Staircase House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Staircase House | |
 The main entrance to Staircase House from the market place |
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  Shown within Greater Manchester
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| Building information | |
|---|---|
| Town | Stockport, Greater Manchester |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
| Completion date | c1460 |
| Style | Medieval |
Staircase House is a Grade II* listed medieval building dating from around 1460 situated in Stockport, England.
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[edit] History
Staircase House, (grid reference SJ897906), is a cruck timber building and the timbers were dating, using dendrochronology, to 1459-1460.[1] Very little is known of the house’s early history, though it is thought that it was originally the home of the Mayor of Stockport, William Dodge, in 1483.
The first definite residents were the Shallcross family who owned the house from 1605–1730. Part of the landed gentry, it was they who installed the cage newel staircase in 1618, which gives the house its name. The Jacobean staircase is one of only three surviving examples in Britain and has been carefully restored following an almost devastating fire in 1995, the second of two arson attacks on the semi derelict building.
The House was restored after being damaged in the second fire. It was used partly as a warehouse for Gardner's Green Grocers in the 1990s and as the Staircase Cafe until 1989.It was compulsarily purchased by Stockport Council following a long and gruelling campaign to save it by local conservation group,Stockport Heritage Trust, which began in 1987. The Trust, composed of local volunteers, argued that it was a unique survival and should be preserved and successfully opposed Stockport Council's plan to demolish the building as a dangerous structure. Stockport Heritage volunteers financed tree ring dating which established its construction date as 1460, carried out the first measured architectural survey and were successful in upgrading listed status from grade 2 to 2*. Now open to the public it offers a unique glimpse into the lives of medieval Stockport, the roots of the town, (including what made it a borough) and subsequent stages of development until the 1940s, when it was last used as a residence.
[edit] The house today
The house is located in Stockport’s market place and boasts an intriguing array of rooms linked by corridors and narrow passages. All the rooms have been restored using period colours, furniture and artefacts which reflect the house’s long history. One bedroom has a seventeenth century four poster replica bed paid for by Stockport Heritage Trust, there’s a two hundred year old table in the eighteenth century dining room, an authentic busy kitchen, and some historic lighting in the tallow room. An ongoing stitchers project, making period tapestry work for bed hangings and covers, is financed by the Heritage Trust who continue to support Staircase House.
There are also rumours of ghostly goings-on and the house is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Robert Owten, former butler to the Shallcross family.
The house contains:
- A cafe dedicated to the family baker Henry Blackshaw
- The town's main tourist and leisure information point
- A museum noting the history of Stockport from its medieval roots to the modern day
- A section of the house restored to its original condition
- A giftshop
The house was featured on Most Haunted, as part of the Haunted Manchester Live tour.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Mike Nevell (1997). The Archaeology of Trafford. Trafford Metropolitan Borough with University of Manchester Archaeological Unit, 71, 75. ISBN 1-870695-25-9.
