Within such a tight network of suburban streets, restrained Modernism sits alongside the traditional semi, the grand villa and humble abode. A smattering of stained glass and an original door here and there.
One example of a curved Crittall bay, sitting next door to a distant uPVC cousin.
Hesitant examples of Arts and Crafts and hints of Tudorbethan, subtle shades of sub Lutyens, the odd Art Deco detail.
We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching.
Blaise Pascal
Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
In 1896 the area to the east of central Stockport is a potpourri of emergent industry, railways, a river and agriculture – a product of the second Ice Age, the subsequent formation of the Mersey Valley and the Industrial Revolution.
By 1911 there is an expansion in the housing stock.
A comprehensive history of the area cane be found here.
In 1918, the UK property landscape was dominated by private renters, who made up 75% of all households. At the time, only 25% of the population owned their own homes.Over the next few decades, home ownership gradually increased, reaching about 38% by 1958. This shift was accompanied by a decrease in private renting, which fell to 41% during the same period.
The most significant growth in home ownership occurred between 1958 and 2003. The percentage of owner-occupiers surged from 38% to 70%. This period saw a corresponding decline in both private renting, which fell to just 8% in 2003, and social renting, which peaked at 29% in 1978 before declining to 22% by 2003.
The pattern of home ownership has been determined by a number of factors –
The Property Owning Democracy – Coined by British MP Noel Skelton in 1920, the concept emphasised the terms ‘property-owning’ and ‘democracy’ as a conservative response to left-leaning ideas of liberalism and socialism.
Right to Buy scheme, introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Housing Act 1980, allowed long-term council social tenants in England and Wales to buy their homes at a significant discount, fostering homeownership but drastically reducing the stock of affordable social housing, leading to ongoing housing shortages and debates over its legacy.
The Property Ladder which commodifies housing. Where once house and home were largely for life, the upwardly mobile homeowner wishes to continually acquire value and status through trading ever onwards and upwards.
Socially the role of the home has also changed over time, once a place to be outside of – working or playing, the home is now possibly a place of both work and play. A larger percentage of weekly earnings is now absorbed by housing costs, and the lure of the multi-channel Smart TV, gaming systems, take away food and supermarket lager, nails the residents’ slippers firmly to the laminate flooring.
This has gone hand in hand with the trend home improvements and extensions – fed by glossy magazines, design led property TV shows advocating a New England, Shabby Chic, Maxi/Minimalist Vibe.
Welcome to the new England.
It’s January 2026 and I have taken to the area between Mauldeth Road, Thornfield Road, Queens Drive and Didsbury Road.
What is actually going on in my locale? – The only way to find out is to go and take a good look around.
Symbol of middle-class aspiration, conservatism and compromised individualism, the semi-detached house is England’s modern domestic type par excellence.
Semi-detached houses are the most common property type in the United Kingdom. They accounted for 32% of UK housing transactions and 32% of the English housing stock in 2008. Between 1945 and 1964, 41% of all properties built were semis.
Semi-detached houses for the middle class began to be planned systematically in late 18th-century Georgian architecture, as a suburban compromise between the terraced houses close to the city centre, and the detached villas further out, where land was cheaper.
Although semi-detached housing is built throughout the world, it is generally seen as particularly symbolic of the suburbanisation of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The homeowners quest for the individual within a typology, no two doors the same, render re-rendered, period details largely erased, occasionally preserved, windows awash with white uPVC, along with the more recent incursion of one shade of grey, front gardens replaced by unimpressive pressed concrete car parking, cars and more cars, bay windows held at bay by red brick walls and well-trimmed beech hedges.
My pink half of the drainpipe Separates next door from me My pink half of the drainpipe Oh, Mama – belongs to me
A mighty river valley was formed in the second Ice Age, as the glaciers receded and rushed seaward.
The mighty River Mersey was formed on the eastern edge of Stockport, at the confluence of the Tame and Goyt/Etherow rivers.
Thousands of years in the making, as the water-powered mills of the adjacent Pennine Hills migrate to the lower reaches of the towns, in search of water, workers and steam, the full force of the Industrial Revolution takes shape in the west.
The mixed farming of the alluvial valley, which opens up onto the Lancashire and Cheshire Plains, meets and greets the incursion of dye and brick works, mills and manufacturing.
Fred Schofield’s farm 1930
View towards Stockport from Heaton Mersey Park
Serviced by a complex and competing rail system based around Heaton Mersey Shed.
Opened in 1889 and served until May 1968 operating steam locomotives to the end -Coded 9F.
Here we were at the centre of a rail hub spreading out in all directions, to and from the ports, cities and resources of the country and beyond.
Great movements of steel, cotton, coal, people and manufactured goods.
Fireman Eddy “Ned” Kelly
Heaton Mersey railway station was opened on 1 January 1880 by the Midland Railwayand lay on the newly opened line which ran from Heaton Mersey East Junction to Chorlton Junction and on to Manchester Central station.
The station was situated at the southern end of Station Road which still exists. The station was later operated by the London Midland and Scottish Railway and was closed by the London Midland Region of British Railways on 3 July 1961.
The area was criss-crossed by railways – its bridges traversing the roads, fields and river, dominating the landscape in a wild flurry of steam and smoke.
The end of steam – as drivers, fireman and staff were transferred to Newton Heath, was followed by the slow demise of the rail network, freight moved to road and passengers purchasing their first cars and a passport to illusory freedom.
The mighty Mersey is now flanked by newer neighbours, a shiny blue administrativepyramid, business park, car showrooms and nature reserve, the only certainty is change.
Great volumes of earth are moved to from a new topography a topography of leisure – the gentle stroll, jog and cycle replaces the clank of fire doors and shovel on coal.
But take a look around you and you will see the remnants of the industrial age, shrouded in fresh hawthorn and enshrined in birch and beech.
To walk this landscape is to traverse geological, agrarian, industrial and post-industrial time – they all coexist and coalesce. Have an eye, ear and heart open to their resonance and presence, transcend time and space in the Mersey Valley today, you’re part of the leisured generation.
Modern Mooch 