Pace Egg Painting for Easter

A number of youngsters joined the Heritage Trust in the Market on Easter Sunday to decorate Pace Eggs for Easter.

Spring 2013 Heritage Magazine

The spring issue of the Stockport Heritage Magazine for 2013 will be in your local shops this week.

 

It abounds with interesting stories

 

A case of mistaken drunkenness

Wives, widows and spinsters

A forgotten treasure

Life in the Heatons

Old school virtues

The ragged battalion

Cheadle railways

Tea dance at Roman Lakes

 

and much much more including letters to the Editor.

Stockport Junior History Hunt

The Heritage Trust has produced a self guided heritage walk for children. It takes them around the centre of historic Stockport and brings the history of the fascinating town alive.


The leaflet is now on the shelves in the Bridge Street Heritage Centre and the Tourist Information Centre.

The walk lasts around one hour and is aimed at youngsters from 7 - 14.

If you then wish to know more about Stockport's History come and see us in the Heritage Centre on Bridge Street Brow.

(Soon to be returning to St. Mary's Church in the Market Place).

Chadkirk Walk

A group of intrepid explorers set out in the snow, last week, to follow the new Chadkirk Walk book, just the latest in our £2 walk series covering most of the Stockport Borough.

Meeting at the Garden Centre on Otterspool Road and ending with a nice warm meal at the Hare and Hounds helped everyone to stay thawed.

You can purchase a copy of the new book, which takes you along the new footpaths, bridge and around the Chadkirk Estate whilst learning about its history. £2 each from Stockport Heritage Centre on Bridge St. Brow, or on line via our website www.stockportheritagetrust.co.uk

 

 

Stockport Heritage Skills for the Future - Training Placements Now Available

Seven heritage focussed training placements now available

Adverts for the Heritage Lottery funded Heritage Skills for the future placements are now on the yourcounciljobs website.

Details of the placements are:

Conservation Management Trainee

Libraries and Archives Trainee

Museums Collections Management Trainee (Curatorial Support)

Museums Collections Management Trainee (Technical Support)

Thumbs up for the Heritage Calendar

One of our satisfied customers sent us this kind feedback for the 2013 Heritage Calendar -

"Hello ! I thought you might like to know that this year's Calendar is
being enjoyed in Wellington, NZ !   Apparently it is causing much
interest, and amusement, in the Education Office wheremy daughter works.  Everyone wants to know what's of interest each day, and are
disappointed if there is nothing on their birthday dates. They could
not believe Jimi Hendrix had anything to do with this place called
Stockport. On googling him they discovered he had a connection !"

We have to thank Trust member Phil Rowbotham for all the hard work he does putting the calendar together and if members wish their pictures to be voted on for the next calendar, send them to him now.

Mary Queen of Shops comes to Stockport

Guernsey Evacuees in Stockport 

by Gillian Mawson

In June 1940, just days before the Nazis occupied the Channel Islands, 17,000 evacuees left Guernsey for England. The first to leave were 5,000 Guernsey school children, together with their teachers and 500 Guernsey mothers acting as 'helpers'. Most of the evacuees were sent to Lancashire and Cheshire, and the largest number, around 2,500, settled in Stockport for the duration of the war. One headmaster re-opened his 'Guernsey school' in Cheadle Hulme Parish Hall so that the teachers and pupils could remain together. Interviews have revealed what life was like for these evacuees in wartime Stockport, separated from their families for five years.

Children and teachers of the Guernsey school in Cheadle Hulme Parish Hall

Eva Le Page left Guernsey as a 'teacher's helper' with her baby, Anthony, and a bag which contained just nappies and feeding bottles. Ruth Alexandre wrote in her diary: “Hours on a cattle boat, in the hold. Torrential rain about two o’clock so all had to go under cover where cattle had recently been landed. Everything full of coal dust, sat on suitcases,everything very dark and cold.” Ruth eventually moved into a house on Clwyd Avenue, in Edgeley.

John Tippett was evacuated with his school to Glasgow but his mother sailed to England separately, and was sent to Stockport Town Hall. After a few weeks she discovered John’s whereabouts, and he was sent by train to Stockport. He walked into the Town hall and was horrified by the scene that met his eyes: “The noise and the smell, all the camp beds lined up, people’s belongings all over the floor! According to my mum, I didn’t take my coat and gas mask off. She said to me ‘Take your coat off’ and I kept saying to her, ‘No'. I thought that I was just visiting Mum for the day, and that I was going back to Glasgow.”

