Towns- Stockport-Cheshire.
Stockport. I pass through quite a lot when driving on the A6. It has a Hat Museum and it is on the flight path to Manchester Airport so you are constantly looking up. My sister went to college there a long time ago, Yvette Fielding is from Stockport and David Dickinson.
Anyway actually visiting for an 8 hour holiday and seeing the sights in real life not from a car window was to be the holiday of a lifetime. Just like Judith Chalmers said. Sarah and I decided to prepare for our holiday as always, with various reading materials and data processing things like this- HERE and HERE.
Good old Wikipedia says;
‘Stockport is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Manchester city centre, where the River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey. The town is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name.
Historically, most of the town was in Cheshire, but the area to the north of the Mersey was in Lancashire. Stockport in the 16th century was a small town entirely on the south bank of the Mersey, and known for the cultivation of hemp and manufacture of rope. In the 18th century the town had one of the first mechanised silk factories in the British Isles. However, Stockport's predominant industries of the 19th century were the cotton and allied industries. Stockport was also at the centre of the country's hatting industry, which by 1884 was exporting more than six million hats a year; the last hat works in Stockport closed in 1997.
Dominating the western approaches to the town is the Stockport Viaduct. Built in 1840, the viaduct's 27 brick arches carry the mainline railways from Manchester to Birmingham and London over the River Mersey. This structure featured as the background in many paintings by L. S. Lowry.’
We chose our day which was to be a Monday. We made travel arrangements and the day started well. I arrived at the station only to find my right leg was a bit cold. To my dismay the zip on my boot had broken and this set the tone. Not only could you see my off pink bobbly gardening socks, I had now acquired a shuffle to keep my boot on. It is OK though, I thought, as there will be lots to see and I can just Sellotape it back together. Nobody had any Sellotape on the train to Piccadilly.
It was here after squinting through the blinding light that we decided to visit The Plaza for dinners. We knew bits about it but flipping heck it is lovely inside, so much so I didn’t take any pictures except of my sausage dinner and the carpet.
After a lovely dinner and a complimentary chocolate we rolled into town to walk it off. Here are the scenes.
St Marys Church. Bits of it date back to the 14th Century.
Who is this? Why does it have posh railings? I cannot find out anything about it but from reading HERE it could be one of the remaining graves from when the church was rebuilt and the other gravestones in the cemetery were used as paving. Interesting stuff.
Go HERE to the church website.
Final thoughts- I liked it very much, there is a lot to see and do and it is very old and historic. The Plaza is beautiful and I would like to spend more time there. Remember that Monday’s are a day of rest and to wear sensible footwear not boots that are 15 years old with a bad zip. We will revisit in the summer with a new list of sights, not on a Monday and with renewed vigour.