Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
We were away for 2 days staying at a hotel in Manchester which enabled us to visit the Stockport Hat Works museum bright and early. At first glance Stockport with its famous viaduct left a lot to be desired. This area next to the hat works will be the new bus station and flats. Work on the viaduct began in March 1839 and despite its scale and flooding from the Mersey, the viaduct was completed in December 1840 and services commenced the same month. Roughly 11 million bricks were used in its construction; at the time of its completion, it was the world's largest viaduct and a major and almost unbelievable feat of engineering in the time given. We were shown round the hat works by a guide who had worked in the industry along with lots of her relatives. Incredible to think that there were once 80 factories in Stockport making hats. Now, not a single one. In the first years of Stockport's rise to becoming the hat making centre, beaver skins were used which processing turned to felt. Stockport’s hatting industry was unique because it specialised in making hats out of fur felt, not wool felt. Other local towns, such as Denton and Hyde, also made a lot of hats, but they made more wool felt hats. In hatting’s heyday (about 1875 to 1935) there were about thirty major hat factories in Stockport. A large factory could produce about 5000 felt hats a week. And because Stockport was the fur felt hatting town, most of those hats were made from rabbit skins once beavers were hunted to virtual extinction. Every process was clearly explained to us via the original machinery. Like many Victorian industries hat making was full of dangers, a lot of them hidden and not understood. Something particularly horrific was the prearation of the fur. The pelts were treated with a mixture of acid and mercury in vats like this from which they were extracted by hand. The mercuric nitrate applied to the pelts by the furriers was highly toxic. When inhaled, it found its way into the bloodstream. Sufferers began with shaking, slurring and forgetfulness, which led eventually to confusion, mental distress and death. Thus the expression 'as mad as a hatter' was the truth behind the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. The basic shape from felt was a large cone which emerged from a machine like this. It then had to be shrunk down to size. All kinds of hats were made, including expensive ones for the exclusive London firm of Christy's. All in all one of the most fascinating museums you could possibly visit. We then had chance to look round Stockport with its grand and sadly demised department store...... elegant market..... and Staircase House a beautifully restored 15th century townhouse situated in Stockport's historic Market Place. Robinsons Brewery which makes excellent beers and owns lots of good pubs is still bang in the town centre. Stockport Infirmary now Millenium House was designed as a hospital by Richard Lane in Greek Revival style, and was extended in 1870–72, and again in 1898–1900, then converted into offices in the 1990s. The town hall is just as magnificent as Manchester's. It was designed by Alfred Brumwell Thomas in what has been called free Baroque style (seems about right!). It has a front of Portland stone, and is in brick with Portland stone dressings elsewhere. The afternoon for me was given over to watching ManCity have yet another exciting victory over Southampton (4 - 0). In the evening Manchester heading towards Mr Sam's Chop House through the Halloween decorations. Mr Sam's was very atmospheric. I don't usually like downstairs restaurants, but this was great. Service terrific and food exceptional. There's even a statue of L S Lowry at the bar (this was one of his favourite haunts). Next day a drive to Lyme Hall - in Cheshire but bordering Derbyshire. We used our National Art Pass to gain access to this NT property. The house is cram bang full of interest but most memorable are perhaps the magnificent fireplaces and ceilings everywhere. Here in the Drawing Room the heavy overmantel which bears Elizabeth I’s coat of arms reaches almost up to the ceiling. Here the inside courtyard. Just to mention the house belonged to the Leghs and artefacts from one Legh in particular - Thomas (1792-1857) - who undertook an extensive Grand Tour are to be found all around the house. Notable were these original Fourth Century Greek steli (tomb coverings). The stained glass in the Drawing Room includes medieval glass that was moved from the original Lyme Hall to Disley Church and returned to Lyme in 1835. Thomas Legh was one of the excavators of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae and his plaster copy of the original which is displayed in The British Museum adorns the first floor corridors. The Sarum Missal at Lyme is the only surviving, largely intact, book of its kind. Printed by William Caxton in Paris 1487, the book is also unique in having belonged to one family for over five centuries and represents with its many handwritten notes by generations of the family the changing religious views of the country during that period. The family was Catholic and Royalist. In the Saloon a magnificent limewood pendant carving, part of a group of carvings by school of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), about 1684, this carving representing 'music', with up-turned trumpets and flower wreaths at the top and winged-cherubs, further flower wreaths, a violin, recorders, manuscript sheets, a quill and a string of pearls below, all united by ribbons. Stylistically similar carvings survive at nearby Chatsworth, suggesting the maker may have been a local craftsman. When the carvings were moved from the New Parlour (now the Dining Room) to their current position in the Saloon by the architect Lewis Wyatt they were hung centrally as trophies rather than surrounding the panels, as would have originally been intended. Here Art and Science. Whether School of Grinling Gibbons or no, breathtaking. Unusually at Lyme you visit all three floors, and on the top floor the nursery..... and impressive Long Gallery...... We wandered around the grounds, lovely of course. ..........particularly the Italian Garden, and the Lake..... and, all of a piece with the house, the Conservatory. For lunch we drove to Disley, beautiful but houses beyond our price range. The Rams Head Inn in the centre of the village was built by the Legh family in c. 1640, though the current exterior was built around 1840. It was formerly a lodge belonging to the Lyme Park estate. It became a main coaching stop on the Manchester to London route. The sculpture is to Dame Sarah Joanne Storey, DBE (née Bailey; born 26 October 1977) and her husband Barney Storey (also Gold Medallist). She is a British Paralympic athlete in cycling and swimming, and a multiple gold medalist in the Paralympic Games and six times British (able-bodied) national track champion (2 × Pursuit, 1 × Points, 3 × Team Pursuit). Her total of 28 Paralympic medals including 17 gold medals makes her the most successful (by gold medals) and most decorated (by total medals) British Paralympian of all time as well as one of the most decorated Paralympic athletes of all time. She has the unique distinction of winning five gold medals in Paralympics before turning 19. Her major achievements include being a 29-time World champion (6 in swimming and 23 in cycling), a 21-time European champion (18 in swimming and 3 in cycling) and holding 75 world records. Amazing. The interior of the pub was somewhat Strawberry Gothic (just my style). The food was excellent. In the evening we were at Stockport's grand Plaza Theatre for the finale of its 90th Birthday Week of Celebrations. This was 'an affectionate and nostalgic romp through the first hundred or so years of cinema with Robert Powell and Liza Goddard. It was an old-fashioned evening all round even with flying organ for the Intro!
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