Stockport was originally the Saxon village. Its title can be from either ii Saxon words: STOC - the stockaded place or even castle, & PORT - a wood. Literally, the castle inside the wood. There exists sufficient grounds to believe that the fortified fastness existed within the neck of the woods in ancient British days, & that Agricola in AD79 recognised its strategical benefits & fortified Stockport to guard a passage of the Mersey. (Source: [http://www.stockport.gov.uk/content/communitypeopleliving/historyandheritage/localhistory/?a=5441 Local history page on Stockport Council's web site], March Three 2005)

An guide theory put send on for the derivation of the town's title is that these are a corruption of Stopford, when a ford through a flow of any stream at the bottom of what is today the town centre street known as Market Street Brow. Pupils at a town's chief personal gymnasium, Stockport Grammar School (founded 1487) call for themselves Stopfordians.

When a Norman Conquest, it became ruled by a hereditary Baron of Stockport.

Stockport has never been the sea or even flow of any stream port. A flow of any stream Mersey, which starts in Stockport at a confluence of the Streams, lakes, & wells throughout Goyt & Tame, is non navigable to anything great deal above canoe size, and in the centre of Stockport has been culverted and a independent looking street Mersey Way built above it. A town was attached to the national canal network per Five miles of the Stockport branch of the Ashton Canal opened inside 1797 which continued in utilise until a 1930's. Lot of these are today filled inside, however there exists an active campaign to re-open it.

A 1835 Municipal Corporation Act made Stockport a town divided into septenary wards. Inside 1888, its status was raised to County Borough.

Due to its close proximity to Manchester, Stockport speedily expanded in a period of the Industrial Revolution, helped particularly by the incubation of the gauze manufacturing industries. Nonetheless, economic incubation took its toll, & 19th Century philosopher Friedrich Engels wrote in 1844 that Stockport was "renowned as one of the duskiest, smokiest holes in the whole of the industrial area".

Inside 1967 the Stockport Air Disaster occurred, when the British Midland Airways Argonaut crashed in the town, ensuant in the deaths of 72 rider.

Features

Stockport is page to League Both eleven Stockport County Football Club, when well as Bramall Hall and the National Trust property of Lyme Park. A UK's go working hat mill was located within Stockport; in its place is nowadays HatWorks hat museum. These are house to American Europe's large brick structure, a 111 feet (33.85 metres) high, railway viaduct on the line to Manchester which is the major exploit of Victorian engineering. Eleven million bricks were utilized inside its construction. It opened around 1842. Bredbury, Stockport is the home for the National Library for the Blind.

Its chief commercial territory is in the town centre, using usual emporium to become noticed in the Merseyway Camping Centre. the Grand Central Square complex boasts an Olympic sized floating pool, 3 nightspot, a 10 screen cinema, bowling alley, health complex, and many eating house. Stockport is placed 7 miles out of Manchester City Centre, making it convenient for commuters & shoppers.

Reputation

Although a suburban area of Bramhall and Cheadle rank amongst the loaded areas of the United Kingdom & 45% of the borough is green space, territory like Adswood and Brinnington suffer from far flung poorness & post-industrial decompose. Opinions on the general quality of life inside Stockport greatly differ. Around its favour, a select few highlight its close proximity to Manchester, & its abundance of agreeableness; however its perceived grittiness and boorish youth culture earned it Twelfth place in the internet-depending 2004 answer " Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places To Live In The UK" (however, given that its fellows on this listing were wharehouses like Oxford, Winchester, Liverpool (European Capital of Culture), and diminutive London commuter belt villages, the relevancy of the names is disputed).

Politics

There are trine parliamentary constituencies in the Stockport locality: Stockport, Cheadle & Hazel Grove. Stockport has been represented by Labour MP Ann Coffey since 1992. A Liberal Democrat Patsy Calton was elected around Cheadle in 2001 over long-standing Conservative member Stephen Day by the smallest margin of any constituency in the united states. She died inside 2005, a year when increasing her majority to on top 4,000 in the 2005 election; in the following by-election the Liberal Democrat Mark Hunter defeated Stephen Day. Andrew Stunell has been the Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove since 1997. A constituency of Denton & Red bridges Stockport & Tameside; the todays member is Andrew Gwynne.

Notable People from Stockport
10cc (band) John Amaechi (NBA basketballer) Driver John Axon GC (locomotive driver and posthumous recipient of George Cross) Sir George Back (Admiral) Joan Bakewell (TV presenter) Peter Boardman (mountaineer) John Bradshaw (judge in test of Charles I) Judith Chalmers (TV presenter) Richard Cobden (politician) Tess Daly (TV presenter) Katie Derham (newsreader) David Dickinson (TV presenter) Judy Finnigan (TV presenter) Tibor Fischer (novelist) Sidney Gilliat (film director Sarah Harding (member of pop class action Girls Aloud) Ricky Hatton (boxer) James Hickman (Olympic swimmer) Bill Hopkins (composer) Christopher Isherwood (novelist) John Mahoney (actor, Frasier) Will Mellor (actor) Fred Perry (tennis streaming video player) Gabrielle Ray (actress) Sir Edmund Shaa (Lord Mayor of London) Simon Stephens (playwright) Bill Tarmey (actor) Steve Thomas (ice hockey player (Canada)) Jon Thorne (double bass player) Samuel Oldknow (cotton manufacturing pioneer) Sir Joseph Whitworth (engineer & entrepreneur) Frederic Calland Williams (pioneer of the computer) Mike Yarwood (comedian)