North Staffordshire Coalfield - A Potential World Heritage Site

We need your help us make the North Staffordshire Coalfield a World Heritage Site?

The PHOENIX TRUST (STAFFORDSHIRE), a non-profit making foundation, is being established to sponsor historical research with a view to making the North Staffordshire Coalfield a World Heritage Site.

Our research programme is being co-ordinated by international heritage lawyer and regeneration consultant David Martin.

David who studied law and history at the London School of Economics, has worked in the field of heritage based community regeneration since his student days when he was part of the team that created the Gladstone Pottery Museum. Originally, a commercial lawyer specialising in raising project development finance, he played a major role in Liverpool's regeneration after the Toxteth riots and helped regenerate the Medway Towns, Bristol Quays, Gloucester Docks and Cardiff Bay.

His clients have included the United Nations who instructed him to advise on the creation of World Heritage Sites and investigate human rights abuse. World Heritage Sites he has worked on in England and Wales include Hadrian's Wall, Maritime Greenwich and the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape in South Wales.

David, who went to school in Tunstall, has always taken a keen interest in North Staffordshire's socio-economic history and its architectural heritage. While taking A' levels at Stoke-on-Trent College of Commerce, he took over 5,000 photographs capturing the region's character and atmosphere in the 'swinging sixties'. Having already completed extensive, in-depth, original research into the North Staffordshire Coalfield's economic, social and administrative history, we are starting a heritage audit and photographic survey to record the region's historical buildings.

During the next few months, buildings in the Potteries, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Biddulph, Mow Cop, Kidsgrove, Audley, Chesterton, Silverdale and Knutton will be photographed. We need your help to ensure that no historic building is left out and invite you to nominate churches, schools, factories, shops and other buildings for inclusion in the survey.

Buildings may be nominated by emailing David at daymar727@btinternet.com

When making a nomination, please give the building's name and address along with your reasons for nominating it.