Stockport Venues 9 to 10

In 1894, 4 acres of land was donated by the local Lord to Heaton Norris District Council. This area then evolved into Stockport Heaton Moor Park, which was officially opened on 17 July 1897, to coincide with Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee celebrations. The ceremony incorporated the dramatic opening of the gates with a golden key, all sounds a little Willie Wonka to me!

Over the corresponding years, facilities such as bowling greens and tennis courts were added, and it was utilised for army drills and vegetable growing during the two World Wars and also won the Britain in Bloom award in 1981. The park went through a period of decline before being revitalised by the Friends of Heaton Moor Park in 1997 where they were assisted by some lottery funding. In June 2020 a blue plaque was installed commemorating the original forerunners who initially created the park.      

Heaton Moor Park. Image Credit heatonmmorpark.co.uk

It is a bonny enclosed green space with an obligatory café at one corner and there is a natural bowl area in the middle of the park. On a recent visit we were entranced watching a dog who had the outstanding ability to dribble with a ball the size of a beach ball, a hugely impressive feat!

The bowl is also a natural amphitheatre for the location of the music stage for the annual Heaton Moor festival. We attended there on an extremely sunny July day for the 2022 shindig, the roster was compered by local Irish singer Paul Hunt who plays regular gigs at the nearby Cassidy’s bar. He introduced a young artist called Alfie who had a fine voice, and he was followed by a Stockport lass Karen James who is a Northern Soul and Motown singer.   

When the railway first arrived in Stockport in 1840, the population expanded and as a result a second place of worship was required, thus Stockport St Pauls Church was built in 1876. The octagonal tower was added in 1900, and the Grade II listed building has a capacity seating of 400. They have developed their own embroidered banners which now hang on the stone pillars, and they have developed a quiet children’s play area with soft furnishings and toys, sounds like a fun area to me!  

Stockport St Paul’s Church. Image Credit stpaulsheatonmoor.org.uk

In the church grounds, a summer event took place in July 2023 where there were interactive stalls including the ‘Electric Wire’ game monitored by the ‘Men in Sheds’ who are a local voluntary group. They commendably aim to tackle social isolation and cover learning skills in fields such as computers, woodworking, photography and general restoration.

As a bonus gig for myself, there was music provided by the Stockport Silver Band, who were formed in 1870 and currently practice in Reddish Conservative Club. They performed some quirky cover versions, but for the life of me I can’t now remember what they played!

As you progress into Stockport town centre across the M60 (not on foot!) you cannot miss the famous Pyramid or alternatively some have cited it as a Ziggurat! The building was intended initially as a ‘signature site’ within an ongoing scheme to build multiple pyramid-shaped buildings on the banks of the River Mersey.

The actual planned number is disputed but is now somewhat moot as the original developers went into administration during its construction and they had to be bailed out by their financiers The Co-operative Banking Group. Despite this it is sometimes called the ‘Stopfordian Valley of the Kings’!     

The six storey 8000 square meter site was completed in 1992 and was empty for the first three years of its life before the aforementioned Co-op took residence there until they relocated to Manchester City Centre in 2018.

Stockport Pyramid. Image Credit bbc.co.uk

The building has laid empty since then but there are now plans afoot for the award-winning restaurant chain Royal Nawaab to transform the pyramid into a huge restaurant and banqueting centre, and I recently saw their name on the structure when I was on a flight back to Manchester Airport. It will comprise a 400-cover restaurant on the ground floor, an 800 capacity first floor banqueting centre for weddings and a further 400 capacity banqueting space on the second floor. There will also be availability for 500 car parking spaces. I am very sure I will make a visit at some point.

Talk of this reminds me of the 1983 Frankie Vaughan track ‘Stockport’ with its refrain ‘Stockport, Stockport, it’s the place for me’ that was recorded at the town’s Plaza Theatre and receives periodic airplay on Radcliffe and Maconie’s 6 Music show.  

More specifically though, there is a 2023 tune called ‘Stockport Pyramid’ by Julian Homer and an even more recent Anthony Szmierek song ‘The Great Pyramid of Stockport’ containing the lines ‘Imagine what the Pharaohs could have done, with a four day working week, and a three-fingered Twix’. It is the third track on his most recent album ‘Service Station at the End of the Universe’ which has a terrific picture of the brutalist building of Forton Services on the cover!   

