.
I worked in Burslem in 85-86 and it was still as you described. I returned in 91 and it was already in a poor state. Over the next 8 or 9 years it turned into what it is now. There used to be three or four little specialist shoos but they struggled as the council refused to allow proper car parking close to them.
@@davidlovatt2335 Heartbreaking. Burslem was the posh shopping town when I was little. It was a treat to go there. There was a great little toy shop on Nile Street that was like an Aladdin's cave.
@@chrisparkes2179 it was a treat to go there like you say. Every shop was occupied, none boarded up it was clean, excellent indoor market and you could get all you needed. Fond memories indeed.
WOW! what a lovely film. If only it was like that today. My Mum used to work at Askeys Emporium, she is now 85 but often recalls what Burslem was like in her day.
Think it should be restored ‘back’ to this finished piece including shop signage, cars and landscaping. What a fascinating place it must of been wondering into the shops and bric-à-brac places. 😃❤️
10:56 that pub (the leopard) is more than 300 years old and has just burned down a few days ago, this is probably one of the best ways to remember it now.
What a shame! it was an amazing building, i was lucky to venture into its run down hotel rooms a few years ago as the landlady allowed us access. My favourite building in burslem
Great to see the pride being taken in the mother town. Pity the council are not doing the same today. Its criminal how they have left this town fall into even worse decay. Burslem is mother to all the towns and should be treated as such.
Pidduck and Beardmore, many happy times years ago in there with my dear departed dad. Feeding a police dog in the market. Waiting for the Brown Edge Schools bus. Nostalgia overload.
i live in stoke on trent.In 2021 Burslems buildings look exactly like in this 1960 film, except in a far worse state. Burslem town centre is a derelict mess of empty shops and boarded up buildings. if you see 10 people walking about, its packed. The place is dead. stoke on trent is a large spralling mess of building sites, demolished wasteland and regeneration schemes that take 20 yrs to complete and are needing a revamp once they are done. The city centre Hanley is a joke. if you live here you know this.
Probably the last time Burslem got any TLC ☹️ love my city to the core but we need help!!! I went to Hanley yesterday and my god I was devastated I’m only 22 but even in the past 5 years I’ve seen such a decline breaks my heart 💔
Despite this video being about Burslem, I'm 32 and used to frequent Stoke a lot in the 90's with my mother, especially in Hanley. I have to say, things have changed a lot now for the worse, even these years on.
As a kid in the 70’s I remember quite a few of the shops ……I didn’t realise it was part of a scheme like this…..where has it gone …..towns like Burslem should be refurbished like this again…..wonderful video
anyone else remember the old "ford pop" with the arrow pointers instead of flashing indicators?? We had one as a kid, slate blue coloured, burgundy seats. My earliest memories were around 1962 or 63 driving in one to go on fishing trips to the canal with my Dad (RIP daddy)
Surprising the difference a lick of paint makes.....pity it isn't done more often though. Quite amusing seeing all the old British cars on the road. But our buses were right old crates and haven't changed much!!
My parents had a stall in the butchers' market. They also had a shop in Hanley. My father died when I was three after having served four years in WW1. My mother struggled to keep the stall open but with rationing it became impossible. As a child I remember walking around the walls of the town hall and underground there was a brewery which children weren't allowed but I did go down there once.
Wonderful, original, old and very dear to many peoples hearts, Burslem went the way of many towns in Britain, updated, at the price of the wrecking ball destroying Victorian architecture, We have lost many fine buildings and real treasures, in the name of modernity, I prefer to call it madernity,
The thing that killed Burslem was the loss of the pottery firms. At 5pm in the 80s you could barely get onto a bus to get home. Now buses barely have cause to stop there. Some areas no longer even have a direct bus to get there. There had never been a strike in the pottery industry, the unions worked closely with the largely family owned companies for mutual benefit to staff and management. Yet they git tarred with the same brush as British Leyland's and a handful of other such unions that abused their power. The high pound and high interest rates of the eighties killed the potteries, unable to export goods and unable to repay the loans that were forced to take out to try to survive. London based financial companies bought them cheap from the receivers upon bankruptcy and assert stripped them to make quick profits for shareholders. The same happened to the dozens of small engineering companies, some employing only a handful of people, but combined together employing hundreds.
Think the Buildings have only been painted once since 1960......What a sorry state the buildings are in today.....Coucil cant afford a tin of paint....Shocking state of affairs
Take me back please, got to be England's finest years, before the dreadfull shopping centres, souless, dangerous places, time machine please and leave me there.!!!
Are the trees they planted still there? I can't remember now and I haven't been in Burslem since 1992. Personally, I quite liked it as it was, although, they only painted things thankfully. If in doubt, do nowt, don't throw it out!
