Description:Hanford is now a suburb of the Potteries, situated between the A34 Newcastle Road and the A500, the Potteries ‘D’ road. The name probably means ‘high ford’ from the Anglo- Saxon, ‘heanford’. The village is certainly situated in an elevated position with the River Trent at the bottom of the hill, crossed by what was the Great North-West Road.
Hanford Bridge was an ancient bridge over the Trent and by the 17th century consisted of at least three arches. By 1625 its upkeep and repair had become the responsibility of the county authorities. A mill at Hanford is recorded by 1775, situated on the Trent on the east side of the Newcastle road. This subsequently became a flint mill and was still being used as such in 1832.
Hanford was a township in the parish of Trentham. By the 19th century there were a variety of landowners in the area. Hanford was partly on the estate of the Dukes of Sutherland, and the Corbetts had also been long-standing landowners in the area. The Hearth Tax returns of 1666 list only seven households as being eligible to pay the tax. The largest of these, with six hearths, was owned by Thomas Brerehurst but two other houses were owned at that time by Elizabeth and Thomas Corbett respectively.
As the village became more populous in the early 19th century, it acquired its own church. The church of St Mathias was built originally in 1827 but rebuilt in 1868 to the design of Charles Lynam at a cost of £3000. It is of red brick with black brick columns. Hanford became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1828. A Primitive Methodist chapel was built in Mayne Street in 1883.
In the early 20th century, two substantial council housing estates were built as a result of Hanford being taken into the borough boundary in 1922. By 1932 the village was a very much mixture of commerce and industry with a tile manufacturer, haulage contractor and a wide variety of trades people.