Anthony Szmierek album cover. Image Credit www.normanrecords.com

Manchester Venues 163 to 165 – Jazz Festival

The HOME complex in the centre of Manchester is in effect three venues rolled into one and has five cinemas, two theatres and a decent 500 square metres of gallery space contained within. They encompass all stages of the delivery as they cover the commissioning, production and presentation of those aforementioned artistic pursuits. The modern building is situated on Tony Wilson Square and is a stone’s throw from the old Hacienda nightclub site and was opened in May 2015 at a cost of £25 million.

Home Complex. Image Credit hotels.com

It was a joint venture between the Cornerhouse cinema and arts centre next to Oxford Road station and the Library Theatre company and both organisations then relocated into their new home. The Cornerhouse was famous for hosting the UK premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and was the first public gallery to display artefacts from Damian Hirst. I have sampled a couple of cold ones in the bar that used to be located there prior to its closure.

HOME has inherited several patrons including film maker Danny Boyle, actresses Meera Syal and Suranne Jones and musician Phil Collins. It is a busy old spot as they host 10,000 events annually and it has been included in the TimeOut’s list of the Top 10 cinemas in the UK. They are commendably forward thinking environmentally as they stand as carbon literacy champions.

I have never yet actually visited one of their arts events, but I have devoured a pizza in their café if that counts! I have also basked there in the summer on their outdoor tables and recall watching Coco Gauff’s first dramatic appearance at Wimbledon on one of the big screens.

In this quarter which is classed as being located in the Oxford Road Corridor you would also find the large Gas Works Brewbar, built on the old Gaythorn Gas Works which contains an in-house brewery, shuffle boards and a large seating area outside. Simon Wood’s restaurant used to be located here prior to its recent closure but there still remains Hakkapo and the Indian Tiffin Room.

Manchester Jazz Festival. Image Credit manchesterjazz.com

The longest running festival in the city is the Manchester Jazz Festival which was first staged in the summer of 1996. The first event took place in St Ann’s Square and was jointly organised by Manchester City Council, Musicians Union, Northwest Arts Board and a local brewery. It was a very small scale venture with only nine bands and a DJ on the roster. The first year coincided with the IRA bombing, but commendably the inaugural event was rearranged and staged a few months later.    

The annual event is run as a not for profit charity venture and has grown considerably over those intervening years, with an international exchange organised to mark the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. In 2005 further exposure was gained when BBC Radio 3 chose to undertake a live broadcast on the launch night. The most recent edition featured over 60 free and ticketed events incorporating multiple venues and they will celebrate their 30 year anniversary in 2025.

Now I have to be upfront and confess that Jazz is my least favourite musical genre, however when I noted I was in that very area on the sunny opening night and there were free gigs on prior to the event I was attending, the ‘gig addict’ in me knew I had to take advantage of these free hits!

Thus, on the night on the seventeenth day of May 2024, CCTV would have picked up Marcus, Uncle George and I mulching down to the Manchester First Street Main Stage. In a very busy area, a band called Mangorata were performing. The 6-piece jazz fusion band derive from Leeds, where they met initially as students at Leeds Conservatoire and a year earlier, they had released their self-titled album.   

Heading further away from Whitworth Street West you then arrived at Manchester First Street (Ask Garden Stage) located on James Grigor Square. Mr Grigor was a renowned 19th century botanist from East Anglia.

James Grigor Square. Image Credit alamy.com

The band on stage were the Gaz Hughes Trio, with Gaz being the original drummer for the Matthew Halsall Band and one of their early albums was nominated for a MOBO and they won Best Jazz Album at the Giles Peterson worldwide awards. On a personal level he won the people’s vote for Jazz Drummer of the Year in 2019.  The trio is completed with Andrzej Baranek on piano and Gavin Barras on double bass.  

The final venue of the day was inside the bar area at Manchester Home Stage where we witnessed Secret Night Gang, a local jazz, funk and soul act who had recently released their second album ‘Belongs on a Place Called Earth’.