Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England; it lies south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The rivers Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here. It is the main settlement of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Stockport. At the 2021 census, the built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics had a population of 117,935, and the metropolitan borough had a population of 294,773.
Most of the town is within the boundaries of the historic county of Cheshire, with the area north of the Mersey in the historic county of Lancashire. Stockport in the 16th century was a small town entirely on the south bank of the Mersey, known for the cultivation of hemp and manufacture of rope. In the 18th century, it had one of the first mechanised silk factories in the British Isles. Stockport's predominant industries of the 19th century were the cotton and allied industries. It 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. The town's football club, Stockport County, is nicknamed The Hatters.
Dominating the western approaches to the town is Stockport Viaduct. Built in 1840, its 27 brick arches carry the main line railway through the town over the River Mersey and the M60 motorway.
History
Toponymy
Stockport was recorded as "Stokeport" in 1170. The currently accepted etymology is Old English port, a market place, with stoc, a hamlet ; hence, a market place at a hamlet. Older derivations include stock, a stockaded place or castle, with port, a wood, hence a castle in a wood. The castle probably refers to Stockport Castle, a 12th-century motte-and-bailey first mentioned in 1173.Other derivations are based on early variants such as Stopford and Stockford. There is evidence that a ford across the River Mersey existed at the foot of Bridge Street Brow. Stopford retains a use in the adjectival form, Stopfordian, for Stockport-related items and pupils of Stockport Grammar School; it is also used as the demonym for people from Stockport.
Stockport has never been a sea or river port, as the Mersey is not navigable here; in the centre of the town, the river has been culverted and the main shopping street, Merseyway, was built above it.
Early history
The earliest evidence of human occupation in the wider area are microliths, from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic period, and weapons and stone tools from the Neolithic period. Early Bronze Age remains include stone hammers, flint knives, palstaves and funerary urns; all finds were chance discoveries, not the results of systematic searches of a known site. There is a gap in the age of finds between about 1200 BC and the start of the Roman period in about 70 AD, which may indicate depopulation, possibly due to a poorer climate.Despite a strong local tradition, there is little evidence of a Roman military station at Stockport. It is assumed that roads from Cheadle to Ardotalia and Manchester to Buxton crossed close to the town centre. The preferred site is at a ford over the Mersey, known to be paved in the 18th century, but it has never been proved that this or any roads in the area are Roman. In 1892, Hegginbotham reported the discovery of Roman mosaics at Castle Hill in the late 18th century, during the construction of a mill, but noted it was "founded on tradition only"; substantial stonework has never been dated by modern methods. However, Roman coins and pottery were probably found there during the 18th century. A cache of coins dating from 375 to 378 AD may have come from the banks of the Mersey at Daw Bank; these were possibly buried for safekeeping at the side of a road.
Six coins from the reigns of the Anglo-Saxon English Kings Edmund and Eadred were found during ploughing at Reddish Green in 1789. There are contrasting views about the significance of this; Arrowsmith takes this as evidence for the existence of a settlement at that time, but Morris states the find could be "an isolated incident". The small cache is the only Anglo-Saxon find in the area. However, the etymology Stoc-port suggests inhabitation during this period.
Medieval and early modern period
No part of Stockport appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. The area north of the Mersey was part of the hundred of Salford, which was poorly surveyed. The area south of the Mersey was part of the Hamestan hundred. Cheadle, Bramhall, Bredbury and Romiley are mentioned, but these all lay just outside the town limits. The survey includes valuations of the Salford hundred as a whole and Cheadle for the times of Edward the Confessor, just before the Norman invasion of 1066, and the time of the survey. The reduction in value is taken as evidence of destruction by William the Conqueror's men in the campaigns generally known as the Harrying of the North. The omission of Stockport was once taken as evidence that destruction was so complete that a survey was not needed.Arrowsmith argues from the etymology that Stockport may have still been a market place associated with a larger estate, and so would not be surveyed separately. The Anglo-Saxon landholders in the area were dispossessed and the land divided amongst the new Norman rulers. The first borough charter was granted in about 1220 and was the only basis for local government for six hundred years.
A castle held by Geoffrey de Costentin is recorded as a rebel stronghold against Henry II in 1173–1174 when his sons revolted. There is an incorrect local tradition that Geoffrey was the king's son, Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, who was one of the rebels. Dent gives the size of the castle as about, and suggests it was similar in pattern to those at Pontefract and Launceston.
A branch of the Arden family were prominent in Stockport in 1500s at Underbank Hall and Arden Hall.
The castle was probably ruinous by the middle of the 16th century and it was agreed to demolish it in 1642. Castle Hill, possibly the motte, was levelled in 1775 to make space for Warren's mill. Nearby walls, once thought to be either part of the castle or of the town walls, are now thought to be revetments to protect the cliff face from erosion.
