Borough of Stockport: Hats, Viaducts and the Gateway to the Peaks
Stockport sits where the rivers Goyt and Tame merge to form the Mersey, just south of Manchester. The town is dominated by the Stockport Viaduct, a colossal brick structure carrying the railway across the valley — twenty-seven arches, built in 1840, and still one of the largest brick structures in Europe. Below it, the old town drops steeply through cobbled streets to the market and the Merseyway shopping centre, which was built over the river in the 1960s in an act of planning that was bold if nothing else.
Hatting made Stockport's fortune. By the mid-nineteenth century, the town produced more hats than anywhere else in the world, and Hat Works — a museum in a converted hat factory — preserves the machinery and the story. The industry faded after the First World War, when men stopped wearing hats daily, but the buildings and the name remain. Stockport County FC, playing at Edgeley Park in the shadow of the viaduct, has experienced the full range of football fortunes from the old First Division to the National League and back again.
The borough stretches south towards the Cheshire plain and east towards the Peak District. Bramhall, Cheadle, Marple, and Romiley each have their own character. Lyme Park, a National Trust estate on the Derbyshire border, stood in for Pemberley in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice — the one with the lake scene. The borough population is around 295,000, making it one of the larger metropolitan boroughs in Greater Manchester.
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Stockport sits where the rivers Goyt and Tame merge to form the Mersey, just south of Manchester. The town is dominated by the Stockport Viaduct, a colossal brick structure carrying the railway across the valley — twenty-seven arches, built in 1840, and still one of the largest brick structures in Europe. Below it, the old town drops steeply through cobbled streets to the market and the Merseyway shopping centre, which was built over the river in the 1960s in an act of planning that was bold if nothing else.
Hatting made Stockport's fortune. By the mid-nineteenth century, the town produced more hats than anywhere else in the world, and Hat Works — a museum in a converted hat factory — preserves the machinery and the story. The industry faded after the First World War, when men stopped wearing hats daily, but the buildings and the name remain. Stockport County FC, playing at Edgeley Park in the shadow of the viaduct, has experienced the full range of football fortunes from the old First Division to the National League and back again.
The borough stretches south towards the Cheshire plain and east towards the Peak District. Bramhall, Cheadle, Marple, and Romiley each have their own character. Lyme Park, a National Trust estate on the Derbyshire border, stood in for Pemberley in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice — the one with the lake scene. The borough population is around 295,000, making it one of the larger metropolitan boroughs in Greater Manchester.
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