Hats Off to the Hatters!

What do we know about Stockport?

I’ve driven through the town several times in the past. I’ve been over the famous railway viaduct on the way to somewhere else too. I’ve even been into the fringe of the town centre by car – but never got out. So for me, last Saturday’s trip to Stockport was a step into the unknown. I went by rail replacement minibus from Carnforth and then train from Lancaster to Manchester Piccadilly. There, I boarded a train to Crewe which took me straight to the town.

I had wondered before I went what I already knew about the place. So how about you?

Name three things which are synonymous with Stockport – no cheating now; leave that phone alone!

Off the top of my head, the three things I thought of (in no particular order) were: the Stockport Pyramid; the Railway Viaduct already mentioned and a split decision between two of my particular interests (beer and soccer): Robinson’s Brewery and Stockport County Football Club.

How did you do?

I had a notion – for reasons I can’t explain – that everything would be monochrome in Stockport. The street market, for example. (Just look at those prices!)

I imagined local people looking like they’re used to cold, wet weather, protesting against The Evils of the Demon Drink as they sang hymns outside the local hostelries.

I could even picture in my head what my father would have described as `long-haired layabouts’ hanging about on the street corners. Yes – a bit like the reprobates shown to the left. We shall return to them later…

So – in a sense – I was right. And you can share images like these if you visit Stockport Museum, by the side of the Victorian Market in the centre of the old town. I’d guessed that Stockport would have a Museum and it was no surprise that it also had a Victorian Market – most northern towns of any size (and Stockport is huge) do.

But what else would we expect in the town?

As I was about to discover, it was full of surprises. Do you think that a Unicorn is a mythical beast beloved only by little girls? Think again. Perhaps that the Mersey Beat was exclusive to Liverpool? Not so. Only cool places like Swinging London and Britpop Manchester had a groovy Underground scene? How wrong can you be?

But let’s begin at the beginning. Let’s go back to my original musings about Stockport.

Pyramids are most commonly associated with Ancient Egypt and civilisations like the Mayan in South America. That’s right: Giza’s three famous ones and Menkaure in Egypt for example; several stunners at Chichen Itza and a single astonishing one in the shape of The Great Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico. But Stockport?…

When I was young and impressionable, I read two books by the Swiss writer Erich von Däniken: Chariots of the Gods? and Return to the Stars. Erich was before his time, bless him: contemporary conspiracy theorists in particular would worship him as a god himself (I don’t know if he actually owns a chariot but you get my drift) if he still had any credibility left whatsoever these days. (He apparently wrote Chariots of the Gods? when he was in prison. Being convicted three times for fraud has not really helped any solid reputation he might have wanted to establish as a reliable source about any particular topic, truth be told.)  He had a lot to say about pyramids in general, though – although I don’t remember him specifically mentioning Stockport’s to be honest.  Most of what he came up with is frankly first class gobbledygook but it made him famous and it also made him a lot of money (which is the whole point of most contemporary priests of the conspiracy church – not to mention the other established ones – isn’t it?)

I remember as a sixteen-year-old who had read von Däniken arguing the toss about his scribblings with the History teacher at the Catholic comprehensive I attended at the time. Even though he hadn’t read any of the man from Switzerland’s works, he had seen a review in some learned journal like the Daily Mail or a similarly intellectually-challenging R.C. rag (which made him an expert) and was absolutely scathing about the books as a result.

“Pyramids built by spacemen!” he scoffed. “Some sort of invisible lines telling them where to land their flying saucers?” (These are Nazca lines and are actually perfectly visible in reality.) “A statue of some alien sat upon a rocket left behind as a memento several thousand years ago by our little green visitors from Mars!” (By this, he was referring to the Sarcophagus of Palenque which you might like to look-up. Or not, as the fancy takes you…) “Only a total idiot would spend longer than a micro-second even contemplating the fact that any of this obvious nonsense could be true!”

(We must remember that all this was stated by a man who had spent years insisting that someone who lives on a cloud somewhere and was actually three people all at the same time could change water into wine without the use of any grapes – and lots of other wonders as well.)