No is no trees, town Hall long gone, was replaced with a glass building which now also gone, just a paved square now with benches which no one uses except drug addicts and alcoholics, nearly half of pubs and shops closed down now since covid.
@@apdcarr Sorry to hear that! It seems that most small towns are struggling to hang on, as Amazon and maybe the internet at large, plus those vile shopping arcades have sucked the life out of them. It's people playing on the stock market and buying businesses out from under their owners that halted British industry, including the pottery industry and sent it overseas, that's also a major factor. I wasn't a massive fan of it mind you, it was grim in many respects. I'd quite like to see the trees take over, and the way things are going, they will!
And not a bag of monkey dust in sight.😮. With full employment in the Potteries, Micheliin, the pits and Shelton steel works it was a golden period . Tooooo big an area, tooooo little money now for Stoke on Trent to be better. Crewe is as bad, the top end of Stafford high street is all empty, thats progress.😢
Yet more footage which I look at with a kind of nostalgic jealousy. The previous generation clearly took more pride in their community. Burslem is now full of kebab houses and shops which sell those irritating vapour cigarettes. A sad reflection of our industrial heritage from days gone by!
Im not from stoke.but i lived there briefly .its shame those historic buildings are mess now .stoke could be great place if it was restored. hanleys a 1960s craphole .people of stoke need to stop voting career politicans in they dont give dam about stoke.get somone fresh modern thinking that will fight for stoke .I like stoke and the people.I feel proud to tell people in glasgow i was in stoke
1:15 "our shopping areas having an unwelcoming feel..."
2022 has entered the chat.
Wow never seen Burslem look so full! The buildings and roads look very well look after as well, nowadays the roads are falling apart and the buildings are half destroyed and in ruins, boarded up shops and pubs everywhere and a smack head in every corner, looking back on these old videos makes me think we have fallen so far
Born and bred in burslem top of Scotia road,great memories,and the pubs,wow everyone packed every weekend,then a short stroll,to the adulte,my local was the foaming quart,run by Graham and Mary leese, fantastic couple,who knew everybody by name,just like any other pub in burslem,hi bert pinta lager,as soon as you walked through the door,great memories, great people, great town,now decaying,just like the surrounding towns, heartbreaking,,
Hi mate…I too was was born and raised at the top of Scotia Rd…I think I know who you are actually lol. We lived at number 10 and I think you may have lived at number 6 ? Looking back they were good days…everyone had each other’s back and it was a safe place to grow up…really enjoyed this.
sounds like hell on earth
Eh up alan,yea i think i know you,kath Arthur,and david ? your family,great days eh,
@@edwinstarr5591 that was us Bert 👍 probably didn’t seem like it at the time but, in hindsight, yes they were great days 👍
What a super film of memories and how the town was in my youth. Sadly after years of neglect by the City Council it looks as it does today drab, uninviting and sadly devoid of people and life. The shame lies with poor planning and pie in the sky ventures that have achieved little. It was and has always being a Market Place which was crushed by those in power to focus upon Hanley. ..and see what that ambition has created other than another desert. Bring back a proper market and make parking free as the saying goes 'the people will come'
yes and port vale market please
@@sharonbrammeld9082 I loved Port Vale Market, used to come up from castle
Certainly not gotten any better with the Leopard going up.
Have you read Arnold Bennett's 1908 novel 'The old wives tale?' It brilliantly portrays Burslem during the mid Victorian to Edwardian periods and the subsequent changes it went through. In the novel he calls it Bursley. Well worth a read especially if you're a local like yourself.
What a lovely film and what a brilliant approach the giving the area a lift. This contrasts with some of the city council's disastrous later attempts at social engineering. I can still remember practicing with a band I played in in the basement of the old town hall on a Thursday night. What a terrible shame about the recent 'accidental' fire in The Leopard 🤔
I was recommended this video out of nowhere, and all the recent arson came to mind. So blooming sad.
It’s a shame there’s nothing there now but run down pubs and refuse sites. The leopard pub burned down a few days ago. The council are robbing the area of its heritage by spending public money on car parks. They’re talking about neglect of the buildings in this video and it looks so much nicer than it does today.
I couldn't agree more
I lived there just up the road High lane and smallthorn it's sad seeing how stoke on Trent turned out.
Just how I remember it growing up. This is a lovely walk down memory lane.
Can u believe someone burned down the leopard pub
@@debodevil6974 shocked someone mentioned this on here. Seems like a dead video now.
I come from Burslem and still live in Stoke on Trent. I was 10 in 1974 when I remember Burslem as a busy and vibrant town and a pleasure to visit with a good variety of quality shops which were all occupied and not boarded up like today. So sad to see it so neglected now. It started to decline when all of the emphasis was given to Hanley in Stoke on Trent but Hanley is now looking shabby. In 1974 Hanley was also busy and vibrant and a pleasure to visit.
