retiredmartin

March (finally) 2025. Stockport.

Up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday morning in Stockport for some more sauntering and less sauce, perhaps an alliteration too far.

Stocky is an underrated gem of a town, something I saw on a first visit to Edgeley Park 30 years ago, even before I’d been in a Robbies pub.

The ups and downs, the cobbles, the steep steps down to the Air Raid Shelters where we’d meet Blackpudlians (?) Karen and Jane at 10.

Mrs RM never quite saw the appeal of Stockport as a retirement home, lacking attractive town centre flats and with a frankly grim shopping centre, but with a bit of blue sky and a good filter you can see the potential of buildings like the old Co-op.

Just don’t look too closely beyond the modern art into Merseyway.

Thinking of foxes, being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed only lasts so long on Travelodge instant coffee, so let’s try the new Coffee Block in another early 20th century setting, on St Petersgate.

A decade ago I’d have always picked Starbucks and Costa over the independents in large town, because the coffee was always lukewarm in the indies. But these days the reverse is true, AND places like Coffee Block are cleaner and cosier than the chains.

Stockport’s air raid shelters, carved into the sandstone cliffs to protect Stopfordians from air attacks on micropubs (marked in red below) make a fascinating half hour self-guided tour,

particularly for folk who miss simpler toilet facilities. These 1940s ones were twinned with the ones at the Vetch and Bootham Crescent.

Best of all, the two lovely Council staff at the exit are a mine (no pun intended) of information on boundary lines. And everyone knows how much boundary lines matter to Stockport.