Staircase House (30/30a Market Place), also known as Stockport Museum, is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

building dating from around 1460 situated in

Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...

, historically in

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, now within

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, England. The house is famous for its rare Jacobean cage newel staircase. An audio guide recounts the full history of the house.

History

15th to 19th century

Staircase House, (), is in its origins a cruck

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

building, with its earliest known surviving timbers dating from 1459 to 1460 on the basis of

dendrochronology Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of chronological dating, dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, ...

. Very little is known of the property's early history, though it is thought that it may have been the home of William Dodge who, in 1483, was the Mayor of Stockport. The first residents of whom there is certainty were the Shallcross family who owned the house from 1605 to 1730. Members of the landed gentry, with their seat just across the county boundary, in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

, it was they who in 1618 installed the distinctive Jacobean cage newel staircase, from which the house takes its modern name. The staircase has some unusual features, such as the carving covering much of the woodwork. The characteristic of a cage newel staircase, is that each of its newel posts extends throughout the full height of the staircase, the four posts and the banisters thus forming a stairwell which is not fully enclosed, but rather contained within a cage-like structure. In fact, at Staircase House, at some date before the first surviving descriptions of the staircase in the 19th century, the newel posts were each sawn through, just below the stringer board and just above the handrail. That may have been done as a response to changing tastes, or possibly to overcome the practical difficulties of moving large objects, such as furniture, about the house.

20th century

In its later years in private ownership, the house was used partly as the Staircase Café until 1989, and into the 1990s as storage for Gardner's Green Grocery and Fruit stall which stood in the market, immediately in front of the house itself. The house, including the staircase, was painstaking restored using traditional materials, tools and techniques, following a major fire in 1995, the second of two arson attacks on the semi-derelict building. The restoration was undertaken by

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC), also known as Stockport Council, is the Local government in England, local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan borough council an ...

, after having compulsorily purchased the property, following a long and persistent campaign to save it by a local conservation group, the Stockport Heritage Trust, beginning in 1987. The Trust, local volunteers, argued that the house was a unique survival and should be preserved and, on that basis, it dissuaded the council from demolishing the building as a dangerous structure as had been previously proposed. Stockport Heritage Trust financed tree-ring dating establishing the date of the earliest remaining parts of the house as 1460. They commissioned the first measured architectural survey of the building and were successful in pressing for it to be upgraded officially from its

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

designation in 1975 to a Grade II* listed building in 1992.

Stockport Museum

Now open to the public, Staircase House offers a unique glimpse into the life of medieval and renaissance Stockport, the origins of the town, its status as a

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

and a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rura ...

, and the subsequent stages of the house's development until the 1940s, when it was last used as a private dwelling. It forms part of Stockport Museum, with a collection that includes objects and displays from the

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

period, the Mellor Iron Age hilltop settlement, through medieval times, the local

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

textile industry, the impact of World War I, Strawberry Studios, and the history of sport in the town.

References

External links