Another batch of Bert Bentley pictures on The Sentinel newspaper’s website, this time of Burslem. Three show places that feature in my novel The Spyders of Burslem.

Longport train station, at which the novel’s hero first alights in Stoke-on-Trent. Bradwell Woods in the background, which also feature near the end of the novel…

BERT BENTLEY ARCHIVE – BURSLEM – Longport station & level crossing.

The Sytch wasteland at the northern edge of the town centre, on which our hero encounters a key character, and on the lip of which sits the workshop of the steampunk tinkerer Miss Merryweather Craft. This is almost exactly how I imagined her workshops and yard, just with more outbuildings and perched higher up above the Sytch…

BERT BENTLEY ARCHIVE – BURSLEM – Off Westport Road. The Sytch mill. The old mill house.

The underground toilets (the railings area, in the foreground of the picture) in which our hero encounters Marcel Wurmious, the local Wildean artist…

BERT BENTLEY ARCHIVE – BURSLEM – Swan Square. Burslem Co-operative Stores.