The land behind the
square was laid out by the Tunstall Building Society.
Building Society, begun in 1816, and of which many of the working
Potters were members, gave rise to forty small houses, and the
formation of two new streets, called Paradise Street, and
Piccadilly, extending from the market-place westwardly."
The Articles of
Agreement show that the society was formed on the "twenty second day
of May in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixteen.." ... the society originally met at "the house of Mr Richard
Walley, the Swan Inn Tunstall"
The society acquired
land from the Sneyd family in the early 1820's and the houses were
built between 1821 and 1823.
The picture below shows
the houses in Piccadilly Street in about 1955. The houses built of
brick and tile with sash windows and separate with privies and ashpits
were far superior to the cottages which most of the inhabitants of the
town lived in the early 1820s.
Analysis of the 1839
tithe award for the parish of Wolstanton shows that the most of them
were owned by local tradesmen and skilled workmen and let out for
The owners included Joseph Capper. the blacksmith a later noted
Chartist The houses set the standard which was adopted for the
hundreds of similar terrace houses which were constructed the the
adjacent streets of Tunstall.