Improvised signage in Lower Hillgate. This Unit collapsed in November 2013. An interesting symptom of urban decay. The pattern of use once suggested antiques, new furniture and a flourishing second hand market which continues at weekends. With repopulation Stockport might support a year round antiques market for the region. There are some very interesting shops as the hill rises, but the TESCO sponsored 300 bus makes the pedestrian status of the road very insecure. There are some shops dedicated to drug paraphernalia and sex supplies. There are also a superb niche magazine shop, a Christian bookshop, superb tech supplies and ladies hairdressing. Tandem offers great coffee with a cycling theme. Cool - or hot as you wish.
Royal Oak Yard introduces itself as a gap in the south side of Little Underbank with minimal sense of its importance. In the afternoon a shaft of sunlight breaks the line of the medieval main road once a main route into Manchester. A shop on the corner as we enter is vacant and the old iron place name sits above its hoarding. There are three routes offered to the traveller as we enter the yard. To the left a promising little cobbled piazza with a raw sandstone cliff at its far end. There are some padlocked exits into Grosvenor House facing south on the High Street above. This space has been overlooked as a pocket of real heritage potential. To the right an independent stair (Wellington Steps) descends at an angle that is not a conventional doorstep, rather this flight rises all the way up as a covered "brow" against the concealed red sandstone cliff to the High Street through a very well-trimmed plain brick arch, clearly marked on a plan of 1851.
Stockport; Royal Oak Yard; detail. Source O.S. 1851 This tall arch forms a typology repeated elsewhere in Little Underbank and should be seen as a remnant of distinctive, even idiosyncratic spaces of the earliest evolution of the town as a county commercial capital
Wellington Steps in 2015
The route is gated and boarded off from public access. It sends a message that will be consistent for the full extent of this Victorian yard.
from Beatriz Colomina,
http://www.world-architects.com/en/architecture-news/insight/2014_Venice_Biennale_Monditalia_550
Actual ruins were
reported in Little Underbank on 21 November 2013. There are further signs of
decay in some of the other buildings in Little Underbank, Royal Oak Yard and
Great Underbank. The water channelled into the valley site requires a vigilant
approach to conservation. Part of Royal Oak Yard is still in use as a public
dump, possibly from the persistence of folk memory, as it appears on early town
maps as a public lavatory (just opposite the Egerton Arms) and was probably
equipped with ductwork directly into the Tin Brook below.
“Derelict
building collapses and crushes parked car in Stockport”
Little Underbank 2017; unconstructed heritage in one shot; fly- parking in a medieval route, building collapse, false shop fronts, inappropriate signage, window bars and faux heritage parking posts, rubbish bin and the damage done by a full size diesel circuit bus that provides shopper access to nothing at all.
Future Ruins is given a battery graphic icon to imply that, like batteries, the
power and energy of certain recent functional structure is running down. The
facings and fabric at the Adlington section of the Merseyway Car Park are 47
years old. The changes in car use and the necessity of such colossal in town
structures in now in question.
The issue of the style needs of the town is largely narrative. There
are sections of the site which have exercised architects and planners since the
1950s. These debates will always focus on heritage, conservation and the
shifting arena of aesthetic.
These structures, despite their incidental
charm, offer little defence against the momentum of post millennium
masterplans. Ironically it is listed heritage monument time that may be running
out.
Non inhabited fabric is the third of the Radical
pedagogies. The audit of vacant property at the time of writing is generating a
justifiable unease amongst the few shop traders still working in the Little
Underbank zone near St Petersgate Bridge. The vacancy rate is near to 50
percent, but this fluctuates. It is too high to be viable and does not compare
well with the state of occupancy in the adjacent Merseyway shopping centre
which seems to enjoy the advantage of comprehensive traffic free
pedestrianisation. This happy state is achieved only by having deliveries and
other essential road traffic access from the historic Underbanks area,
particularly the hard hit is the White Lion hotel and its car park. The role of
the Underbanks as central to the provisioning of the safe Merseyway experience
has demoted the area and consigned it to secondary status, with inevitable
political repercussions amongst Little Underbank stakeholders. A key initiative
for the regeneration of the historic town centre which ran between 1997 and
2005 was the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) project undertaken by the local
authority. The plan overlooks the significant area of the historic town that
has been sold to private parking agencies.
