h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How about adding a bit about the history of Stockport

What about the Davenport Family?

What about historic buildings such as Underbank Hall & the Three Shires building?

How about a mention for the Wurlitzer pipe organ (one of only 14 of the Publix One models that were manufactured) in the town hall or the Compton organ in the Plaza?

How about mentioning how Agricola in order to protect a crossing point of the Mersey fortified a small hamlet in 79AD thus creating what was to become Stockport. How the name is derived from the Old English names for castle (Stock) & wood (Port), how the castle & fortifications were improved by the Normans & those that followed until it was knocked down in 1775?

and what about the Market (established by Royal charter in 1260) and its fantastic Victorian 'Glass Umbrella' market hall's?

how about a mention of the Charter of Freedom the town obtained in the 13th century?

nice work so far but there is much you need to add to this article

http://www.stockportmbc.gov.uk/trail/Home.htm
http://www.stockport.gov.uk/Borough/Heritage/default.asp
http://www.yourstockport.co.uk/frameset/history/index.html
http://www.geospiza.demon.co.uk/stockport/stockpor.htm
http://www.marple-uk.com/Marple2.htm

in addition what about a mention for some of the wonderful parks around Stockport (e.g. Etherow Country Park & Lyme Park, etc)?

Thanks for the feedback, I'll certainly be improving it soon

see you have added to the article

do you know how use the <./>GuideML-REFERENCES</.> tag
if ya do may I suggest you use to add links to
A564699 Houldsworth Mill, Stockport, Cheshire, UK
A309674 Manchester, England, UK

Stockport's History:-

i) (Ancient) Stockport is built where the rivers Tame and Goyt conflue into the River Mersey. Before the Romans, the Mersey ("Dividing Sea")was the natural border between the Briganti tribe of modern-day Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the tribes living in modern day Cheshire. Life then must have been a jolly Celtic round of crossing the river in either direction, raiding for easily portable valuables such as gold, cattle, women, et c, and then making it back to your own side without interception. The only place where the Mersey could easily be forded for many miles was at or nearby to its confluence: this meant that whoever held the ford held a strategically valuable site. Therefore a settlement of sorts began here, which was useful to the Romans when they came North and contemplated the Kingdom of Brigantia (which was run at the time by Britain's other ferocious warrior queen, Cartimandua). It is not thought that Cartimandua had her royal seat at Stockport, btw.

Having seen what had happened further South to Boudicca, Cartimandua had no wish to go the same way, and Brigantia fell to the Roman Empire without warfare. However, the Romans also appreciated the strategic value of "Stockport - Gateway to Lancashire" and built the first of a succession of forts here, on high bluffs overlooking the Mersey.

Post-Roman, the Anglo-Saxons settled here, having a barney or two with Vikings along the way. One Victorian historian looking for a bit of glamour in Stockport's past speculated that Reddish was the site of a major battle between Saxons and Vikings (there is one mentioned in various chronicles that happened somewhere along the Mersey, but we were careless enough to lose the battlefield). This was on no better evidence than a throwaway line in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle about "the river ran REDDISH with blood". Ha, ha) Modern-day Reddish is a northern suburb of the town, technically in Lancashire as it's north of the Mersey, where on a Friday or Saturday night around the Poets' Estate, local re-enactment groups behave like Dark Age barbarians in honour of their primitive forbears.

The name "Stockport" is beleived to be a corruption of the old name "Stopford", or "Stockford" - meaning, roughly, stockade by a ford.

The name confuses foreigners, who seeing "-port" invariably look for the place on the coast. Stockport is in fact 50 miles inland just south of Manchester.

1066 and all that: Nothing much happened. A castle got built. POtherwise zip.

1640-ish: English Civil War. Stockport Castle is levelled.

Post civil war: bugger all until 1745. Excitemment as Bonnie Prince Charlie leads an army of marauding Jocks over that strategic fording-point on the Mersey. BPC stays overnight in Stockport.

post 1745: more bugger all. A bloody great railway viaduct, about a mile long, gets built across the Mersey Valley.

Post building of viaduct: a lot more bugger all.

Famous sons of Stockport: Davy Jones of the Monkees, who got as far away as he could, you will notice. Mike Yarwood, impressionist and depressive alcoholic. Joan Bakewell. One of the King's Singers. And that's about it really.



The town name arrived about now

A very brief expansion of the lengthy periods of "frankly, bugger all" which have marked Stockport's civic history.

The viaduct: is a mile long and is regarded as "the longest continuous brick-built structure in Europe". Reason for building it: the railway between London and Manchester needed an easy way of crossing the Mersey Valley. The railway superceded the old coach road runnig through Stockport; the line of this can still be deduced from Hope Hill and Love Lane, which feel as if they SHOULD be a major route of some kind but which peter out without seemingly going anywhere. Then there's the A6, which travels north-south through Stockport and which was, in pre-motorway days, the main trunk road between Manchester and London. (OK then, Carlisle-London via Manchester).

Today, the A6 is a congested mess: recent roadworks intended to lighten the traffic burden have had the unique acclaim that EVERY category of road user (cyclist, motorist, pedestrian, public transport user) have ALL said that it makes it worse than it was before. It takes genius to "improve" a road to this extent - hats off to Stockport MBC!

The castle was levelled in the Civil War because Stockport chose to fight on the wrong side.

Stockport County (local footie club) had their ground bombed by the Luftwaffe in WW2 and eneded up ground-sharing at Manchester United. it was at Old Trafford that Stockport County created the least enviable record in English football: its heaviest defeat, 2-23.

County's form, notwithstanding a brief purple patch in the Nineties that saw them promited to Division One and in danger of (if they got any better) being promoted to the Premiership, has been largely desperate.

They are now back on familiar terrain, in the bottom division where for many years the only interest in County was "Will they finish in the bottom four and have to seek re-election to the League - again?"

The giddy heights, where for three or four seasons County met Manchester City nine times, won seven and drew two, and could realistically say "We are now the second club in Manchester!" (County being promoted to the First, City slumping to the Third)are now over and reality has reasserted itself. Macclesfield Town, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Altrincham Town, Rochdale, you name a local side, all have a higher standing and greater prestige than County.

At least the side can say: for two or three brief seasons, we were on the up.