In Stockport with a bit of history ……

 Well, less the history and more the successor to Stockport’s bus station which after 40 years of receiving and sending buses out across Greater Manchester shut up shop at 3.15 am on August 29th, 2021.

Information Centre, 2025

I would like to say I was there with a tear in my eye and an old unused bus ticket, but I wasn’t.

Busy morning, 2025

Nor was I there when its reincarnation welcomed travellers in March 2024.

My Wikipedia tells me that “Stockport Interchange is a transport hub in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. As well as a bus station, it includes walking and cycling links, a rooftop park, and a mixed use residential and commercial building.

The interchange includes an accessible, covered passenger concourse with seated waiting areas, 18 bus stands with the capacity to accommodate 164 bus departures per hour, cycle storage facilities and a travel shop.

The development also includes a 2-acre landscaped park on its roof, located above the bus station. Following a public vote, it was named Viaduct Park. 

A brace of buses, 2025

A waterside walking and cycling route with a spiral ramp provides access from the River Mersey and the Trans Pennine Trail to the park and onward to the town centre.”*

All of which shows I missed a lot by not being there and indeed not actually going till this morning.

And there’s the rub, because I quite forgot to explore the garden, and missed making the interchange with the railway station.

If I am honest the bus station was always an after thought which just fitted into the big adventure which had been to travel into Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station from the nearest destination.

I know there are other contenders of which Ardwick and Ashburys are closer, and in the case of Ashburys there would be a sentimental link back to the days over fifty years ago when we lived off Grey Mare Lane and used the station.

Waiting, 2025

But I reasoned going to Stockport would allow me to visit the Interchange, and then take the train into the city to check out how much the skyline had changed since the 1970s.

Alas it failed to happen.

Stockport Railway Station had been closed for three weeks and wouldn’t reopen till Saturday.

And if that wasn’t enough, I discovered you had to pay 20p to use the Interchanges’ lavatory.  Now in this age of contactless payment I had long ago stopped carrying cash and was only saved by the intervention of a kindly old man who offered me the money as he left the lavatory.

So full marks Stockport’s Interchange for a magnificent bus station with its garden and fine views of the river, but perhaps it needs to revisit its policy of spending a penny and if abandoning the charge is not going to happen at least find an alternative way of paying.

Location; Stockport

Pictures; of the Interchange, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Wildflowers amongst the relics of Stockport’s past

If I wanted to pose a challenge, I could just ask where I was in Stockport, when I took this picture.

The sun was shiny, and the expanse of wildflowers might offer up a range of possible sites on the edges of rural Stockport.

But no, I was on that stretch of footpath looking down on Travis Brow, with Decathlon behind me.

It runs from Georges Road to Wellington Road North and goes under the giant viaduct carrying the railway line from Manchester into Stockport.

Now the busy A5145, the viaduct and Decathlon are all visible in part from the footpath but choose the angle correctly and you can create a shot of the wildflowers which suggest you are miles away from built up Stockport. 

And by extension the small, wooded area at the start of the footpath where it begins on Georges Road can also offer a deceptive rural scene.

But honesty is the name of the game, and so rather than deceive, here in the corner of the wooded area is one of those motorway signs that hint at just how close we are to the busy side of Stockport.

And which is confirmed by a group of wildflowers framed at the top by the wire fence of Decathlon.

And for those who want to pinpoint the relic, we are on Georges Road, and here is what it looked like in 1894.

Location; Stockport

Picture; Walking by Stockport’s relics; 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives, Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

So ....... what else can you use a railway viaduct for?

Now, the obvious use for a viaduct is to carry a railway line.

And my Wikipedia offers up that the “Stockport Viaduct carries the West Coast Main Line across the valley of the River Mersey.

It is one of the largest brick structures in the United Kingdom and a major structure of the early railway age…. was designed by George Watson Buck in consultation with the architect John Lowe for the Manchester and Birmingham Railway. 

Work began in March 1839 and despite its scale and flooding from the Mersey, the viaduct was completed in December 1840 and services commenced the same month. 

Roughly 11 million bricks were used in its construction; at the time of its completion, it was the world's largest viaduct and a major feat of engineering. The viaduct is 33.85 metres high. 

Since March 1975, Stockport Viaduct has been a Grade II* listed structure; it remains one of the world's biggest brick structures”.*

All well and good, but like so many big structures it has attracted other uses, from graffiti artist to a place to place interesting and mystery “electrical things”.

The electrical things will no doubt be instantly recognizable to some, who I hope will come forward with an explanation.

We shall see.

Location; Stockport, 

Pictures; The Stockport Viaduct, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Stockport Viaduct, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockport_Viaduct

Walking by Stockport’s relics

The wall.

And for those who want to pinpoint the relic, we are on Georges Road, and here is what it looked like in 1894.

