Madeley: Time Line 
History & Dates.

By Chris Machin

(Photo. © Andrew T. Finney)

1971 to 1990

1972 - One hundred ex-pupils of Woodlands County Primary School in Leycett gather on its last day to pay tribute to the last two remaining teachers. Husband and wife, Kenneth and Marion Platt. He began teaching there in 1936, and remained there, apart from seven years in the RAF, during the war, and she started there in 1948.

1973 - Quentin & Colin Crewe apply for outline planning permission to develop three hundred acres at Leycett into leisure and recreation centre, equestrian centre, boating lake, school, shops, hotel and restaurant, and five or six hundred houses for two thousand people. The scheme is officially launched at Netherset Hey Farm and attended by John Golding MP and members of Newcastle Rural Council. The scheme is eventually declined by Staffordshire Borough Council. John Golding (1931-1999), was born in Birmingham and educated at Chester Grammar School, London University & Keele University. In 1958, he married Thelma Gwillym, and they had one son and another son who died, but the marriage was dissolved. In 1980, he married Llinos Lewis. He was MP for Newcastle under Lyme from 1969 to 1986, and his second wife succeeded him as MP.

1979 - Madeley Road Station is demolished.

1981 - Madeley Teacher Training College closes.

1984 - ‘Five Walks around Madeley’, produced by the Planning Department of Newcastle under Lyme Borough Council. (Still available from book shops and Newcastle Library)

1985 - Rev. Malcolm Griffin takes over as Vicar of Madeley, until 1996. Sadly, he dies in 2001.

1986 - The Council agrees to Kirk Shenton Homes Ltd plan to convert Madeley Mill into four flats and build 14 town houses. Madeley Mill is an early 19th Century building.

1986 - Thousands of fish are killed in Madeley Pool after a spillage of silage from a local farm through a storm drain. Hundreds of fish are saved by local youngsters who put them into local pools.

1988 - The Old Swan is reopened after refurbishment. The first customer is Daley a 29 stone Canadian black bear from Gandey’s circus. The Old Swan used to be on a cross-roads before the current road to Newcastle was amended. The road led on to the mines at Leycett.

1988 - Madeley Healthcare Ltd reopens Madeley Manor as Madeley Manor Nursing Home.

1988 - Madeley Pool Action Group launch appeal to raise £40,000 to clean up the village pool.

1988 - Dawn Quick, aged ten, saves Simon Rowley, aged three, from drowning in silt in Madeley Pool.

1989 - British Coal and Staffs Nature Conservation Trust apply to develop Bates Wood as a nature reserve. The plan is approved by Staffs County Council. This is the site of the former Leycett Colliery.

1989 - Tony and Yvonne Price, North Staffs Wildlife Rescue Service, move from Bathpool, Kidsgrove to The Spinney, Madeley Heath.

1989 - K P Parnell charges £98,406 to clear Madeley Pool of silt. The Council had estimated £150,000 to £175,000. The plan is to net the fish, pump the pool dry, allow the silt to harden and then bulldoze it on to nearby fields and is approved by Newcastle Borough Council Policy and Resources Committee.

1990 - A meeting at Madeley High School protests at Barratts Homes plan to build 400 homes and a by-pass in Madeley. Madeley Conservation Group show 97% of villagers oppose the plan.

1990 - Madeley Pool is drained in preparation for dredging. This is held up by treasure hunters with metal detectors who appear following rumours that Irish Navvies, who had built the local railways in the 19th century, had cast gold sovereigns into the pool when they came out of local hostelries!

1990 - The teacher training college is demolished. Westbury Homes acquire the site and start to build the College Gardens and Bryn Wood housing estates.

1990 - The Crewe Arms Hotel is reopened after refurbishment. It has been a blacksmith’s, a cow-shed, a farm house, pub and now a hotel. The Crewe’s Arms had been near the railway station in Manor Road in the 19th Century.

1990 - Kirk Shenton Homes Ltd is commended by Staffs County Council in the Arthur Brown Trophy for the restoration work done on The Old Mill.

1990 - ‘Keele, Madeley & Whitmore. A Portrait in Old Picture Postcards’, is published by Brampton Publications. (Now out of print but may be available in second hand book shops).

1990 - The Council refuse planning permission for the animal sanctuary at Madeley Heath.