Town still has historic gems
YOU may have seen scaffolding swathing black and white Underbank Hall and wondered like me what was going on? I’m told it is just routine maintenance and there is no major problem, which considering the hall was built in Elizabethan times over 400 years ago is pretty good going!
It has been a bank since 1824 and is currently owned by NatWest but was built as the townhouse of the land owning Arderne family of Bredbury, replacing an earlier 15th century building on the site which once had pleasure gardens down to the river.
Unlike Staircase House, which has lost its timber-framed frontage and kept its rear, Underbank Hall has done the reverse, keeping the front rooms and impressive gables intact and losing its rear to a banking hall added in 1919.
Long the most impressive example of ornate timber work in Stockport it stands at the centre of the town’s medieval street pattern on Great Underbank – so called in reference to the now hidden sandstone cliffs which rise behind the shops opposite, gouged out of the rock by melt waters of successive glaciers over a few hundred thousand years.
On the 1680 map of ‘Stockport Town’ Underbank Hall is one of four prominent gabled buildings shown. These included the Old Rectory at the top of Churchgate, home of the vicar and then still a timber framed building before its Georgian rebuilding in red brick, the Royal Oak off Little Underbank, a large gabled inn, and Petty Carr House on Chestergate where Primark now stands.
Staircase House, The Three Shires, and the White Lion are not shown, although all three must have existed at the time, and the White Lion’s licence dated back to the 14th century.
The Royal Oak has gone, although its yard still exists behind Little Underbank shops where some of the sandstone cliffs and caves can be viewed and the White Lion, long empty, has been acquired by Stockport Council who are planning to redevelop it as apartments with ground floor retail.
The Old Angel Inn on the Market which now houses Seven Miles Out has some timber framing under the plaster and a deep burgage plot stretching back where sing along musical evenings take place. There are many other ‘hidden gems’. »»To discover where these are read Stockport Heritage Magazine, from newsagents and Co-ops, or visit St Mary’s Heritage Centre, Market Place and look through extensive records and back copies or online stockportheritagemagazine.co.uk.