He was particularly keen that we should understand that there would be repercussions for those of us who committed Mortal Sins during our time here on God’s Earth. For those Heathens among us, I must explain that Mortal Sins are what result if you decide to be very naughty indeed. By starting a global conflagration in which millions of people die, for instance. Or genocide. Nuking the planet is another one. As is, according to him, supporting Liverpool Football Club (he was an Everton supporter.) If we did any of these things, we could expect to spend all eternity being burnt alive in a place called Hell as diabolical creatures with horns and pointed tails prodded sinners like us with forks and did unspeakable things to us with red hot pokers.

So when he spoke about Erich and `idiots’, an expression involving pots, `black’ and kettles inexplicably sprang to my mind…

(Come to think of it, whilst we’re talking about Little Green Men – and by extension Life on Mars – the `Manchester Police HQ’ featured in the iconic TV series can actually be found in Stockport. It is the 1960s brutalist concrete monstrosity/classic (choose your own word) Stopford House, the Council offices on Piccadilly near the centre of town.)

Anyway – moving swiftly on – one thing Däniken claimed in his books still sticks in my mind. According to him, if you put a blunt blade under a pyramid (even a paper one you have made yourself) for a (sadly unspecified) length of time, cosmic forces will conspire to sharpen it again without any human intervention at all.

Can this possibly be true? I don’t actually know but I would like to share with you a confession…

I regularly passed this extraordinary building when it was the HQ of the Co-operative Bank as I was driving a big yellow recovery truck belonging to a certain well-known motoring organisation on the orbital motorway in Stockport. And every time I did, I automatically thought of the old bread knife I had at home which wasn’t sharp enough to cut through even softened butter without a struggle. I’d long since realised that – if you are wearing an AA uniform, have a piece of official-looking paper in your hand and – preferably – a large yellow truck with all its beacons flashing in the background – you can go literally anywhere, unchallenged. So I developed a fantasy of parking my truck in the Co-op car park; marching confidently into the building, finding a toilet somewhere and taping my blunt knife to the inside of the cistern lid.  Then I intended to return a few months later; retrieve the knife and see if it could actually cut bread properly anew.

I never actually did this – and – as they say in all the best advice columns: do NOT try this at home – even if you do happen to live in a pyramid. Yes, and this does mean you, Mr Tutankhamen…

Anyway, sharper knives in the drawer can be found not too far away from the Pyramid. That’s the management and players of the town’s football team of course. Worshipping on their particular hallowed ground was the reason I went on Saturday – to watch Morecambe play the potential Champions of League Two in a game where Stockport County needed only a single point to win promotion to League One for the first time since 2008. (As it turned-out, they got all three with a 2-0 win.)

I’d seen their Edgeley Park ground from the train in the past – and even from the air more than once when flying back into Manchester Airport from places such as Germany and Portugal.

Actually being there was a Walk Down Memory Lane for someone as ancient as I am. In saying this, though, I am ignoring the biggest structure in the ground. The Cheadle End is a huge modern stand from where the bulk of the home supporters cheer on their team. The convention at football league grounds is to allow visiting supporters to congregate at the opposite end to literally get behind the away team as well. But – just as is the case with fellow current League Two high-flyers Wrexham – this doesn’t happen at Edgeley Park. Opposition fans are shepherded into a small section by the side of the pitch instead in one of the older stands which surround three sides of the playing surface.

From here, you get a first-hand experience which reminded me of Football League grounds I visited way back in the 1960s and 70s. As a bonus, you also get a bird’s eye view of the planes flying in and out of adjacent Manchester Airport.  Last Saturday, County secured promotion to League One. Here are we Morecambe fans applauding theirs as they ran onto the field and let off flares to celebrate after their key victory:

The following Wednesday night, they won 2-5 at Notts County to become Champions of League Two. In doing so, they equalled the achievement commemorated in Stockport Museum where – among various other County memorabilia – can be found this photo of the team which won Division Four (as League Two was then known) as long ago as 1967.

Once again, congratulations to them. Not long ago, Stockport County was a part-time football club plying its trade in the non-league wilderness. The fact that they are back in the Big Time and clearly headed for even greater things is a tribute to everyone associated with the club.

