Category: Stockport

Stockport Venue 2 – Rock Salt Deli and Cafe Bar

The Four Heatons are a suburb of Stockport and contain within Heaton Chapel, Heaton Norris, Heaton Mersey and Heaton Moor. The latter named also has an area attached called Moor Top which lies about half a mile away. Nearby lies Heaton Moor Golf Club which was opened to the public during Covid and was a regular walking route for us during that strange period.

Adjacent to the golf course is Mauldeth Hall, a Greek revival villa built in the 1830’s and is now the residence of the Consul General of the Peoples republic of China in Manchester. It lies just off Mauldeth Road which appears to the omnipresent road of the district. The whole Heatons area was originally badged under Salford before coming under the jurisdiction of Stockport in 1913.

Famous past or present residents include the Lord of the Rings actor Dominic Monaghan, tennis players Liam and Naomi Broady, crime author Val McDiermid and Mani from Stone Roses. I also recall cycling’s royal couple Laura and Jason Kenny using the area as a base when preparing for a recent Olympic Games.

Mani on stage. Image Credit NME.

Within the Moor Top catchment area on Heaton Moor Road there is a couple of Italian restaurants, an Indian, a Tapas bar, a Chinese takeaway and a decent chippy amongst others.  Not too far away from there is the West Heaton Bowling, Tennis and Squash Club which has comedy nights and has live music on the first Friday of every month in the 80-capacity function room, but I have never yet visited.

Back in Moor Top, there is the local branch of Martin’s bakery which serve reasonable pies. After an exceedingly fraught morning in and out of the local estate agents when confirming the purchase of our current property I recall rewarding myself with a large flapjack from the aforementioned bakery! Further down is the Nook Café Bar which has acoustic acts playing and I have visited the establishment several times but never in correlation to any live performers.

A further few steps away is the terrific art deco cinema the Savoy. It was opened in 1923 and is built in a striking Baroque style in red brick with white terracotta. In 2006 it announced its closure due to low attendances and was touted to be replaced by a Varsity bar, which would have been a complete travesty. Commendably the locals did not accept that scenario and a Save Our Savoy campaign was launched which then subsequently saved the day resulting in a refurbished building reopening in 2015.  

Savoy cinema. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

We have now signed up as members and it is superbly run cinema and they have movies plus pizza nights alongside baby friendly movies and dementia screenings, the whole venue can also be hired out for weddings. Directly across the road you will find the Moor Top pub which is a handy location for summer drinks as they have a large beer garden.  

Further down is a Co-op supermarket which we walked to regularly during Covid though people did struggle with the one-way system concept deployed in the shop! During that period, we also dangerously discovered their own brand of Honey I’m Comb ice cream!

Just nearby to there lies the Stockport Rock Salt Deli and Café Bar which opened in the summer of 2016. They serve hot food and cakes and have a decent size beer garden that is a veritable sun trap. They also occasionally have live music on and on 20/10/2018 we saw an act there called Spider Mike King. He has been a true stalwart of the Manchester music scene for almost six decades and his initial inspiration to becoming a musician was a chance meeting with Jimi Hendrix when he played one of his two Stockport shows in the late 1960’s.

  

 Rock Salt Cafe. Image Credit useyourlocal.com

Stockport Venue 1 – The Heatons

With the Manchester HS2 leg now officially aborted and as a result potential funds being freed up for other transport projects, there have been increasing rumours about extending the current metro terminus of East Didsbury all the way into Stockport. I believe this proposed route would cross over the River Mersey and traverse in via Cheadle.

The East Didsbury metro stop with its large car park is my nearest station and lies about 20 minutes’ walk away. From there you can begin to navigate up Didsbury Road past the Dog and Partridge pub and at that point you cross over into Stockport.  

The next touchpoint is the petrol station with an M&S attached where during the dark days of Covid, one of our treats was to visit there and purchase the frites and the fresh strawberries with meringues!  

