A new set of BROW STEPS for STOCKPORT?

 Royal Oak Brow.

Steps from ROYAL OAK YARD up to HIGH BANKSIDE (and possible urban park)

 White Lion Passage

New SOTTOPORTEGO; a single storey pedestrian right of way cut through St Ann’s Hospice Charity Shop. Royal Oak  Yard as a secret town piazza



Little Underbank has been adversely by the evolution of the motorised road transport approach to town planning. It gets mistaken for a road/route in local maps. It is a pedestrian zone and a cul de sac that has been allowed to revert to a rat run and short cut.

Cross routes encourage exploration, photography, tourism and access for pedestrians. The private contractors have closed the passage that once led into Great Underbank from the end of Royal Oak Yard. This is an opportunity to create a public space inside Royal Oak Yard and some brow steps to High Bankside

The proposed passageway inserted through St Ann's Hospice Shop as a route through to the ancient town rocks and the new brow steps to High Bankside (which could become a new town park).

 

The acropolis brows of the old town

Market Place Bank buildings suspended above the deep gorge of Royal Oak Yard.  A grand Italianate palazzo. The rear of the Queen's Head dominates the centre of the view. This faces on to Little Underbank

ROSTRON BROW from DUMVILLES BROW. The views across Little Underbank make quite exceptional townscape.  Here the design of the upper storey is easy to read as an independent structure. The use of the Little Underbank as a linear traffic route prevents the lateral reading of the place which can only be done on foot.

LITTLE UNDERBANK Acrylic on 3 canvases 315 x 125 cm. 2015 with further editing Feb 2017. Painted over a period of 8 months from the ever changing view from Studio 7 MMU Market Place Studios. The Exchange buildings have not been built and some trees not yet felled. Signed DC in the place of existing town wall graffiti.




LITTLE UNDERBANK Acrylic on canvas. Chestergate with rear entrance to Primark. The A6 arch is visible as is the bridge across to Merseyway Car Park from Tatton Street

Palette used as if it was a post-it note with testers; cadmium yellow mid, burnt orange (quinacridone) mars black and cadmium orange. Date 2015

 (detail) steps down to Little Underbank near the Egerton Arms. The brick wall is set on the sandstone face of Royal Oak Yard. This corner is still used as a location to dump waste into R.O.Y.



Little Underbank (detail) with its rendered first floor windows and grey slate tiled roofs. A plane heads for Manchester Airport reflected in a puddle on a flat roof

(detail) St Petersgate Bridge



(detail) view across to Rock Row and Stockport Plaza and part of Edgely through the railway viaduct At lower left part of the old road at the top of High Bankside with its steps.

Flowers In Little underbank

There is a shop window insert photograph on an unlet unit on the South side of the street opposite Rostron Brow. This is the right direction and a very good proposition for the area once it is securely pedestrian priority.
 

The beautiful building on the corner of Royal Oak Yard and Little Underbank seems to be purpose built as florist once the local residential demand is sufficient. With hanging baskets a street of flowers with a reputation across the North West?

 

Every May at NOTO in Sicily there is the festival of the INFIORATA - a highly sponsored street carpet of flower petals. Not dissimilar to the tradition of Well Dressing. Immensely profitable for tourism and media exposure. In a town full of artists this type of festival would be the focus for revival and intense competition. Brands advertise here.

Both Stockport and Rome have sandsone rock brows

A beautiful red sandstone rock brow exposed in Royal Oak Yard parallel with Little Underbank, Stockport. Traces of chimney flues and floor joist post holes are all evidence of changing use

The RUPE TARPEIA  (Tarpeian Rock) of the Capitoline Hill in Rome. near the Vicus Iugarius and ancient road that led from the Forum to the Forum Boarium and the Portus Tiberinus a long lost harbour on the River Tiber. The legends associated with this exposed sandstone spur make the location totemic and a place of pilgrimage. A she-wolf was caged here at times to enact the foundation myth of Rome and to attract tourists. A permanent tourist placard explains this. Rocks can be interesting even when they look like nothing at all

A new pride in Little Underbank; signage

Double your pleasure: Merseyway has been good to you but maybe the best experience is yet to be found in the Underbanks pedestrian zone? Children will be able to explore safely and residents will be proud of their homes at the refurbished White Lion Hotel

Dates on buildings found in Little Underbank

1769

When new building work is done to make Little Underbank great then dates always inspire confidence and are a signifier of urban pride. The name of the architect is also of interest.