Since its opening in 1989 the Friarswood Physiotherapy and Sports Injuries Clinic has gone from strength to strength.

Its situation just out of the town on easily accessible routes with a large private car park and disabled spaces immediately in front of the house.

The physiotherapy practice is on the ground floor with no steps.  There are three large airy treatment rooms and a gymnasium which can be divided in to two smaller rooms when required.

Recognised as a centre of excellence both from initial patient contact, physiotherapy examination and treatment, communication with fellow health professionals and where appropriate insurance companies to final discharge the patient is the focus of our attention.

Friarswood is such a well established practice that it is recognised by all the major health insurance providers.

History of the House

Friarswood Physiotherapy Clinic opened its doors in October 1989 after undergoing extensive renovation and repair.  The property had been derelict for many years.  The house was built in the mid 1800's by a well known furniture retailers in Newcastle Under Lyme called Carriers and the grounds extended right back to where the Newcastle Under Lyme Golf Club is situated today.  During the Second World War it was requisitioned as a services clinic and the lodge was built at the back of the house to accommodate the senior sister and caretaker. We understand from the caretaker who visited us as a patient a few years ago that the upstairs was used as a psychiatric ward and downstairs as day care.

The grounds of the property were eventually sold off and Priory Road and its residences were established.

After the war the joint health and education authority took over the building and it was used as a schools clinic - dentistry upstairs, physiotherapy downstairs.  So even before Friarswood Physiotherapy Clinic was established it had housed physiotherapy staff.  To this day those patients that have lived locally all their lives walk in to the building and say" the last time I was here I was visiting the school dentist!"

At approximately the same time that the Health Authority and the Education Authority split up the Blackfriars Special School was built on the site and the Friarswood House was boarded up and left derelict until its sale in 1989.  Fortunately, many of the original features were not damaged and the attractive ceiling rose in the hall, decorative cornicing, staircase and wooden shuttered windows in room 2 still remain.

With a colourful history such as this you might imagine that Friarswood had its own ghost but in fact if it has none of us have ever met it.