Location; Stockport

Picture; Walking by Stockport’s relics; 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives, Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Walking by Stockport’s relics

The wall.

Location; Stockport

Picture; Walking by Stockport’s relics; 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking by Stockport’s relics

The one that carried the railway line.

To which Tony Petrie has added, "I pass this quite regularly and find it odd that they haven't removed it for scrap. 

The bridge was still in situ when I worked on Wellington Rd in 1995".

Location; Stockport

Picture; Walking by Stockport’s relics; 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Guarding Shaw Heath ……… travels through Stockport

Now, there will be a story behind the figure on the wall but as yet I don’t know it.

But the fun of the blog is that it is open to anyone to offer an explanation, share a personal memory or provide the exact location.

Andy took the image last week on a jaunt through Stockport, supplied the caption and sent it over and I like it, reminding us all that there are stories everywhere, you just have to look.

And all of them shed a little history on where we live.

To which Wendy has posted "They were from 'Totalcar Services' mechanics who had a workshop in the mill that was there. It was their logo.

I used them for a few years. The gable of the mill crumbled one night and landed on the cars waiting outside. The mill was eventually demolished and they moved to top of Hillgate behind the Wheatsheaf pub. Luckily i changed my a or my car would've been under that pile of bricks".

Location; Shaw Heath

Picture; Guarding Shaw Heath, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Stockport looks to its cranes …………

If you live in the twin cities, it is easy to overlook that Stockport has its share of cranes which betoken major development.

So I am grateful to Andy Robertson who had “an hour or so to kill last week” while visiting Stockport and filled the time with taking pictures.

Now those who know Andy’s work will testify that he has been a prodigious collector of the transformation of many bits of Greater Manchester.

It starts with a series of photographs of buildings that look in danger, moves on to recording their demolition, the site clearance, and the first weeks of the builder’s breaking ground and then follows the rise of another new high rise set of offices or residential accommodation.

It means that over the last three decades he has amassed a unique portfolio of images which historians will judge as a major contribution to showing how Manchester, Salford, and Stockport as well as Trafford and all points beyond have changed.

And as ever to use that simple observation “look to the skyline, count the cranes and judge the commercial prosperity of the area”.

Of course we may ask who is the beneficiary of such developments, do they deliver prosperity for all and does the new architecture enhance or merely act as a blot on the landscape?

Certainly, the landscape of Manchester and Salford is now dominated by new build which reach to the sky, overshadow all that went before and are no longer on a human scale.

I wonder if this is the future for Stockport.

We shall see.

Location; Stockport

 Pictures; Stockport looks to its cranes, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

See better days and do better things* …. the Wellington Picture House .... traveling through Stockport

I will have passed the Wellington Picture House countless times and given it little thought other than “that’s another old cinema fallen on hard times”.

For those that don’t know it’s located on the corner of Wellington Road and Higher Hillgate, and stands as a testimony to the rise and demise of the cinema.

My cinema TREASURES, tells me that it opened on July 11th 1921 with “Only a Mill Girl”, and in addition to the cinema auditorium contained a 13 table billiard hall and café.

Its history mirrors so many picture houses, having started out as an independent, later taken over by a chain and after closure in the 1960s, reopened first as a Bingo Hall and later a snooker hall, before closing in 2012 and now lingers on in a faded and peeling existence waiting for something to happen.**

There is more to the story but for that you will have to read Ken Rose’s piece by following the link.

The BFI says of "Only a Mill Girl" made in 1919, that it was “a screen adaptation of a popular provincial play about mill-foreman's daughter, loved by employer's son and in love with an employee-inventor”. ***

And of the three listed actors, Harry Foxwell Betty Farquhar and Andy Condy, I can find very little.  

Ms Farquhar appeared in five films from 1919 to 1924, Mr. Foxhall two and Andy Condy just "Only a Mill Girl".

Interestingly it is not one of the Stockport cinemas listed in the 1928 Kinematograph  Year Book, but I have others so will trawl them to see if I can solve the little mystery.

So that is about it.

Location; Stockport

Picture; the Wellington Picture House, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Free, The Frewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963

**Wellington Picture House, Ken Roe, cinema TREASURES, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/36714

*** Only a Mill Girl, 1919, BFI, https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b750dc4d9

Bits of Stockport ……..

So with the shopping done in a certain big sports shop there was a brief few minutes to take pictures.

Every shopping trolley deserves to stay dry, 2023

And while it may seem cheap and mean to draw attention to the two cranes of which there must be more, the Stockport skyline seems less busy than that of Manchester or Salford.

Even Stockport gets its share of cranes

I await the comments calling me out.

Location; Stockport

Pictures; bits of Stockport, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The relic on the hill ….. and a bit of a Stockport mystery

Now I know that the explanation for this concrete slab will be known to someone …. but not me.