Five-year-old Stanley Bienvenu, became seriously ill in a Stockport hospital with bronchial pneumonia and it was not known whether his mother had reached England. The press launched an appeal to find her, and The Stockport Advertiser reported “She reached Stockport on Friday evening and a jovial, if not altogether tearless reunion, took place between mother and sick child in his little cubicle. Mrs Bienvenu has five children and they are all with her in Stockport. Her only anxiety now is for her husband’s safety. He stayed on in Guernsey and she has only had one wire from him since she left.”

Stanley Bienvenu and his mother

In early July, the child evacuees were billeted with local families. Ruth Harrison’s family chose a little Guernsey girl, Win De La Mare, to stay with them, and Ruth recalls, “Mum chose a little girl so that she could come and play with me like a sister, and Win did become like my own sister.” Mavis Brown and her mother were chosen by a Stockport housewife “We were chosen by a lady who had a child the same age as me. She asked for a lady with a little girl who had dark hair and we ‘fitted the bill’. She was very kind.”

The evacuees integrated into their local communities but they also set up Channel Island Societies. The Stockport branch was the largest in England, with over 2,000 members. They held meetings at Tiviot Dale Church and printed their own magazine. 5,000 copies were printed every month and circulated throughout England. Most evacuees found friendship amongst their neighbours and Anne Martins recalls, “People brought us books and toys because they knew that our mums and dads in Guernsey wouldn’t be able to send us anything as there was no postal service during the war.” Len Robilliard recalls, “A policeman came along and handed me a ten shilling note, a lot of money in 1940, and told me to use it to buy sweets for the Guernsey children.” Peter Ninnim was touched by the welcome from local people, saying “I cannot thank the people of Stockport enough for taking us into their community – we depended on the kindness of strangers many a time.” One Guernsey mother wrote in her diary “People here are very sympathetic. They say  ‘We’re all on the same side love, what bits do you need for your house? We will see what we can give you'.”  Sadly a small number of evacuees were treated badly during the war. Some of their neighbours thought they were German because of their unfamiliar surnames.

Stockport was a complete culture shock to these evacuees who had left a small, quiet island and been plunged into a town of wide roads, terraced houses, factories, smog and smoke. Some remember that Stockport people didn't seem to know where Guernsey was, and they assumed that the evacuees would not speak English. One evacuee wrote in her diary “I told the girls at the Co-op that I was from Guernsey, and they replied 'Fancy! And you speak perfect English too!'

When Guernsey was liberated by the British on 9 May 1945, thousands of evacuees assumed they would be able to go home straight away. However on 3 June 1945, 6,000 Channel Island evacuees gathered at Belle Vue Stadium, Manchester, and were told “The immediate return to the islands of a large number of persons would create very serious problems of accommodation and unemployment.” Many of the child evacuees who returned home had difficulty bonding with their Guernsey parents, and family life was never the same again. Many had become attached to their Stockport  'foster parents' and were sad to leave them behind.  One recalled, ‘I had left Guernsey when I was five years old so and when I got back, I didn’t recognise my dad - we were like strangers. ’ Win de La Mare said “t wasn’t easy. When I got back home, my mother had two more children, who I didn’t know, and I often felt that I just didn’t fit in. Also I really missed my Stockport 'foster sister' Ruth. We wrote to each other, and visited, and are still in touch now.”

Many evacuees never left Stockport.  They became engaged or married to local people, found good jobs or started college. Others realised that Guernsey would have been badly damaged during the Nazi occupation and that their future in Stockport was more promising. Some returned to Guernsey to find that they could not settle, and came back to Stockport within weeks. Some evacuees stated that, back in Guernsey, they were accused of being 'cowards' because they had left their island to go to England in 1940, which was very upsetting for them.

Gillian Mawson's book 'Guernsey Evacuees: The Forgotten Evacuees of the Second World War' can be ordered online from amazon, or W H Smiths  will order a copy in for you. To learn more about the Guernsey evacuation, or to contact the author, please see her website at http://guernseyevacuees.wordpress.com/

Christmas Walk

This year's Christmas walk was around Ethrow Park, meeting in the cafe at 11am with a meal to finish in the George on Compstall Road. Not a great turn out but we manage to dodge most of the rain. "There is a lot more to this park than meets the eye".

