retiredmartin

February 2025. Stockport.

Let joy be unconfined. Blackpool Jane is blogging again. Candid and colourful and a bit of cask and chocolate DIPA thrown in.

We met up with Jane and fellow Tangerine Karen in Stockport to Do the Culture.

I do like pub crawls, curated or otherwise, but CAMRA folk get awfully upset if you suggest looking at anything other than the inside of a pub (“Humph. Wasted drinking time”).

And Jane’s blog is a series of Tourist Guides for Football Fans, with beer just one element in that wonderful mix of a British day out.

Stockport has half a dozen estimable attractions, if you include Red Rock Leisure, but Hatworks is most obviously Stopfordian,

a gem of social history telling with lots of opportunities for dressing up.

The guided tour takes you round the old factory. We were late for that, so had to sneak in the back when no-one was looking and wait to be told off.

Hatworks is beautifully constructed, though it’s not quite the collection of famous folks millinery you might expect.

My personal highlight is the Taylorsuit, exactly the sort of dressware to get you noticed in a meeting with the President of the United States.

See. More than just hats.

But if you want Hats, I recommend this;