Description:This photograph was taken looking south down the Fowlea Brook valley. Ricardo Street is no more, mostly lying under Middleport Park. The two winding gear towers are clearly visible and running across the photograph are the conveyor belts which carried coal directly to Shelton Steelworks, just off to the left. These belts crossed the main railway line and later the route of the A500. Wolstanton Colliery was linked underground to Hanley Deep Pit, Sneyd Colliery and Chatterley Whitfield and was at one time the deepest pit in Western Europe at over 3750 feet (over 1100 metres) deep. The colliery was closed in 1985, the shafts filled in and the site becoming a retail park.
In the foreground is the site of one of the city's sewage works, the site now reclaimed and open space.