I worked in Burslem in 85-86 and it was still as you described. I returned in 91 and it was already in a poor state. Over the next 8 or 9 years it turned into what it is now. There used to be three or four little specialist shoos but they struggled as the council refused to allow proper car parking close to them.
@@chrisparkes2179 Thanks for your reply Chris. So sad isn't it to see Burslem like it is now.
@@davidlovatt2335 Heartbreaking. Burslem was the posh shopping town when I was little. It was a treat to go there. There was a great little toy shop on Nile Street that was like an Aladdin's cave.
@@chrisparkes2179 it was a treat to go there like you say. Every shop was occupied, none boarded up it was clean, excellent indoor market and you could get all you needed. Fond memories indeed.
WOW! what a lovely film. If only it was like that today. My Mum used to work at Askeys Emporium, she is now 85 but often recalls what Burslem was like in her day.
For a reason I will never understand, we alloed the lunatic left to take over everything and fucking RUIN it.
My Dad's last job before he retired was Caretaker at the Burslem Art College, he loved it there !
Think it should be restored ‘back’ to this finished piece including shop signage, cars and landscaping. What a fascinating place it must of been wondering into the shops and bric-à-brac places. 😃❤️
10:56 that pub (the leopard) is more than 300 years old and has just burned down a few days ago, this is probably one of the best ways to remember it now.
What a shame! it was an amazing building, i was lucky to venture into its run down hotel rooms a few years ago as the landlady allowed us access. My favourite building in burslem
Genuine shame what has happened to Burslem now.
Great to see the pride being taken in the mother town. Pity the council are not doing the same today. Its criminal how they have left this town fall into even worse decay. Burslem is mother to all the towns and should be treated as such.
Pidduck and Beardmore, many happy times years ago in there with my dear departed dad. Feeding a police dog in the market. Waiting for the Brown Edge Schools bus. Nostalgia overload.
i live in stoke on trent.In 2021 Burslems buildings look exactly like in this 1960 film, except in a far worse state. Burslem town centre is a derelict mess of empty shops and boarded up buildings. if you see 10 people walking about, its packed. The place is dead. stoke on trent is a large spralling mess of building sites, demolished wasteland and regeneration schemes that take 20 yrs to complete and are needing a revamp once they are done. The city centre Hanley is a joke. if you live here you know this.
Probably the last time Burslem got any TLC ☹️ love my city to the core but we need help!!! I went to Hanley yesterday and my god I was devastated I’m only 22 but even in the past 5 years I’ve seen such a decline breaks my heart 💔
What a great film, takes me back to my youth. Thanks for posting.
These films were digitised by Staffordshire Film Archive www.filmarchive.org.uk
Crazy how it's come full circle now. The Leopard fire just cements how dire the town has become. Got some great takeaways though!
We often think things are better today than they were years ago. Not in the case of Boslem. Mother town at deaths door.
Despite this video being about Burslem, I'm 32 and used to frequent Stoke a lot in the 90's with my mother, especially in Hanley. I have to say, things have changed a lot now for the worse, even these years on.
As a kid in the 70’s I remember quite a few of the shops ……I didn’t realise it was part of a scheme like this…..where has it gone …..towns like Burslem should be refurbished like this again…..wonderful video
Brilliant, thanks for posting 🙋🏽👍🏽
anyone else remember the old "ford pop" with the arrow pointers instead of flashing indicators?? We had one as a kid, slate blue coloured, burgundy seats. My earliest memories were around 1962 or 63 driving in one to go on fishing trips to the canal with my Dad (RIP daddy)
lovely. when Britain was Britan
Truly interesting stuff. Great stuff.
Surprising the difference a lick of paint makes.....pity it isn't done more often though. Quite amusing seeing all the old British cars on the road. But our buses were right old crates and haven't changed much!!
My parents had a stall in the butchers' market. They also had a shop in Hanley. My father died when I was three after having served four years in WW1. My mother struggled to keep the stall open but with rationing it became impossible. As a child I remember walking around the walls of the town hall and underground there was a brewery which children weren't allowed but I did go down there once.
If the people on the streets of Burslem, in this film could see the town as it is now in 2024 they would weep.
Wonderful, original, old and very dear to many peoples hearts, Burslem went the way of many towns in Britain, updated, at the price of the wrecking ball destroying Victorian architecture, We have lost many fine buildings and real treasures, in the name of modernity, I prefer to call it madernity,
The thing that killed Burslem was the loss of the pottery firms. At 5pm in the 80s you could barely get onto a bus to get home. Now buses barely have cause to stop there. Some areas no longer even have a direct bus to get there.
There had never been a strike in the pottery industry, the unions worked closely with the largely family owned companies for mutual benefit to staff and management. Yet they git tarred with the same brush as British Leyland's and a handful of other such unions that abused their power.