You then reach the Griffin pub which is an archetypal old-fashioned boozer run by the local Holts brewery, which remains as one of the cheapest beers in Britain. It was built in 1831 and still contains two ornate shuttered bars and other original features.

As you continue up the hill you reach Heaton Mersey Bowl on the right which is a large green area containing a couple of football pitches. I recently discovered that a Moor Fest event was held there in 2005 were Mr Scruff, Tom Hingley, Mighty Wah! Clint Boon, A Certain Ratio and Howard Marks were on the bill. Viewing it now, it would be a natural amphitheatre for such a shindig, not dissimilar in layout to Avenham Park in Preston, but the records show that was a one-off singular event.

Moorfest Flyer. Image Credit mdmarchive.co.uk

If you continue down to the right, you arrive at Burnage Rugby Club where alongside the club they have a combined football/golf pitch and putt course. A couple of years ago they held an open-air movie night on the pitch with a screening of A Star is Born featuring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. When we visited Australia, we witnessed people queuing for a Rocky showing in an open-air cinema in glorious sunshine in Sydney Harbour. Our event was not in the same league, it was admittedly reasonably well organised, but the issue was the apocalyptic rain, and it was absolutely bloody freezing!

Back on Didsbury Road you then reach the Conservative Club where my political persuasion has ensured I have never crossed the threshold of any such establishment anywhere in the country. Back in Preston, there was once a family christening at the Con Club off Moor Park, and I was genuinely ill and could not attend but at least my ailment took a tricky decision off the table! The local club does have musical acts on, and my gig venue ‘addiction’ was briefly piqued, but the horrific calibre of acts, for example a Michael Buble tribute act at £20 per pop quickly quashed that thought!

Further up on the right is the Crown pub which has a raised beer garden which is a sun trap in the summer months, and it is a pleasure to sit there and while away a few hours with a Dizzy Blonde (the beer!). It is a proper old-fashioned establishment with wood beams, and I believe they used to do a fine Sunday lunch, but they have not had food on since pre-covid.

The Crown pub. Image Credit blogspot.com

There is an extremely steep cobbled incline by the side of the pub leading down to the river that bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘Hovis Hill’ from the old 1970’s adverts, though the filming was actually undertaken on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury in Dorset. The hostelry was also used for a pub quiz scene in a recent episode of Cold Feet with the characters played by James Nesbitt and Robert Bathurst having a scrap on the aforementioned street.

A little further is St Winifred’s School where their choir had a moment of fame in 1980 with their number one Christmas single ‘There’s No Quite Like Grandma’, beating tracks by John Lennon and Jona Lewie to the top of the chart. The choir included the future Coronation Street actress Sally Lindsay.     

Back up opposite the Heaton Mersey Bowl is the Stockport Heatons. When I first visited at the back end of 2017 hunting a pub to watch a PNE match it was an interesting establishment called the Frog and Railway. Shortly after it closed and reopened under its current name and was more in the gastropub mould. When sampling some food there in August 2021 there was a local act called Heatons Jazz Band providing a soundtrack.

Before I go this week I must add my homage to the genius songwriting talent of Shane MacGowan. I initially missed the Pogues playing at the Paradise Club in Preston in front of about thirty people in February 1985 despite being in town that night and my brother trying to persuade me to attend. Oh, young foolish 16-year-old Jimmy!

Shane MacGowan. Image Credit withradio.org

I saw them three times after that with the second at the long-gone Manchester International 2 in December 1986 remaining one of my Top 20 ever gigs. They were extraordinary and I never since seen an occasion where about 90% of the audience were dancing, creating a huge communal euphoric experience. If only there was a way to bottle or freeze those moments in time!

I am sitting here misty-eyed listening to the marauding intent of ‘Boys from the Country Hell’ and the warped beauty of ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’ to name but two of his astounding canon of material. RIP Shane – ‘I Will Have a Pint With You Sir’!