Unsold is the fourth paradigm offered by the
Monditalia workshop. There is a body of extensive media response to this
problem and the “Portas Project” has featured on national television. Stockport
is frequently presented as a cause celebre for urban renewal. MBC reports and
new initiative websites work hard to counteract the failure to sell or let town.
The CPO status of a few units have received the bizarre “Potemkin” shop window
vinyls to mitigate the sense of abandonment to a visitor moving too quickly to
notice the deception.
Thursday 11 October 2018
STOCKPORT: bricolage town
MA Thesis (extract) Architecture and Urbanism. Manchester School of Architecture
David Chandler 2015 Royal Oak Yard
In the decade before the 19th century the cliffs were physically cut back to form a vertical face to create space for workshops and a silk mill. The Yard takes its name from the Royal Oak public house that was situated opposite the entrance to Little Underbank. In terms of land use the yard was tied for two centuries to the fortunes Adlington Square. The enclosure of the yard has visibly truncated a route that would have logically joined Great Underbank. The need to restore this inarticulate space could probably be one of the most important and understated urbanist interventions inside the heritage/listed town. The Yard is does not immediately sit on one of the so called "fault lines" between the modernist masterplan of the 1960s and pre-war Stockport but a closer consideration reveals the rebuilt "insula" of the red brick buildings that fit between Pickford’s brow and Great Underbank are part of a late 20th century consolidation of the plan of the boundary of the yard.
The red sandstone cliffs have been progressively cut back to create a proto-street that was not naturally formed in the space. The demolished Astoria Cinema was a major landmark that put this Yard into shadow and kept its identity as an unsavoury urban gully. The demolition of the cinema opened the possibility of an urban steps link from this deep section of Stockport to the summit of Pickford’s Brow. Contract car parking terraces also reveal an attempt to organise the High Bankside brow from 1968 and these simple bricoleur structures built from breeze blocks and cement pads settled the high gradient side of the yard with a sense of 20th century motor town purpose; highway, car parks, roadside splay and fences. Even part of the primitive cobbled road of the original Victorian High bankside was sealed into a walled precinct in sight of the yard and is documented in the site reports of 1968. The only factor that prevented the yard becoming a road was that it was locked in by landlords and listed properties. So it too became a default car park, without any sense of the devalued potential of such an identity. The mid-20th century industrial archaeological fragments of factory spaces also condition the shape of the yard.
Royal Oak Yard; urban walk Royal Oak Yard introduces itself as a gap in the south side of Little Underbank with minimal sense of its importance. In the afternoon a shaft of sunlight breaks the line of the medieval main road once a main route into Manchester. A shop on the corner as we enter is vacant and the old iron place name sits above its hoarding. There are three routes offered to the traveller as we enter the yard. To the left a promising little cobbled piazza with a raw sandstone cliff at its far end. There are some padlocked exits into Grosvenor House facing south on the High Street above. This space has been overlooked as a pocket of real heritage potential. To the right an independent stair (Wellington Steps) descends at an angle that is not a conventional doorstep, rather this flight rises all the way up the concealed red sandstone cliff to the High Street through a very well-trimmed plain brick arch, clearly marked on a plan of 1851.
This tall arch forms a typology repeated elsewhere in Little Underbank and should be seen as a remnant of the distinctive, even idiosyncratic spaces that are found in the many drawings of steps by L.S. Lowry. The route is gated and boarded off from public access. It sends a message that will be consistent for the full extent of this Victorian yard; a form of urban despair permeates all sections of the place. It assumes a defensive attitude to such town centre spaces. There is a culture of consensus amongst all the landlords in this yard that seems to assume widespread public criminal activity. This is the public façade of Royal Oak Yard; surveillance, DIY railings, gates and razor wire. The third route is that of the yard itself threading beneath the superb 1868 brick barrel vault of St Petersgate Bridge above. The six stories of Revelations House marked on 18th century maps of the area rises from a narrow granite cobbled passageway like a Victorian skyscraper, supported by its sandstone cliff. The buildings rise in area that denotes density and is the original eighteenth century business district of central Stockport. A precarious fabric that has seen some sympathetic restoration. The St. Petersgate Bridge parapet rises some 14 metres to the upper street. To the right a series of walls block a narrow access route from Little Underbank running parallel to the right of us.
