The cannon from the Crimea is situated at the side of a small car park outside the Brampton Museum overlooking Brampton Park.
A plaque located alonside the cannon gives the following information;
'THE RUSSIAN CANNON
THE RUSSIAN CANNON, WHICH
DATES FROM 1840 WAS
CAPTURED AT THE END
OF THE CRIMEAN WAR IN
1856. IT STOOD IN STUBBS
WALKS FROM 1857 UNTIL
IT WAS MOVED TO ITS
PRESENT POSITION IN 1965.
IT WAS REPAIRED & RESTORED
IN 1986. THE CANNON
WEIGHS 2.8 TONNES AND
FIRED A 36lb SHOT.'
"Standing outside of the Brampton Museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme is a large black-painted cannon, mounted on an ornate cast-iron limber. This was one of thousands of similar pieces of war booty brought back from the Crimea, following the fall of the Russian citadel of Sevastopol in 1855. In that city the Allied armies had discovered a large ordnance depot filled with 4,000 damaged or obsolete guns and these along with many of the guns captured during the fighting were later used as ballast on the merchantmen and troopships when they were bringing the army home. The Crimean War (1854-1856), had been a horrendous and utterly pointless conflict and perhaps as part of a wider public relations exercise to calm the national anger at the lives lost and at just how badly the war had been run, these cannon were freely distributed to towns and cities around the country.
Newcastle's cannon, weighing 2.8 tons is a 36 pounder made in 1840, and was presented to the Borough in 1857 by its then MP Samuel Christy. It was originally situated in Stubbs Walks, opposite the Orme Girl's School, Newcastle, where it stood until 1965, when it was moved to its current location. Such was the fate of most of these retired instruments of war and in the latter half of the nineteenth century it was no unusual thing to find a large, defunct piece of Russian artillery decorating a municipal park or fronting some grand civic building anywhere in Britain. Today, though, they are not so common; time and necessity have seen many of the others scattered or scrapped over the years and such seems to have been the case with a couple of cannons that came to the Potteries, no trace of which now seems to exist."
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The cannon 1935 - 1945 (c.) can be seen at the following link: (
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"Date:13th of May 1965
Description: The Crimean War cannon is pictured here being removed from its position opposite Orme Girls' School to its new location in Stubbs Walks.
The cannon was presented to the Borough of Newcastle by Samuel Christy MP, and is currently (2015) outside the Brampton Museum." A photograph of this can be seen at the following link: (
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"The building now occupied by Newcastle Museum and Art Gallery was originally known as 'The Firs'. This large house was home to the Mosley family, who ran a drapery business in Newcastle. The Borough Council acquired the house in 1956 and shortly after opened it as a museum and art gallery." (
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"The Museum is lucky to be situated in beautiful Brampton Park, the borough’s flagship park which has Green Flag status. With its beautiful, mature trees and shrubs it is a wonderful place to wander, relax and have fun. The park was originally two gardens divided between the two Victorian villas on the park – the Firs (now the museum) and Pitfield House (now the café and Giggles and Wiggles nursery). Before that, the land was part of the Brampton Field – common land grazed and cultivated by the town burgesses. The name Brampton means ‘place where broom grew’. The Brampton Field was sold by the town burgesses after the 1845 Inclosure Act and was developed as a residential area for the town’s professional classes, such as shopkeepers and business owners. The houses were built in the 1850s. Since the 1950s the land has been used as parkland for the enjoyment of the people of the borough." (
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