The team’s nickname is `the Hatters’ so I knew in advance that Stockport was once famous for producing millinery – now there’s a word from the past – at a time when Britain actually manufactured things like this. Stockport’s final hat-making factory closed in 1977 but there is still a Museum – the Hat Works – close to the famous railway viaduct.

So the memory lives on – as it does in the name of one of its most famous sons, the Boxer Ricky Hat On. Sorry – Hatton.

Next door to the Hat Works can be found the famous Garrett Theatre. Whether Michelle Keegan, Will Mellor or Dominic Monaghan (Merry in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy) ever played there, I don’t know. But they are all apparently from Stockport. As are such other worthies as diverse as the `thinking man’s Idiot’ Timmy Mallett; the expert in Capital Gains Tax (the lovely Angela Rayner) and – although you certainly couldn’t guess from her unusual local accent – the `thinking man’s Crumpet’; Dame Joan Bakewell, who doesn’t come from Derbyshire and isn’t a tart after all. Who’d have thought it?

Anyway, the last Hat Factory closed at a time when pop bands such as Barclay James Harvest and 10cc broke the mould by recording their albums outside London – something unheard of in the 1950s and 60s. Strawberry Studios opened in 1967 and would also be the home to later generations of bands such as The Smiths, Joy Division and The Stone Roses before it closed in 1993. (The `long-haired layabouts’ pictured earlier are actually Joy Division photographed in Stockport near the studios by Paul Slattery on Saturday, 28^th July 1979.)

The building the legendary recordings were made in still exists at 5 Waterloo Road, not a million miles from Stockport Town Hall and to the south of the River Mersey which runs through the centre of Stockport. It’s now redundant but all who pass by are reminded of its former purpose by a blue plaque set in the wall. Oh – and by a display in the Museum about the town’s very own version of the Mersey Beat:

I’m old enough to remember bands like Barclay James Harvest being described as `Underground’. And there’s quite an Underground scene in Stockport. I had a personal experience of it last Saturday. Four quid for an Old Codger like me. And where is the secret headquarters of this Underground movement? – it’s here:

Hidden deep beneath the town centre, a labyrinth of man-made tunnels once provided shelter for up to ten thousand people from German bombers trying to blow Stockport and Greater Manchester generally to smithereens during the Second World War. I’m not sure how keen I would have been to spend any serious time down there. Just imagine the smell coming out of this place (the Gents’ latrines) at the time, for a start… (Maybe that was the real reason people were issued with the things we were warned about in the poster above to the right…)

Not too far from the entrance to the Shelter before you reach the rather splendid Art Deco Plaza, another hub of cultural activity can be found.

Well, I say `hub’ but there’s actually rather a lot of them: wheel hub covers. But these are wheel trims like you’ve never seen before:

Wandering up – and it is `up’; it’s quite steep – from here into the old town centre, we find the Victorian Market. I had a wander around it as a relief from the incessant rain. I treated myself to a mug of tea at a café within and later, a pint of local beer in a plastic glass and a veggie all-day breakfast at a different one. All I can say is that I have not contacted Tripadviser about either gastronomic experience: the beer was vinegary and the food average. And it wasn’t cheap either…

Anyway, outside again, I inadvertently found myself playing what I suspect is a local game probably unique to Stockport. It is called “Spot the Traffic Warden”. There I was, minding my own business and about to take this less than stunning photograph of the street when the driver’s door of the white car pictured in it suddenly opened. “I’m sorry, Sir!” (`Sir’? – I’m not sure anyone has called me that before…) “But I’m just about to move. I…”

Was the young woman behind the wheel really speaking to me?

She was… And then the penny dropped. I would have looked like this – complete with black trousers and black shoes – to her, as I stood behind her car with a camera. I pulled back my hood to reveal the rather natty bright red Morecambe FC hat underneath it.

“I’m not a policeman!” I said; “I’m here to watch a football match! No need to be paranoid!” (Actually, there is: I’ve got her registration number…)

(Observant readers may wonder if the photo of Yours Truly was actually taken in Stockport at all, given the Tudor-type building in the background. My answer is here, a place I had passed in the incessant rain a little while earlier:)

To get to the Market, I had been obliged to clamber up steep stone steps from Little Underbank to a bridge on St Petersgate above it:

From here, you got a great view of the Frederic Robinson Brewery which dominates the panorama to what I think is the south:

So it’s true after all: Unicorns really do exist and are alive and well in Stockport!….