It stands alone on a mound of earth above the A5145 and close to Travis Brow where the road goes under the motorway.

The romantic in me might speculate on some modern day version of those statues on Easter Island, but we are along way from Easter Island, and a concrete slab circa late 20th century in the heart of a series of major roads and motorways, must be connected to that traffic infrastructure.

But the puzzle is what is it doing there?  Did someone misread the plans,  or was it meant to be a support for a bridge, or motorway sign post, and why is it fenced off?

And in its way it reminds me of the bit of the ring road close to Sackville Street which for decades did an impressive sweep off the main road, only to end in a dead end.

But I have strayed from Stockport, and in returning, just hope someone has the answer.

Location; Stockport

Picture; the mysterious concrete slab, 2021 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

At that cinema of dreams in Stockport waiting to watch the big film

Now I wish I had caught a film at the Plaza in Stockport, not so much for the film but for the experience of being in one of those sumptuous old fashioned picture palaces.

It opened as the Plaza Super Cinema and Variety Theatre in 1932 and for the next 30 or so years it showed all the great films of the day, including Stockport’s first 3D presentation in 1954 and in the following year the first Cinemascope show.

Like many picture houses it suffered from declining cinema numbers and in 1966 closed opening the year after as a Bingo Hall.

As such it lasted marginally longer but not much and closed in 1999.

And here it could have been the victim of commercial redevelopment but instead was bought by the Stockport Plaza Trust as a venue for live shows and films.

I rather think Peter’s painting captures well this majestic building, but for anyone in love with cinemas of the period I suggest you go along and see for yourself and having got to Mersey Square, ask to go inside.

Since it was taken over there has been extensive restoration to what is now a listed building and what’s more there will often be a uniformed guide decked out just as he or she would have been in 1933.

Now that can’t be bad.

Painting; Plaza Stockport, 2015 © Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Stockport’s loss …… the Railway ….Avenue Street

There will be someone who will have stories of the Railway on Avenue Street.

Andy tells me it has closed, which means it has been lost to us only recently, because only last year various pub guides announced its continuing presence.

It is  a pub I have never visited but I liked his picture of the lamp advertising Porter Ales.

Once and not that long ago such lamps were standard adornments to pubs, lighting the way in the semi darkness to a place of beer and good cheer.

But like those similar blue lamps outside police stations and the stripy poles advertising a barber’s shop, pub lamps have had their day.

So that is it.

Location, Stockport










Pictures; the Railway, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

That other Stockport ….The Three Shires ….. looking for something new

The Three Shires on Great Underbank is back on its long journey for another occupant.

This I know because there is a “To Let” sign high up on the side of the building, and because its blue plaque lists its twisty history along with some of its occupants and uses.

It was built sometime in 1580, is a “Cheshire half-timbered town house formerly belonging to the Leighs of Adlington Hall. 

Its shopfront was inserted in 1824, [and] at various times has housed a confectioners, bakehouse, surgery, solicitors, restaurant and wine bar.”

Now I say back on its journey for another occupant, but that is for the upper floor, because at street level this is Huffs, the Café Bar and Restaurant.

Location; Stockport

Pictures; Stockport on a Sunday, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

A little bit of Millgate in Stockport ……….

Now, strip away the modern streetlamps, along with the sign announcing parking restrictions, and represent Andy’s picture in black and white, and I rather think this view of Millgate could pass for any time before now.

Millgate, 2020

Which I suppose says a lot for this bit of Stockport.

In time I will see if I can track down any of the residents at the beginning of the last century.

I know that in 1939, there were fifteen properties listed along Millgate, of which three were unoccupied, and the remaining houses were home to a variety of occupations.

These included a “variety artist”, “shoe repairer”, “a secondhand clothing dealer”, an electrician, some textile workers and a “Railway goods Checker”.

Millgate, 1906

Of the seven in Andy’s picture, number 11, was home to Mr. and Mrs. Hall, he was our secondhand clothes dealer, his son was the shoe repairer, and his daughter described herself as “Paper Bay Maker – Heavy Work”. 

Numbers 7 and 9 were vacant and at number 5 were Charles and Laura Cowley.  Mr. Cowley was a “master decorator” and Mrs. Cowley listed herself as “Unpaid Domestic Duties”.

Location; Stockport

Picture; Millgate, 2020,  from the collection of Andy Robertson, and in 1906, from the OS map of Cheshire, 1906, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Over the rooftops to the brewery beyond ………

Across the rooftops, 2020

Now Andy has done a good job of capturing just how Robinson’s Brewery remains an important part of Stockport.

It dominates the skyline in many of the pictures he took and rightly so, given that it has been doing the business since the middle of the 19th century.

At which point I could slip into a history of the brewery, but that has been done,* and so I will just say that the first Mr. Robinson bought the Unicorn pub in 1838.

