When you think of historic English towns and cities you think instantly of places such as York, Chester and Bath. Stockport does not come to mind at all. Surely its just an industrial town near Manchester? Well no. It may not be in the same league as the other places mentioned but it does have a few historic gems that make it worth visiting such as the Tudor Bramhall, Hall, the Victorian market, the picturesque Chadkirk Chapel and their newest heritage attraction the Staircase House.

The Staircase House is a a little hidden gem. Located facing Stockport's great marketplace the origins of this house date back to a crook framed medieval building (reputedly built for one of the Lord Mayor's of Stockport). This was developed into the seventeenth century house owned by a family of merchants, the Shawcrosses, that still remains today with its very rare Cage Newall staircase (hence the name The Staircase House). The house became derelict during the latter part of the 20th century and was partially destroyed by fire in 1996. Since then Stockport Council have been restoring it to its former glory. It's now a social history museum furnished with period rooms. I visited recently and found it a fascinating building. .

Unlike some of the council museums in Stockpot such as The Hatworks and Stockpoert Museum and Art Gallery there is a small admission fee. This was £3.95 for adults and £2.95 for concessions. There is a special family ticket that admit two adults and two children for £12.90 and children under five are admitted for free. The admission fee is good value for money as it includes a very good audio guide tour that really enhanced my understanding of the house.

The tour starts properly in the seventeenth century storeroom and takes between an hour and two hours depending how thoroughly you do it (and depending if you spend time doing the little activities suggested by the audio guide). Through your tour you work your way through a number of different rooms mostly dating from the seventeenth century such as the kitchen, bedroom, tallow room, counting room and dowry room. On the top level there is an eighteenth century dining room, an early nineteenth century room that illustrates the growth of political movements in the early nineteenth century and finally a World War 2 room complete with black out curtains and tape across the windows.

This sensory experience would be good for blind people as there is a lot to touch and smell. I was really interested in the tallow room where there were examples of seventeenth century lighting from rush lamps (which you could make) to tallow and beeswax candles. I had read that tallow is not a nice substance for lighting as it is made out of animal fat but until I felt and smelled the difference between the beeswax and tallow I did not realise how vile tallow is. It's really greasy and oily. It is a bit like the fat from a cooking pan all solidified. Would you want that burring in your home?

I felt the audio guide was the ideal way of interpreting the Staircase House. It meant traditional labels and boards were done away with so that the house had a more natural feel to it and I did not have to struggle to read text. I also really liked the audio guide as it was very interesting to listen to. It catered for a wide range of audiences. In each room they would describe the room pointing out pieces of furniture of particular interest. It would also use acted out scenes of everyday life relating to that particular rooms. It was really well researched as contemporary source were consulted throughout. I found the general commentary informative and interesting. I even found out where the Sleep tight bit of the phrase Night night sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite came from. It's from when they tightened the ropes used on the bottom of th beds to hold the mattress in place. For those that wanted slightly more in depth knowledge about the house including a lot of details on the techniques used in restoring the house there were further commentaries to listen to. I really liked this as as I found it fascinating due to my background in heritage but it might be too specialised, boring or go over other people's heads. I was interested to hear that the bed hangings in the bedroom will be developed as a special project. A group of embroiders both amateurs and specialists will gradually provide all the embroidery for the bed clothes and hangings thus involving the community in the development of the Staircase House. The only problem I can see with the audio guide is that it limits repeat vising as the audio guide is included the price of the ticket, unless they change the connect of the audio guide slightly. They also have live interpretation and demonstrations on certain days to bring the house alive, although there were none on the Saturday we visited the Staircase House.

I would heartily recommend a visit o the Staircase House. It is an interesting period house museum which is slightly different from the normal Tudor hall or Georgian or Victorian town house. I strongly suggest you combine it with a tour of Stockport's delightful main parish church and a tour of the market for some bargains and unusual cheeses!