Stockport: Hotels for Your Stay

Stockport offers a variety of themes to explore during your stay: the history of hat-making, historic architecture, Second World War memorial sites and performing arts. If you’re looking for a hotel in Stockport, these themes can help you plan your trip around your interests. The sites and attractions each have a different focus—from a single craft to a broad historical overview.

Hat-making and Stockport’s history

Hat Works is the only hat museum in the United Kingdom. It displays a hat collection with global connections. A tour of the factory floor explores Stockport’s hat-making craft and complements the collection with a look at local industry. This makes Hat Works a specific place to visit if you’re interested in the connection between craft and local history.

For a broader historical perspective, Stockport Museum traces the town’s history from more than 10,000 years ago to the present day. This makes it possible to compare an overview of the town’s history with a specialist subject such as hat-making. Staircase House, in turn, offers a distinctive architectural feature. The house contains one of only three surviving Jacobean cage-post staircases in the country. The staircase is therefore a rare example of this architectural form.

Historic townscape and architecture

Stockport Market Place is the town’s historic centre and an important part of the town centre. It helps put Stockport’s historic heart in context. Underbanks is also defined by its architecture and history: the area includes 42 listed buildings and 17 locally listed buildings. Given its historic architecture and rich history, Underbanks is designated as a Conservation Area. These figures and the designation provide a concrete context for the historic townscape.

Another striking building is St Mary’s in the Marketplace, a Grade I listed building. Along with the rare staircase at Staircase House and the protected historic buildings in Underbanks, it shows the variety of Stockport’s architectural features—from a single architectural detail to an area with numerous listed buildings.

Memorial sites and culture

The Stockport Air Raid Shelters offer a glimpse into the history of the Second World War. Their tunnels are cut into natural sandstone rock and opened in 1939. They were intended to serve as air-raid shelters during bombing raids. The shelters also provide insight into life in wartime Britain during the 1940s. Here, the structure and its purpose at the time come together. Unlike the broad historical span covered by Stockport Museum, this site focuses on a specific period in history.

Stockport Plaza is the place to go for performing arts and film: the restored Art Deco super-cinema and variety theatre, dating from 1932, hosts stage performances and screens classic films. The Old Unicorn Brewery Visitors Centre adds a free-entry museum to the selection. The cultural attractions therefore have different focuses: theatre and film at the Plaza, a museum at the Visitors Centre, and historical subjects at the sites mentioned above.

When choosing your hotel in Stockport, you could first consider which of these themes matters to you during your stay: hat-making and craft, architecture, the history of the 1940s, or a cultural programme of stage performances and classic films. If you prefer a more comprehensive overview, the long time span covered by Stockport Museum offers a different approach from the specialist sites. These interests can help you plan your stay without reducing the different attractions to a single theme.

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