Rail relics of lost heydays
BETWEEN 1840 and 1902 when the last line was laid, Stockport was criss-crossed by railways built by rival companies.
Since nationalisation, rationalisation and privatisation, some of these were lost – notably the Cheshire Lines Committee railway along the Mersey valley between Northenden Junction and Woodley, which ran through Cheadle, Tiviot Dale and Portwood stations before climbing up the hill to Woodley.
The station buildings and goods yard near Manchester Road, Cheadle, are now a public house and garden centre, with pictures of the heyday of steam on the wall.
A spur line ran beneath Stockport Viaduct into Wellington Road goods depot at the side of the A6 where the M60 slices through. Decathlon and the B&Q warehouse were pretty much built on former railway land. The isolated pillars still standing at Travis Brow once supported a railway bridge and the recent fuss about the Travis Brow link road is partly connected with this route.
After Wellington Road tunnel the CLC railway followed a sandstone cutting visible from the A6 bridge above the motorway, then passed through a tunnel beneath Dodge Hill emerging at Tiviot Dale station.
Once the most elegant in Stockport, Tiviot Dale had colonnades and Dutch gables and regularly saw excursions to Liverpool and the Isle of Man (via steamer) one way and London St. Pancras in the other! Now it is a tangled mass of saplings and bushes, but still retains the platform and trackbed, alas no buildings.
There was a further station at Portwood on Marsland Street which opened in 1863 and closed in 1875, after Tiviot Dale had opened, but the large cotton goods warehouse alongside remained as a reminder for many years.
One of the few bombs of the Stockport Blitz landed nearby. Mineral lines ran across Portwood from here delivering coal to the gasworks and power station. The old Corporation-owned gas showrooms were situated nearby on Great Portwood Street, where all the latest gas appliances (including lights) could be seen.
Stockport was a hive of heavy industry in those days and dirt was produced in great clouds right in the town centre, the river ran black with industrial pollution, and when the housewives in the long terraced rows on Newbridge Lane called ‘yoo hoo raining!’ they knew they had to get their washing in quick!
The latest winter issue of Stockport Heritage Magazine is being personally delivered to bookshops, local newsagents and Co-ops. You can also get binders, back copies and books from St Mary’s Heritage Centre, Market Place and stockportheritagemagazine.co.uk.