Under the brick barrel vault the sides of the passage work hard as warehouse and storage. This is still a commercially functioning mews. Nevertheless the cobbled road is just over 2 metres wide and continues to welcome private car traffic as we are about to experience.
The Yard to the West of St Petersgate Bridge Once through the arch there is an area of distinct dilapidation and neglect that promises lack of safety and unhappiness to the visitor. The beautiful sandstone cliff face is a public refuse dump with large household items sitting among refuse attracting vermin. The upper part of the cliff has been protected by temporary canopies that protect the parked cars from falling debris and litter thrown from the street above. The steep bank side gradient is wrapped in a blue webbing fabric intended to impede vegetation, which it does not do very well. The space is further defaced by car parking structures that seem to suggest that the area has been subjected to competing land grabs. The space seems to have become private property, covered in asphalt and sliced into parking spaces being situated only 30 metres distance from an 880 space public car park at Merseyway. The key to this area is to understand private land sales and is central to the current morphology of the yard. It is emphatically locked in as a cul de sac but has the seductive scale of a Venetian campiello, but struggles to celebrate any visitor interest in its legacy of changing use. The space represents an extensive document of urban historical archaeology. It is a Stockport narrative considerably at risk in its current condition. As we get accustomed to the space, evidence of former industrial use becomes occasionally coherent and readable as its cobbled road comes to an abrupt end. This lost piazza, whatever the future offers, is a genuine urban collage, restored, patched and piecemeal rebuilt as only bricolage can achieve over time. The space is unseen by the public and conceals complex small scale fire escapes, air conditioning, pipe work and secured gates. Ironically the attentions of the contract car park landlords prevent the area from suffering greater destruction as CCTV is installed to watch the parked cars. We leave the
Where The Light Gets In, Stockport: ‘The most exciting food I’ve eaten in years’
Not so much new Nordic as new northern, this is a procession of brilliance
Let’s get it out of the way from the get-go: Where The Light Gets In serves the most exciting food I’ve had in years. And it’s not in London, Copenhagen or Portland, Oregon; it’s in Stockport. Never have I trudged so dutifully to a destination only to exit at the other end quite so starey-eyed and evangelical.
Stockport: seriously? Before high horses are clambered upon, chef/owner Sam Buckley is equally wry about the location. It is, simply, not where you’d expect this kind of firecracker creativity in £65-a-head, tasting-menu-only format. Stockport boasts restaurants called Elvis’ Kitchen (“three-course luxury meal cooked by the ELVIS chef”, which, if I’m honest, appeals hugely). And the town centre is not, well, edifying. But here, around the old market building, there’s a pleasing, brick-lined moodiness, the air scented with malt from the Robinsons brewery. Finding this former coffee warehouse proves tricky: we teeter down vertiginous Rostron Brow (“famous for its 19th-century alehouses of ill repute”) more than once before we find the entrance. So far, so Lowry. Inside, it’s a different matter, not so much open kitchen as a vast, lustworthy actual kitchen with Ercol tables dotted around. It’s the ultimate, wood-burning-stove-heated loft pad with rooftop views.
There’s no menu.
Tartare of Macclesfield trout. Photograph: Rebecca Lupton for the Guardian Salt-baked beets, toasted hazelnuts, jaggy little jack-by-the-hedge leaves – aka garlic mustard plant, with all the pungency that conveys – a swirl of jammy beetroot puree and a smooth blurt of airy hazelnut almost-butter. Vegetarian wizardry, this swayed even the table’s beetroot-loathers.
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A meaty broth, as limpid as tea, with a powder puff of wild garlic blossom to dunk in it like a teabag. It scents the broth, the broth “cooks” the blossom: brilliant in its simplicity and insanely delicious.
A cube of pink middlewhite pork, aged for five weeks in caramelised cultured butter, its fat crisped in a pan (which is where the building’s lack of extraction becomes painfully evident). Nothing else on the plate bar a few fried, fragrant leaves, herbs and flowers (they say ramsons this time, possibly sleight of hand to deflect us from other wild garlic appearances). “This,” says charming GM Emma, “is the dish that made me hand in my CV.” I’m tempted to follow suit.