The regicide John Bradshaw was born at Wibersley, in the parish of Stockport, baptised in the parish church and attended Stockport Free School. A lawyer, he was appointed Lord President of the High Court of Justice for the trial of King Charles I in 1649. Although he was dead by the time of the Restoration in 1660, his body was brought up from Westminster Abbey and hanged in its coffin at Tyburn.
Stockport bridge has been documented as existing since at least 1282. During the English Civil War, the town was supportive of Parliament and was garrisoned by local militias of around 3,000 men commanded by Majors Mainwaring and Duckenfield. Prince Rupert advanced on the town on 25 May 1644, with 8–10,000 men and 50 guns, with a brief skirmish at the site of the bridge, in which Colonel Washington's Dragoons led the Royalist attack. Rupert continued his march via Manchester and Bolton to meet defeat at Marston Moor near York.
Stockport bridge was pulled down in 1745 and trenches were additionally dug in the fords to try to stop the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart as they marched through the town on the way to Derby. The vanguard was shot at by the town guard and a horse was killed. The army also passed through Stockport on their retreat back from Derby to Scotland.
One of the legends of the town is that of Cheshire farmer, Jonathan Thatcher, who, in a 1784 demonstration against taxation, avoided William Pitt the Younger's saddle tax on horses by riding to market at Stockport on an ox. The incident is also celebrated in "The Glass Umbrella" in St Petersgate Gardens, one of the works on Stockport's Arts Trail.
Industrialisation
Hat making was established in north Cheshire and south-east Lancashire by the 16th century. From the 17th century, Stockport became a centre for the hatting industry and later the silk industry. The town expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, helped particularly by the growth of the cotton manufacturing industries. However, economic growth took its toll and 19th century philosopher Friedrich Engels wrote in 1844 that Stockport was "renowned as one of the duskiest, smokiest holes" in the whole of the industrial area.Stockport was one of the prototype textile towns. In the early 18th century, England was not capable of producing silk of sufficient quality to be used as the warp in woven fabrics. Suitable thread had to be imported from Italy, where it was spun on water-powered machinery. In about 1717, John Lombe travelled to Italy and copied the design of the machinery. On his return, he obtained a patent on the design and went into production in Derby. When Lombe tried to renew his patent in 1732, silk spinners from towns including Manchester, Macclesfield, Leek and Stockport successfully petitioned parliament to not renew the patent. Lombe was paid off and Stockport's first silk mill was opened in 1732, on a bend in the Mersey. Further mills were opened on local brooks.
Silk weaving expanded until two thousand people were employed in the industry in 1769. By 1772, the boom had turned to bust, possibly due to cheaper foreign imports; by the late 1770s, trade had recovered. The cycle of boom and bust would continue throughout the textile era.
The combination of a good water power site and a workforce used to textile factory work meant Stockport was well placed to take advantage of the phenomenal expansion in cotton processing in the late 18th century. Warren's mill in the market place was the first. Power came from an undershot water wheel in a deep pit, fed by a tunnel from the River Goyt. The positioning on high ground, unusual for a water-powered mill, contributed to an early demise, but the concept of moving water around in tunnels proved successful and several tunnels were driven under the town from the Goyt to power mills. In 1796, James Harrisson drove a wide cut from the Tame which fed several mills in the Park, Portwood. Other water-powered mills were built on the Mersey.
The town was connected to the national canal network by the of the Stockport branch of the Ashton Canal opened in 1797, which continued in use until the 1930s. Much of it is now filled in, but there is an active campaign to reopen it for leisure uses.
In the early 19th century, the number of hatters in the area began to increase and a reputation for high quality work was created. The London firm of Miller Christy bought out a local firm in 1826, a move described by Arrowsmith as a "watershed". By the latter part of the century, hatting had changed from a manual to a mechanised process and was one of Stockport's primary employers; the area, with nearby Denton, was the leading national centre. Support industries, such as blockmaking, trimmings, and leatherware, became established. Stockport Armoury was completed in 1862.
World War I cut off overseas markets, which established local industries and eroded Stockport's eminence. Even so, more than 3,000 people worked in the hatting industry in 1932, making it the third biggest employer after textiles and engineering. The depression of the 1930s and changes in fashion greatly reduced the demand for hats; the demand that existed was met by cheaper wool products made elsewhere, such as the Luton area.
In 1966, the largest of the region's remaining felt hat manufacturers, Battersby & Co, T & W Lees, J. Moores & Sons, and Joseph Wilson & Sons, merged with Christy & Co to form Associated British Hat Manufacturers, leaving Christy's and Wilson's as the last two factories in production. The Wilson's factory closed in 1980, followed by the Christy's factory in 1997, bringing to an end over 400 years of hatting in the area. The industry is commemorated by the UK's only dedicated hatting museum, Hat Works.