GOLDENHILL is a village and an ecclesiastical parish, formed in 1841, and a civil parish formed in 1895, from the parish of Wolstanton, and comprising the township of OLDCOTT and part of the township of RANSCLIFF, with a station on a loop line of the North Staffordshire railway, 1 mile north from Tunstall, 2½ miles north-west from Burslem and 5 north-east from Newcastle-under-Lyme, in the North Western division of the county, North Pirehill hundred and petty sessional division, Wolstanton and Burslem union, Tunstall county court district, rural deanery of Newcastle-under-Lyme, archdeaconry of Stoke-on-Trent and diocese of Lichfield. The church of St. John, opened in 1841, is an edifice of brick in the Norman style, consisting of chancel, nave, north porch and a western tower with spire: a stained window was placed in the chancel in 1871: the church was re-seated in 1891 and a new vestry added: there are 400 sittings. The register dates from the year 1841.

The living is a vicarage, gross yearly value £312, net £300, with residence, in the gift of the bishop of the diocese, and held since 1891 by the Rev. Granville Rowe Bailey M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. Sir Smith Child bart. J.P. of Stallington Hall, having, in addition to liberal contributions towards the erection of the church, endowed it with £1,000, became the patron of the living, but subsequently resigned his patronage in favour of the bishop of the diocese, in order that the living might be augmented. The Catholic chapel here, built in 1882 and dedicated to St. Joseph, will seat 230 persons.

The Wesleyan chapel, erected in 1868, is of red brick, and has 600 sittings. The Primitive Methodist chapel, built in 1853, seats 450. There is also a Methodist New Connexion chapel here, and a Baptist chapel at Latebrook. In the immediate neighbourhood are extensive collieries and ironstone works, and the chemical works of John Henshall Williamson. Ralph Sneyd esq. J.P. of Keele Hall, is lord of the manor and lay impropriator. The principal landowners are Sir Smith Child bart. J.P. J.H. Williamson esq. and Sir Thomas Fletcher Boughey bart. J.P. of Aqualate Hall, Forton. The acreage is about 800, almost entirely worked for coal. The rateable value is £10,419; the population in 1891 was 3,183.

POST, M.O. & T.O., S.B., Express Delivery & Annuity & Insurance Office.- James Lewis, sub-postmaster. Letters are received from Stoke-on-Trent by mail cart; arrive at 5.30 a.m. & 3.30 p.m; dispatched at 11 a.m. & 8.30 p.m

SCHOOLS:- Board (mixed & infants), built in 1884, for 400 boys & girls & 200 infants; average attendance, 203 boys & girls & 92 infants; William Horrocks, master; Miss Sherwin, infants' mistress

National (mixed), built in 1842, for 284 boys & girls; average attendance, 206 boys & girls; Henry Gilbert, master

National (infants'), built in 1884, for 136 children; average attendance, 130; Miss Martha Wooliscroft, mistress

Catholic, built in 1872, for 200 boys & girls; average attendance, 97 boys & girls; Miss Jane Derbyshire, mistress

Railway Station, William Ledger, station master
[Kelly's Directory of Staffordshire, 1896]