What the Dickens Happened in Stockport

It was Stockport's Christmas Market on Sat 8th Dec. and the Heritage Trust were out in all their glory.

 

 14 costumed characters included Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Gamp who read from a Christmas Carol and Pickwick Papers, in the dungeon, under the watchful eye of our gaoler.


Bill Roach came to sign copies of his book at Isis, on Mealhouse Brow and the town cryer, with his able assistant anounced to all the town, the entertainments and activities going on around the Market and Underbanks.

There were choirs, bands and singers positioned around the town with street entertainers including the Plaza Youth who were a great success with their songs from Oliver and Annie.

Councillor Iain Roberts was put in the stocks and many an adult had to try adding in 'old money' on the roll-a-penny game to save face in front of their children.

Manchester People's Musuem

Today's Trust outing to the Manchester People's Museum was not well attended, but no less enjoyable for that.

With galleries about Peterloo, Chartism, Trade Unions and Suffragettes as well as the National Health Service and post war politics, how could it fail to be interesting.

The museum was followed by lunch at the Law Courts and a visit to the Manchester Christmas Market, which is bigger and better than ever this year.

Reddish Archaelogical Dig Results

The recent Dig Greater Manchester project at the site of Wood Hall in Reddish was a great success. With research (and assistance from a lady in her nineties, who remembers playing in the hall as a child) the archaeologists were able to pinpoint the location of the buildings. Carefully removing soil and rubble, they gradually uncovered stone steps leading down into the cellar, where they found these beautiful tiles. They were made by Mintons of Stoke-on-Trent around 1850.

The paving was a mixture of cobble stones (large pebbles from the river - cheap and locally available); granite setts and cream sandstone flagstones. The changes reveal increasing investment in the property.

Many more items were discovered including shoes; a porcelain egg (placed in nests to encourage chickens to lay); bottles; coins and part of a marble fireplace. There were finds from a wide range of dates showing changes in use over the years.

Wood Hall was built in a strategic position - a woodland clearing on high land  near the river. Because of this, the team believe the site could have been in use as far back as the Stone Age (around 10,000 BC). There are potentially many more, older relics to be found.

A longer article about the dig can be found on the Stockport Council Heritage Blog.

Interested in getting involved in local archaeology? Contact SMART (South Manchester Archaeological Research Team).

For now, the project is over but the team will be back next year and on the lookout for new projects. Do you know of a site which has the potential for a future dig? Email David.

Winter Heritage Magazine 2012 - 25 years old.

The winter issue of the Heritage Magazine will be arriving in your shops this week.
It is filled with stories, memories and letters about -

An eye witness  account of the Stockport Train Crash.
The Brow that lost it's bridge.
The Squirrel sweet works.
Turner's Vaults.
Diphtheria epidemic of 1938
Alexandra Park School.
Woodsmoor days.
Poverty & poetry.
Stockport's Heritage  over 25years.
The story of Bukta.
Bruntwood Hall and Park.

News for Stockport Heritage Trust and much, much more.

Heritage Centre Announcement

 

Stockport Heritage Trust are facing a crisis of space. Following their temporary move out of St. Mary's church for the duration of the internal improvements, they have made their home quite happily in premises above 'Direct Fish' on Bridge Street Brow.  Unless storage facilities can be found in the town centre, in the next few months, they will be facing the need to down size their huge collection of vintage and heritage artefacts.

For this reason a plea has gone out  to people who have given or loaned items over the years, that if they would like them returned could they please contact the Heritage Centre before  Dec 31st this year. Following this date, if no other storage can be found, they will be sold to raise funds for the continued running of the Heritage Centre.

Halloween Spooky Walk

There is a Halloween Walk around Stockport on Wed 31st Oct.

Begining from Staircase House in the Market Place at 6.30pm

For more information contact Jean Bailo on

Tell: 07812129754 

4 Heatons Voices

4 Heatons Voices - ‘Those 20 years’

An exciting new history project is to be launched in The Heatons in November. ‘4 Heatons Voices’ is the inspiration of the Rotary Club of Stockport Lamplighter and will be 12 months of events and activities looking at ‘Those 20 Years’ – the period between the 2 World Wars.

The project will include visual and oral histories, where those with personal memories of the period will be able to record their memories and preserve them for future generations. It is an opportunity for older people to give their own, individual accounts, rather than the ‘official’ history of those times and will help younger people in their understanding of that time, in their community.

