Commonside Works.—Mr. Edward Grice, who, after leaving the above, established these works in 1867, manufactures sanitary and terra-cotta goods of various kinds.
Hill Top Works.—These were established in 1810, by Mr. John Cooper, who was afterwards joined in partnership by Mr. Massey, and afterwards by Mr. Banks, the firms being successively “John Cooper,” “Cooper and Massey,” and “Cooper and Banks.” They next belonged to Mr. Henry Ansell. The sole proprietor now is Mr. Nehemiah Banks. The wares produced are the ordinary “Derbyshire Ironstone Cane Ware,” buff ware, Rockingham ware, and black lustre ware. In these all the usual household articles are produced in large quantities for home and foreign markets. Horticultural ware is also largely made; the garden, sea-kale, and other pots, and seed-pans, &c., being of superior quality.
Hillside Works.—These are devoted to the manufacture of fire-clay goods.
Other manufactories in the district are Mr. R. Quinton’s brown ware and stone-bottle works; Mr. E. Jones’s pancheon and flower-pot works, and the works of Mr. W. Cotterell.
About 1846, Mr William Edwards, formerly of Derby, and later of Burton-on-Trent, commenced a yellow-ware manufactory at Ashby Holes, Gresley Common, which he carried on for a few years. (See Burton-on-Trent.)
Woodville, or Wooden Box, Hartshorne, Gresley, &c.
Woodville, the modern and more euphonious name given to the village of “Wooden Box,” is five and a half miles from Burton-on-Trent. The original name arose from an old wooden “box,” or hut, which formerly stood on the site of the present toll-house, where a man used to sit to collect toll, but which was afterwards burned down. The original “box,” it may be added, was an old port-wine butt, from Drakelow Hall, and in this the collector, Diogenes-like, spent his days. In 1800 only two houses existed here, the “Butt House,” belonging to the then Earl Ferrars and the residence of his son Lord Tamworth, and a farmhouse. On this farm some valuable beds of clay were found to exist, and a Mr. Peake, from the Staffordshire pottery district, established a small manufactory on the spot. From this manufactory the trade of the district has entirely taken its rise, and it is now noted for extensive manufactories of Derbyshire ironstone ware; cane-coloured, Rockingham, black, buff, and brown wares; sanitary goods, terra-cotta, &c. Its inhabitants are principally potters and colliers, and it has risen to the importance of being a parish of itself—part of the parish of Hartshorne, in Derbyshire, and of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, being taken for the purpose—the main, or High, street separating those two counties. Near Woodville is the modern hamlet of Albert village, and it has a branch-line on the Midland Railway.