The high pound and high interest rates of the eighties killed the potteries, unable to export goods and unable to repay the loans that were forced to take out to try to survive. London based financial companies bought them cheap from the receivers upon bankruptcy and assert stripped them to make quick profits for shareholders.
The same happened to the dozens of small engineering companies, some employing only a handful of people, but combined together employing hundreds.
Think the Buildings have only been painted once since 1960......What a sorry state the buildings are in today.....Coucil cant afford a tin of paint....Shocking state of affairs
They spent £22000 on a garden next to the Town Hall. It has gone completely!
Used to be some depressing looking art gallery
Unless your not talking about behind the hall
Most places are being left to deteriorate I wonder why.
Take more than a lick of paint nowadays to spruce things up
I don’t know the area but I can imagine people there would love to regain what they have lost, it looked like a charming town centre. And now?
Drove through there today! Looks no different from their ‘before’ images all shamefully neglected. Especially after the Leopard Inn fire
Take me back please, got to be England's finest years, before the dreadfull shopping centres, souless, dangerous places, time machine please and leave me there.!!!
Fuse the niceness of the 60s with tbe moderness of now
How good it looked
Very nice I might do a remake next year
'Theere paintin up owd Boslem town It's enough to mak thee stare' from Silicosis Written by Bob Wilson
A wonderful film sadly all lost now, its a ghost town
sadly nothing like that now ;;rember going u to burslem from newcastle with family ;;stilgo now but no shops as such
Not an empty shop anywhere ❤
Can u believe some1 burned down the leopard pub
Man, what happened to Stoke since then :(
Thatcher
Druggies
Globalisation, cheap crockery from China, Vietnam etc
Love the shop that sold tobacco and baby wear! ….. simpler times.
I remember Askeys very well
Ppl painting lampposts, you dont see that no more
Burslem could go back to how it used to be. It needs investment and fast before all the history is destroyed and forgotten
These lads need to come back and give it a lick of paint and some tlc again!
Are the trees they planted still there? I can't remember now and I haven't been in Burslem since 1992. Personally, I quite liked it as it was, although, they only painted things thankfully. If in doubt, do nowt, don't throw it out!
No is no trees, town Hall long gone, was replaced with a glass building which now also gone, just a paved square now with benches which no one uses except drug addicts and alcoholics, nearly half of pubs and shops closed down now since covid.
@@apdcarr Sorry to hear that! It seems that most small towns are struggling to hang on, as Amazon and maybe the internet at large, plus those vile shopping arcades have sucked the life out of them. It's people playing on the stock market and buying businesses out from under their owners that halted British industry, including the pottery industry and sent it overseas, that's also a major factor. I wasn't a massive fan of it mind you, it was grim in many respects. I'd quite like to see the trees take over, and the way things are going, they will!
Wonder if the Council have seen this. And I hope that, if they have, that they're ashamed of themselves. Mother Town indeed...
My dads birth place and his dad too in 1870
Enoch Powell, should have been listened to, look at the place now.
The last of good Town Planners. Town Planning was an actual Olympic discipline. 1928 - 1948.
Commentator would have a fit if he saw today’s high streets.🙀
👍
And not a bag of monkey dust in sight.😮.
With full employment in the Potteries, Micheliin, the pits and Shelton steel works it was a golden period .
Tooooo big an area, tooooo little money now for Stoke on Trent to be better.
Crewe is as bad, the top end of Stafford high street is all empty, thats progress.😢
Doesn’t really look much different today
All white very oddto see that now
Wonder if there's a correlation in there? It looks quite nice back in the day. I'm guessing it doesn't resemble this any more...
Far from it
Its a pity they didn't sand last the stone buildings it would have made a big difference
Is this port vale ?
Port vales a football ground
@@israeladesanya4596 Port Vale is a football club. Vale park is their football ground, which is situated in Burslem
Yet more footage which I look at with a kind of nostalgic jealousy. The previous generation clearly took more pride in their community. Burslem is now full of kebab houses and shops which sell those irritating vapour cigarettes. A sad reflection of our industrial heritage from days gone by!
Haha and now the center the clock tower is my college 😂
Burslem would have looked gleaming then. Im only born in 2006
UTV ⚫⚪
I only put it on for the stokey accent, :/
Everything's so white !
😉👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Burslem = Pitsville !!
Im not from stoke.but i lived there briefly .its shame those historic buildings are mess now .stoke could be great place if it was restored. hanleys a 1960s craphole .people of stoke need to stop voting career politicans in they dont give dam about stoke.get somone fresh modern thinking that will fight for stoke .I like stoke and the people.I feel proud to tell people in glasgow i was in stoke
Jesus if this fella could see Burslem now