I haven’t room to wax lyrical about the wine flights, notable for the consistent delivery of pure pleasure (not a given with natural and biodynamic). There’s nothing that doesn’t dazzle, from the cocktail that comes with candy-striped bags of crisps and tins of create-your-own-flavour powder made from produce that would otherwise be wasted (dried scallop plus kombu: blimey), to the tiny pastilles with the coffee that flood the mouth with sweet, boozy Buckfast, that “tonic wine” beloved of the Glaswegian jakey. Oh, OK, there is one fish dish I don’t love, woolly and underseasoned, but otherwise this is a procession of brilliance.
The Council are aware of the problems with unauthorised vehicles using Lower Hillgate and Little Underbank and will shortly be installing new rising bollards to control traffic flow. There will follow a programme of repairs to the paving and stone setts. This work is being funded from the Town Centre Access Plan, more details of this can be found athttps://goo.gl/O0ssZ2
Overview
Scheme overview: The Town Centre Access Plan is an ambitious vision and development plan seeking to improve access to and around Stockport town centre by all methods of travel and ease congestion for buses and general road traffic. Benefits: Investment in transport is needed to tackle congestion within Stockport and remove barriers to movement between town centre areas, particularly caused by the A6 and M60. This investment will address these issues and transform access to, from and around Stockport town centre for all. Timescales: The scheme proposals will be delivered in two distinct phases, see Key Plan (PDF 7Mb). Construction of the Phase 1 schemes is expected to take place from 2015 to late 2017. The Phase 2 schemes were subject to a further phase of consultation in Autumn 2015. The feedback of the consultation will be considered in the development of the scheme designs. Subject to approval, construction of the Phase 2 scheme is expected to take place from 2017 to 2020. Key partners: Stockport Council and Transport for Greater Manchester. Funding: Funded by the Government’s Local Growth Fund, the Stockport Town Centre Access Plan is part of the Investing in Growth component of Stockport Council’s Investing in Stockport Programme. Investing in Growth will see a range of ambitious projects launched across Stockport, aimed at ensuring the town continues to grow and meet the needs of modern day life.
No mention is made of any public response to the development plans because the zone was comprehensively depopulated in the 1950s and 1960s, so lacks an effective "voice". Chestergate is not linked in the report but is the key to success of the Underbanks because it is the terminus piazza for Little and Great Underbanks. A new architect designed structure at the junction of Mealhouse Brow and Little Underbank (on the site below) will serve coffee and compete with the coffee bars that have already built a client base. So may ruin them. Currently this proposed redevelopment site retains a flourishing music shop in a shabby 2 storey terrace that actually functions well (but is just not pretty)......
The proposed area for demolition eclipses a beautiful view of the 19th century Bank Building above it. I refer to this as one of the acropolis brows of the Underbanks. A "temple" on a hill. The proposed building will mostly screen off the promise of this part of the upper town.
Without the planning for a total traffic ban, the Underbanks, Chestergate, Royal Oak Yard, High Bankside and the future of the brows there can be no economic improvement. The advising clients swerved the creation of a York type "SHAMBLES" pedestrian place although it is clear they are heritage professionals and their instinct was heritage conservation led. They were clearly warned off from shutting any streets. But this is precisely how the economic life would have taken off without spending any money on the area. Commercial clients would have flocked in if tables had been sited in the middle of the road.
Merseyway Shopping Centre demonstrates its (limited) economic success because it is traffic free. A textbook example to follow, surely?
The arch opposite the steps to St Petersgate on the Heritage Magazine front cover
HERITAGE MAGAZINE Vol. 8 No 12 Spring 2017An important contributor to wider community awareness of the potential of this beautiful little road. Here the photo shows the footings and sandstone quoins, corner blocks, of St Petersgate Bridge 1868. The Egerton Arms from the 17th century at the top of the steps and the Queen's Head at right. The photo is particularly important because the place is lateral and not just a road for linear traffic.The Underbanks were Stockport's original 18th century business district serving the county merchants in Stockport Market Place. Many pubs were found here, used as temporary offices, dining and meeting spaces. The view is from the steps leading directly up to the Market Place. This has a tall two storey opening which is echoed in the beautiful arch leading into Royal Oak Yard seen below. The lintel at the lower right marks the closure of the old narrow passageway into Little Underbank. This could be reopened as it is narrow as certain Venetian "calli" or alleyways. This is the centre of Stockport but is at risk in ways that cannot be understated. Much of it is nearing an unsafe condition as water has penetrated the structures which have been left untenanted by landlords.