 The project will be launched on Sunday 4^th November at The Crown Inn, Heaton Mersey, with both Jazz and Ukelele Bands playing music from the era and will continue with talks, help to sort out your family archives & those of local organisations, visits to the Heritage Library, a 1920/30s fashion display, archive films of the period and much, much more.

We would like to hear from anyone with personal recollections of the period and from individuals or organisations who would like to join in.

Please contact: Clyde Raine – 0161 432 7161

www.lamplighters.org.uk

Stockport Colour Calendar

Stockport Heritage Colour Calendar is better than ever this year. With 12 stunning pictures of Stockport at its best and still only £6.

They are on sale from our Heritage Centre, Bridge St., from Crystal Angels market stall, Bakers, Hempshaw Ln. or the Station Convenience Store Heaton Moor. For online sales go to our website - www.stockportheritagetrust.co.uk and for orders by post ring Kevin Dranfield on 01614274006.

Reddish Archaeological Dig 2012

From the 8th to 20th October the University of Salford will be conducting an archaeological excavation at the site of Wood Hall in Reddish Vale.
From the Reddish Vale website:

"Wood Hall was the centre of an ancient freehold estate in Reddish, situated on high ground on the western edge of the Tame valley. ‘Wode Hall’ is documented in 1501/2, at which date it was owned by the Wood family. They owned land in Reddish in 1314 when there is mention of Henry del Wood, implying that there was a hall here by that date. It is likely that the Wood family took their name from the place which was itself named after an area of woodland. 19th-century maps show the hall set within a roughly oval area, which is suggestive of a small medieval assart or enclosure, reclaimed from woodland or waste."

On the Open Day - Saturday 20th October - people will have the opportunity to take part in guided tours of the site and there will be site based activities such as family history, crafts stalls and a small trench where children with their parents can have a go at excavations.

Members of the public are also welcome to help with excavation on other days, by prior arrangement with Brian Grimsditch. Heritage Trust members will be following progress of the dig with interest.

Heaton Moor Historical Society

   The date of the next Heaton Moor Historical Society talk in the Plough will be on Thursday 27th September, at 7.30 p.m.

Clyde Raine will be giving us a talk on architecture :

Art deco in Stockport and in the city.

                                                   

On the 8th November Kevin Dranfield from Stockport Heritage will be giving a talk on 'Wellington Road, the World's first bypass'. 

Talks are on Thursdays every 2 months at the Plough, Heaton Moor and start at 7.30 prompt; there is usually no charge.

Hope you can join us.
   Kind regards,

 

Phil ................

07752 368308

Romiley Station 150 Years Old

A commemorative plaque was unveiled at Romiley Station by Andrew Stunell MP, on Saturday 8th Sep,  to celebrate 150 years of the railway line.

Also present were Stockport's Mayor and Mayoress Wendy and Claire Meikle and on behalf of the Heritage Trust, John Bardsley.

There was fun and entertainments for all the family, not to mention cake.

New Heritage Centre Open Day

The new Heritage Centre on bridge Street Brow had its official opening day on Sat 1st Sep.
A number of local Councilors came along to see us, as well as Stockport's MP Anne Coffey.
With free refreshments for all our visitors the day was an enjoyable one.

Roughleys Bike Show 2012

The annual charity event Roughleys Bike Show was held on Sunday in the market place. It supports Rainbow Trust; Together Trust and the NABD.

We opened the Heritage Centre and the Dungeon and were pleased to receive lots of new visitors.

Coming up, Heritage Open Weekend. We will have free walks and talks from Thursday 6th - Sunday 9th September. The full schedule will be posted soon.

Radio Manchester

In Stockport today BBC Radio Manchester interviewed Councilors concerning the Portas Grant and  stall holders about their businesses. Included in these was Laraine who started on the market 50 years ago today!!  

Kevin Dranfield from the Trust advertising our re-located Heritage Centre as well as our verypopular 2013 Calendar.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Chadkirk 2012

Chadkirk this year was as popular as ever. Fitting all the entertainments and activities into one day instead of two,  seem to increase visitor numbers as people flocked to watch the opening of the new foot bridge over the Goyt and then to join in the fun of the Festival.

 Stockport Heritage Trust were there as usual, brightening the day with colourful costumes and good value books and gifts.