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Stockport, Cheshire

Historical Description

Stockport, a market-town, a municipal, county, and parliamentary borough, the head of a poor-law union, petty sessional division, and county court district, a township, and a parish in Cheshire and Lancashire. The town stands on the river Mersey, at the confluence of the Goyt and the Tame, 5½ miles SSE of Manchester, and 177¼ by railway from London. It was anciently called Stockfort, Storefort, and Stokeport; is supposed to occupy the site of a Roman station; had a Saxon castle, afterwards a Norman one, now quite extinct, on a spot still called Castle Hill; was the scene of a repulse of the Danes; became the head of a barony under the ancient Earls of Chester; was held in 1173 by Geoffrey de Constantin against Henry II.; passed to Robert de Stokeport and to the Warrens; and was occupied in 1644 by Prince Rupert, in 1645 by Leslie, and in 1745 by Prince Charles Stuart. Stockport was the first seat of the silk-winding trade, and rose to much importance in connection with the cotton manufacture. Its site is exceedingly unequal, and includes a steep hill rising boldly from the N. The streets for the most part are very irregularly built, and the houses rise in successive tiers from the base to the summit of the hill. Great improvements have been made: extensive suburbs are on both sides of the river, and a great thoroughfare, called Wellington Road, goes evenly from Rowcroft Smithy to Heaton Chapel, avoiding all the town's narrow and precipitous ascents and declivities.

A fine eleven-arched bridge, erected in 1826 at a cost of £40,000, takes Wellington Road across the Mersey. There are in all fourteen bridges over the Mersey, Tame, and Goyt. A magnificent viaduct 1780 feet long, with twenty-two semicircular arches, constructed at a cost of about £75,000, takes the L. & N.W.R. across the town and river. Subsequently it was widened to double the original width. The Courthouse is in Warren Street, and is used as a town-hall. and for the borough arid county petty sessions. The marketplace covers a considerable area, and is roofed with glass. A market-house was built in 1851, but is chiefly used to accommodate the free library. The Mechanics' Institution and the Volunteer Armoury were built in 1862, the Public Baths in. 1888, and the Reform Club in 1889. A statue of Richard Cobden, formerly M.P. for the borough, was erected in St Peter's Square in 1883. St Mary's Church, mainly rebuilt in 1817 at a cost of £40,000, contains a Decorated English chancel of the 14th century, and has a fine E window and a lofty pinnacled tower. The church was restored in 1882 at a cost of over £5000, and the chancel in 1891 at a cost of £1000. St Thomas' Church was built in 1825 at a cost of £16,000, and is in the Grecian style, with tower and cupola. St Peter's Church was built in 1768, and is a plain brick edifice in the Italian style; a new chancel was erected in 1888. St Matthew's, Edgeley, was erected in 1858, and is in the Early English style. Christ Church, was erected in 1846, St Paul's, Portwood, in 1851, and All Saints in 1886. St George's Church, which is the largest in the town, was erected at Heaviley in 1895-96, at a cost, including schools, of £40,000, defrayed by Mr Wakefield Christie Miller. There are two mission churches in connection with Christ Church, and Roman Catholic, Baptist, Congregational, Free Independent, Primitive, and New Connexion Methodist, Unitarian, and Wesleyan chapels, and places of worship for the Society of Friends, Christadelphians, and Swedenborgians. The cemetery is situated at Heaviley, covers an area of 20 acres, and has three mortuary chapels.. There are three parks, Vernon Park, Edgeley Park, and Hollywood Park, of which the first-named commands beautiful views; also recreation grounds at Crowthers Fields and Hempshaw Lane. The Grammar School was founded in 1487, and rebuilt in 1832. The Technical School, in Wellington Road, is a fine building erected in 1889, and an additional wing has since been built. The Infirmary, built in 1832, has a front of 100 feet, in the Doric style. There are two hospitals for infectious diseases, and four almshouses. The Pendlebury Orphanage, opened in 1882, is capable of clothing and educating 250 orphans. The Stockport Sunday School, established in 1794, and now the largest in the world, has with branches 5000 scholars.

The town has a head post office, and stations (Edgeley and Heaton Norris) on the L. & N.W.R. and North Staffordshire railway, and at Tiviot Dale on the Cheshire Lines and M.S. & L.R. It is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and publishes one daily and three weekly newspapers. Weekly markets are held on Friday and Saturday, andhorse and cattle fairs at frequent intervals. There are flour mills, breweries, foundries, machine-works, preserve and confection works, and a large number of cotton factories, many of which are of great size. It has also become a most important centre of the hat manufacture. The town was made a free borough by Robert de Stokeport in the time of Henry III., and became a parliamentary borough with two representatives. by the Reform Act of 1832, and a county borough in 1888. The municipal and county borough is divided into fourteen wards-Lancashire Hill, Heaton Lane, Portwood, Vernon, Hollywood, Shaw Heath, Hempshaw Lane, Heaviley, Old Road, St Mary's, Spring Bank, Edgeley, St Thomas, and Cale Green; it is governed by a mayor, 14 aldermen, and 42 councillors, who form the urban district council; and has a commission of the peace. The municipal and parliamentary boroughs are co-extensive. The borough limits include all Stockport township, and parts of Brinnington, Cheadle Bulkeley, and Cheadle Moseley townships in Cheshire, and part of Heaton Norris township in Lancashire. Acreage, 2200; population, 74,000.

The township comprises 1324 acres; population, 37,297. The parish contains also the rest of the Cheshire portions of the borough, and the townships of Etchells, Bramhall, Norbury, Torkington, Werneth, Hyde, Bredbury, Romiley, Offerton, Marple, Dukinfield, and Disley, all of which are separately noticed. The ecclesiastical parishes in Stockport are St Mary (population, 12,807), St Matthew (constituted 1844, population 10,686), St Peter (constituted 1838, population 3607), St Thomas (constituted 1875, population 22,621), and St Paul, Portwood (constituted 1846, population 7061). The livings of St Mary and St Thomas are rectories, of St Matthew and St Paul vicarages, of St Peter a perpetual curacy, all in the diocese of Chester; net value of St Mary, £390 with residence; of St Thomas, £125 with residence; of St Paul, £310 with residence; gross value of St Matthew, £350; of St Peter, £281 with residence. Patrons of St Matthew, the Crown and the Bishop of Chester alternately; of St Paul, the Bishop of Chester.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient CountyCheshire 
Ecclesiastical parishStockport St. Mary 
HundredMacclesfield 
Poor Law unionStockport 

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.


Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Stockport from the following:


Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Cheshire is available to browse.


Maps

Online maps of Stockport are available from a number of sites:


Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Cheshire papers online:


Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Cheshire, 1580 is available on the Heraldry page.

DistrictStockport
RegionNorth West
CountryEngland
Postal districtSK1
Post TownStockport

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