Tag: Stone Roses

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 Gigs

When we moved into our current pad in 2018, we quickly realised we were located 100 yards over the Manchester border into Stockport. This sparked thoughts of my previous interactions with Stockport.  

My first two visits were to the football stadium at Edgeley Park to watch Preston away. In our promotion season in 1986/87 we had a Monday night match, but when Uncle George arrived to pick me up and drive to the game, his car would not start up again. I didn’t drive or own a vehicle at that stage, so the only other option was to borrow my parent’s car as they were away on holiday and George had insurance to drive any motor.

Those initial shenanigans resulted in us arriving very late and we could only access the home end before being escorted around the pitch to the PNE enclosure, but in those basic stadium days we were then perched on the side of a dusty mound with hugely limited views, though thankfully we won the game 3-1. I recall us heading for a beer in the Greenall Whitley land of Warrington on the way home.  

We returned about five years later for a Friday night match and were well beaten with the 6ft 7-inch striker Kevin Francis tormenting us, as a postscript I have just read that he has had an interesting post career change and now works for the Canadian police force. Final word on the football front is that I am delighted to see Stockport flying high at the moment as they have been through a very lean period for the last couple of decades.     

I used to occasionally travel over to my brothers in Nottingham via Stockport on the M63 (as it was then). My only other recollection was in the early 1990’s when Gill was based in Eccles we travelled over to the Garrick Theatre, which remains to this day, to see the Rochdale Cowboy Mike Harding. He was excellent entertainment with I seem to recall a running gag throughout the evening involving cheese and crackers.

Stockport Garrick Theatre. Image Credit theatresonline.com

Stockport lies 7 miles southeast of Manchester and dates back to 1170 and the River Tame and River Goyt meet here to form the River Mersey and we can walk into the centre from our current home in about 45 minutes down the river. It has a considerable industrial heritage with industries covering products such as hemp, rope, cotton, silk and hats, the latter producing more than 6 million hats at its peak in the late 19th century.

Dominating the skyline over the M60 is the terrific Stockport viaduct with its 27 brick arches and uniquely Stockport train station is one of a very rare number in Britain to have a Platform 0. The reason for the quirky numbering is that there was only room for a new Platform on the Platform 1 side of the station. The Plaza is a Grade II listed cinema and variety theatre and is the last of its kind operating in original format. They have odd gigs there and last year Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott undertook a post Covid concert specifically for NHS staff.

Stockport Viaduct. Image Credit flickr.com

Stockport has suffered as a poor cousin to Manchester, but they are in the midst of a regeneration with many independent outlets opening up around Underbank and the 700-year-old marketplace. I do hope though that they retain the heritage and do not build a plethora of tower blocks as they have to excess in Manchester. They do also have a horror one way system and a ‘Wayward Pines’ car park with an overflow that on one occasion thought we would never be able to leave!

On the musical front, there is the remarkable fact the Jimi Hendrix Experience played not once but twice in Stockport in 1967, the first at the Sinking ship and a month later at the Tabernacle. The famous Strawberry Studios were located there, and it existed from 1968 to 1993 and was utilised by 10cc, The Smiths, Stone Roses, Paul McCartney and Joy Division. The upcoming band the Blossoms are from the town and other famous residents include the Crown actress Claire Foy and tennis legend Fred Perry.  

Jimi Hendrix Stockport flyer. Image Credit sevenmilesoutrecords.co.uk