A trip to Stockport Museum, in pictures (Part 1!)

A while back, I visited Stockport Museum, and loved it. It looks like a small building on the outside but inside, there are several floors and they've made brilliant use of the place - there are loads of things to see there, and here's a fraction of them. If you're in the area, absolutely go and check it out.

Starting with a remnant of the Staircase House (that's a separate museum, I want to visit that sometime as well), some bits of 15th-century architecture (not shown, a suspiciously modern-looking door nearby.) There's something vaguely unsettling about encountering older architecture in an an otherwise mostly modern space; maybe I'm just feeling that because of Forbidden Siren, though. (To clarify: at one point owing to a time loop caused by a vengeful seahorse-creature from space, some of the modern-day buildings around the village are replaced with counterparts from earlier points in time. Despite how oddball that may sound, it manages to be a genuinely effective, surreal and creative horror game; I'd highly recommend it, although anyone who's considering it should be made aware of its stiff, awkward physics and vertical difficulty curve.)

Some bits from the market place, most notable is the plague stone, where currency was washed in vinegar to prevent the spread of disease. According to the accompanying card, Stockport's first outbreak of the plague was recorded in 1605, which resulted in the deaths of 51 residents.

A memorial sampler from 1849, with the card pointing out high infant mortality rates in Victorian times, owing to poor sanitation and living conditions. Didn't intend for this to be quite so bleak, but that's history for you, and it is important not to shy away from the harsher aspects of life (and death, for that matter.) A sampler of this size would've taken vast amounts of time and effort to make (even making a relatively small cross-stitch is a time-consuming process), a lot of dedication has gone into it.

Another memorial sampler, this time by Mary Lloyd, completed in 1829.

Fossils! An ammonite, fish and the jaws of an ichthyosaur.

Wooden foundry patterns, which have been used for drain covers and the like - those made me go "Ooh, look, I recognise these!" as there are loads of drain covers from Needhams in my local area. Amusingly, there's also one from Cooper Clarke - no confirmation on whether that's owt to do with John Cooper Clarke, but we live in hope.

There's also a spinning wheel and more needlework. The one on the left appears to have been done as stitching practice, or art for art's sake, which is nice. The one on the right is another memorial sampler, and there we can see some discolouration; 'round the edges it's possibly caused by the pins from framing, or if it was displayed by other means, and with the text I'm guessing it could've been the dye running from the thread.

And on that note, this post is getting a bit cumbersome with all these pictures, so I'll wrap up this first part here and come back to it tomorrow with some more pictures, with printing blocks, railway goodies and a Strawberry Studios exhibit.