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
