Description:The camera is looking northwards across a flooded fireclay pit towards the skyline of Burslem. The photograph was taken from Sneyd Street. Leek New Road runs across the middle of the photograph and the rectangular building on the right hand edge was the Progress Foundry at the junction of Sandbach Road and Leek New Road. Elder Road is on the far side of the pit. In the centre is a railway signal post at Cobridge station on the Potteries Loop Line.
The pit belonged to the Cobridge Brick & Marl Co. and has been infilled and built on. The brickworks were off to the left.
The strata running across the far side of the pit is an outcrop of the Blackband Group. These rocks are at the top of the Coal Measures strata and are layers of sandstone, shale and ironstone. The iron ore was rich enough to support the many ironworks in North Staffordshire. Some of the clay for Moorcroft's Pottery, obscured behind the Progress Foundry building, was supplied from this marl hole.