Revisiting the giant towers which once dominated skyline
KEEN readers have spotted that Stockport Heritage Magazine is a bit late on the shelves this issue. This is due to the Trust’s 30 year celebrations which slowed down production.
As I’m delivery boy as well as editor I’ve received mini lectures from newsagents whose customers have been requesting it ‘for weeks’. I’m told we could sell far more if we got out a bit quicker!
Another newsagent said we should come out every month, even though as a triannual it only sells 30 in his shop, which used to shift 80 when it was a quarterly decades ago in the days when most people read news and mags. A third said he thought we’d gone out of business years ago. Now that made me feel wanted.
In case you have difficulty spotting it on the shelves, where the issue will be available to buy for the next four months, here is a bit about our cover photo taken by Stanley Wild, a well known local taxi driver in the 1960s.
It is an excellent colour shot in winter sunshine from above Hanover Chapel churchyard, looking across Tiviot Dale Station towards the gasometer and cooling tower in Portwood and showing how many old cotton mills still remained.
That cooling tower was a dominating, almost nightmare structure, 80 metres high and built in 1943, it generated a perpetual light drizzle from its clouds of steam.
Both the nearby gasworks and Millgate power station across the river Goyt operated until 1976. The green giant gasometer was a rigid steel structure 255ft high. Built in 1930 it had a giant internal piston sealed with oil and stored town gas manufactured on site from coal burned in the massive retort houses where the Peel Centre now stands.
Stockport Council handed over control to North West Gas in 1949 and in 1988 the giant was dismantled. More spectacular was the demolition of the cooling tower which was blown up before awe-stricken crowds in 1981.
Interesting insights like these fill copies of the heritage mag and the back copies and an index of subjects are available from St Mary’s Heritage Centre and online. You can usually find current copies on the mag shelves at WH Smiths, Waterstones, or Co-ops as well as newsagents. Or order online at stockport heritagemagazine.co.uk.