It stood at 23 Lower Hillgate, and his eldest son started brewing there in 1849.

A decade later the family expanded into a warehouse behind the Unicorn and began to purchase pubs.

Looking down on to Lower Hillgate, 2020

By 1890 they had 12, and eventually the empire stretched to 300 pubs in the North West and North Wales.

Sadly, the Unicorn no longer exists, it was demolished to make way for the present brewery, and the best I have to offer up is Andy’s picture of the entrance.

And so, the best I can do is wander back through the historic record, and explore the census returns for 1841 and 1851.

Lower Hillgate is one those narrow streets which are a feature of this bit of Stockport, and it twists and turns down from Little Underbank to Wellington Street.

Lower Hillgate, and the Unicorn Brewery, 1900

Back in 1841 the Robinson family’s immediate neighbours included, a hosier, a hat dyer, various textile workers and two washerwomen.

A decade later, Joseph Faulkner was still running his butcher’s shop from 21 Lower Hillgate  while at 23 Mr. and Mrs. Davenport were engaged in selling the finest drapery, and doing well enough to employ two staff and a servant, all of whom lived with them.

Location; Stockport

Pictures; Robinson’s Brewery, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson and Lower Hillgate in 1900, from the OS map of Cheshire, 1900, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Robinsons Brewery, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Brewery

That other Stockport ………

Now I had quite forgotten just how much of Stockport I had not visited in ages.

Over the last decade, Stockport was the place I passed on the A34, or just occasionally the short trip from the bus station to the shopping centre.

And so, Andy’s new series of pictures have awakened by interest.

They were taken last weekend on one of his essential walks, and cover all the twisty, turny little streets, which offer up a shedload of shops which you won’t find in the big retail arcades.

Added to these there were plenty of rooftop shots which reminded me of just how much I like gazing out over the skyline..

So, here are the first of the new Stockport series, which for want of a better title is called Another Stockport.

Location; Stockport









Pictures; Stockport on a Sunday, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Stockport by water ………..

There is a lot of Stockport most of us never see.

So, with that in mind this is the first of an offbeat series from Andy Robertson, looking at Stockport from different angles.

And where better to start than this one of the viaduct over the river.

Location; Stockport

Picture; Stockport by water, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

The Stockport Poor Law Bastille …………

Now when I was growing up in the 1950s, the shadow of the Workhouse continued to unsettle many elderly people, despite the fact that this hated and feared system of public relief had been abandoned two decades earlier and been replaced by the Welfare  State.

And yet for those entering retirement age, or who were infirm, the fear of living out their final years in an institution predicated on the idea that poverty was the result of  fecklessness, idleness or a lack of foresight for the future remained a real one.

The Workhouse with its underlying idea that anyone seeking help must be subjected to a harsh and unrelenting system of tedious work, basic meals and accommodation dated back to the New Poor Law of 1834.

This replaced the old system of assistance for the poor, the sick and unemployed with one based on the principle of less eligibility, which sought to make the conditions for accepting help worse than conditions outside, thereby acting as a deterrent to all but the most desperate.

Although some parishes had already adopted a harsher approach to those receiving support.

On entering the workhouse, families were separated by gender and age, with only the youngest children being allowed to stay with their  mother.

Many working class families used the "workhouse" as one of a number of strategies to cope with sudden illnesses or seasonal unemployment.

Over the course of the next century improvements were made, including first, the provision of hospitals, and then the quality of care, but the Workhouse remained the workhouse, with all it stigma and institutionalized petty routines and regulations.

All of which is an introduction to these pictures from Andy who wandered over the site of the Stockport Workhouse which dates from the 1840s, and subsequently became Shaw Heath Hospital and then from 1954 was known as St Thomas’ Hospital, “finally closing in 2004 when the site was acquired by Stockport College as part of their campus expansion.*

And for those who want more including the attack on the workhouse in 1842, I suggest you follow the link and read the excellent article by Peter Higginbotham who is an expert in the field having written many books on the subject.

Location; Stockport

Pictures; Stockport Workhouse, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Stockport Workhouse; http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Stockport/

Always look up …….. ....... doing the essential walk and making it historic .... no. 22

Andy’s essential walk took him across Stockport this week and as ever it was the bits of buildings others ignore that he found interesting.

And today it was the detail high up on the front of a shop which caught his fancy.

Back when the shop was built, the stone feature with its date were pretty much a standard addition and I guess were produced in their thousands, with variations which conformed to the company’s individual identity.

I went looking for the chain which owned this one, thinking it might have been a co-op, but as yet haven’t identified it.

But someone will, and may even come up with a picture of the shop on opening day in 1913, or soon afterwards.

Today it is still a shop dispensing groceries and much else.

Location; Stockport






Picture; the shop 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson