Chatterley Whitfield: former office and laboratory complex (12-14), Baddeley, Milton and Norton, City of Stoke-on-Trent

Summary

Former colliery offices (12 & 13) and laboratory (14), now offices. Constructed in 1934, extended in late 1930s, with a further addition erected prior to 1951; late-C20 alterations and refurbished in the early C21.

Description

MATERIALS: load-bearing red brick to a stretcher bond under felt-covered flat roofs with brick parapets, hipped, steel-framed skylights and two brick stacks. The metal-framed casement windows are early-C21 copies of the originals and have continuous rendered lintel bands.

PLAN: an irregular plan consisting of the L-shaped main office block, a rectangular block to the east which housed the former wages office and is connected to the former at its south-west corner, and a further rectangular block of the former laboratory which was added to the north-east in 1935. A single-storey addition has been built in the gap between the office and wages blocks, and an early-C21 open-sided canopy with glazed, hipped roof has been added to the west side of the former laboratory in the early C21.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation of the two-storey main office block faces west and is of eight bays. The entrance is slightly off-centre and set in taller flat-roofed entrance tower. The doorway has a painted moulded surround, double doors and plaque above door head which reads 'CHATTERLEY WHITFIELD COLLIERIES LTD REGISTERED OFFICE'. Above the doors is a tall transomed window. To the left is a four-bay part with multi-pane metal window frames to both floors. These have concrete sills and continuous painted lintel bands. This detailing is repeated to the right of the doorway, where the end three bays are advanced, with curved ends; the curve to the right extending onto the five-bay south elevation, which, like the west front, has alternate rectangular and square window openings. The adjacent single-storey block, formerly the wages office, is of three bays. It has a glazed, metal-framed door to the left bay and two metal-framed windows beyond. To the north-east, built on higher ground, is the former laboratory. This south elevation has a central entrance with three metal-framed windows to the left of the door and two, matching but wider windows to the right. The east elevation is similarly arranged with a central entrance flanked by three windows, while the return has a pair of doors and a single window. The west elevation has a basement level with no openings and there are four windows to the floor above. The openings in the north elevation are in matching materials to the rest of the building. There is a single-storey projection at the north-east corner of the north elevation of the main office block which has narrow windows and an entrance door. The north elevation to the main block has a central doorway with a window to either side to both the ground and first floors. Above the doorway is a tall transomed window. The three-bay north elevation has a central doorway and a tall stair window above.

INTERIOR: the ground floor of the main office block and the former laboratory each has a central spine corridor with rooms to either side and this arrangement is replicated on the first floor of the office block. The primary and secondary stairs retain their original detailing and the safe has also been retained. The former wages block is mostly open-plan and retains the original green-glazed tiles to one of its corridor walls. The interiors throughout have undergone modernisation and there has been some minor reconfiguration to the arrangement of rooms.

History

The coal seams in the Chatterley Whitfield area may have been worked from the medieval period but large-scale extraction began in the C19, particularly following the opening of the Biddulph Valley Railway line in the 1860s and the formation of Chatterley Whitfield Collieries Ltd in 1891. By the early C20 the mine workings were focussed around four shafts – known as the Engine Pit, Middle Pit, Institute Pit and Platt Pit. The 1910s saw significant investment including the construction of the new Winstanley shaft in 1913-15, which superseded the adjacent Engine Pit and served the workings of the Middle Pit. Soon after another new shaft was dug, the Hesketh Shaft constructed 1914-1917. This was designed to serve the much deeper coal seams below those worked by the other shafts. Following a contraction in production during the labour unrest of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s, there was renewed investment in the site including the mechanisation of underground haulage and the construction of new office accommodation and a pithead baths complex. In 1937 the colliery became the first to extract over one million tonnes of coal in a year.

Following the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947 there was further investment, most notably the introduction of mine cars and locomotive haulage in 1952, which included the construction of a surface mine car circuit to allow the circulation of tubs from the pithead to the washery and back again. From the 1960s production at the site fell and in the 1970s it was decided to work the remaining coal from Wolstanton Colliery. Production ceased in 1976 and the site opened as a mining museum in 1979. This ensured the survival of the buildings, but the museum closed due to financial difficulties in 1993 and the site has been unused since then.

An office building (12 and 13) was constructed at Chatterley Whitfield in 1934 to house the clerical and administrative staff of the entire colliery who previously worked at the company's offices in Tunstall. The building was subsequently extended to include a wages office and an attached laboratory (14); the latter built in two phases during the late 1930s and prior to 1950. The wages office originally extended to the north-west, but its northern third was demolished sometime after 1984. The building was refurbished in 2004-05 and provides office accommodation.

Reasons for Listing

The former colliery offices and laboratory, of 1934 with later changes, at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: a good and, despite refurbishment, little-altered example of a colliery service building competently designed in the Modernist style;
* Historic interest: part of a group of historically significant structures which represent essential components of the colliery ensemble;
* Group value: it has a spatial and visual relationship with other buildings related to the management and care of the colliery workforce, and the general administration of a complex, multi-functional industrial site.

External Links

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