There used to be loads of breweries in Stockport – Bell’s, Showell’s, Clifton’s, Worrall’s and Clarke’s, for instance – some of them at least the size of the Unicorn. But not any longer…

I’ve never really forgiven Robinson’s for taking-over and shutting down the Hartley Brewery in Ulverston. Hartley’s XB (previously brewed exclusively for Thompson’s of Barrow but sold in their own pubs once the Barrer company was gobbled-up by Whitbread) used to be one of my favourite tipples. It brings back happy memories of standing outside the Wagon & Horses in Lancaster by the side of the River Lune during the 1980s when I was an undergraduate at the Uni there. The insipid imitation of it which the Stockport brewers insist is an exact re-creation of the `Lakeland’ beer is nothing like it in reality.

The future of the Unicorn Brewery is now – ironically – also in doubt. Rumours abound that Robinson’s will start brewing at a modern beer factory elsewhere and the Unicorn will be redeveloped as exclusive apartments. We shall see…

However, as long as the Brewery is still in production, you can guarantee that the delicious smell of hops and malt will envelop the environs on a regular basis.

But an even more mouth-watering smell permeates what Stockportians; Stockportites; Stockporters (sorry, what’s the collective noun for people from Stockport?… Oh:) Stopfordians seem to have annexed as part of their town. It is the McVitie’s Factory which I believe is actually in Levenshulme. Whatever, the smell from the Home of the Digestive Biscuit as you walk, drive or cycle by is absolutely divine – with no calories!

(“Stopfordians?” you might wonder. A very helpful and friendly young man who was working in the Museum told me that the word is a conjunction of a ford across the River Mersey where you have to stop. But a source I had looked at prior to my visit told me it is actually comes from a combination of two Saxon words: Stoc (stockade or castle) and Port (a wood). So Stockport is the Saxon castle in a wood. I mentioned this to the young man and he said, “Yes – it means that as well!” So can you make your own meaning up for the word representing the town and it inhabitants? How about me suggesting that it’s actually an Anglo-Norman word? Stop-for-di-ans: somewhere you could choose to stay for two – `di’ as in dioxide; `two’ – years…)

I couldn’t stay that long: I had a train to catch after the football match. But as it left the ford by the castle in the wood and crossed the Mersey on the iconic viaduct heading back towards Manchester Piccadilly, I was quite glad I had taken the trouble to visit the place. I may well be back again – the Remembrance Art Gallery still remains to be visited. I don’t know what’s in it but there were lots of paintings of the town’s iconic railway viaduct in the Museum. This prompted me to do some research. I suspect that Ribblehead is the most famous railway viaduct in Britain, with the Forth Bridge the most frequently painted in at least one sense of the term. But I personally doubt that any railway viaduct anywhere in the British Isles had been painted by more artists than the one in Stockport, which is more properly known as the Edgeley Viaduct.

Edgeley Viaduct was built between 1839 and 1840 by the Manchester and Birmingham Railway Company and comprises of about eleven million bricks. It remains one of the world’s largest brick-built structures.

In the Museum, there is a whole section about avid Manchester City fan L.S. Lowry – the famous `matchstick man’ painter from the adjacent city. Accompanying this is a very classy photograph taken by Crispin Eurich in1962 of the great man himself. He is standing on the Wellington Steps near the old town centre with the Edgeley Viaduct, a steam train and the River Mersey all clearly visible in the background. 

And here are two more pictures of the same brick masterpiece painted by Lowry:

L.S. obviously hadn’t visited Stockport to pay homage to Phil Foden – who would not grace the world with his presence there until several decades later. He was there to capture the famous viaduct in his own inimitable style. He painted the second picture above in 1957 and it was sold at the Lefevre Art Gallery in London a year later for 295 guineas (just over three hundred quid.) Ten years ago, it re-sold at Christies for a little bit more: one million, two hundred and seventy three thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds.

Almost priceless.

Which, in conclusion, is a bit like Stockport itself…