Staircase House

Staircase House, ({{gbmapping|SJ897906}}), is in its origins a cruck timber building, with its earliest known surviving timbers dating from 1459 to 1460 on the basis of dendrochronology.{{cite book |author=Mike Nevell |year=1997 |title=The Archaeology of Trafford |publisher=Trafford Metropolitan Borough with University of Manchester Archaeological Unit |pages=71, 75 |isbn=1-870695-25-9}} Very little is known of the property's early history, though it is thought that it may have been the home of William Dodge who, in 1483, was the Mayor of Stockport.

The first residents of whom there is certainty were the Shallcross family who owned the house from 1605 to 1730. Members of the landed gentry, with their seat just across the county boundary, in Derbyshire, it was they who in 1618 installed the distinctive Jacobean cage newel staircase, from which the house takes its modern name.{{cite web|url=https://www.stockport.gov.uk/shawcross-fold/staircase-house|title=Shawcross Fold: Staircase House|publisher=Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council|date=19 February 2021}} The staircase has some unusual features, such as the carving covering much of the woodwork.

The characteristic of a cage newel staircase, is that each of its newel posts extends throughout the full height of the staircase, the four posts and the banisters thus forming a stairwell which is not fully enclosed, but rather contained within a cage-like structure. In fact, at Staircase House, at some date before the first surviving descriptions of the staircase in the 19th century, the newel posts were each sawn through, just below the stringer board and just above the handrail. That may have been done as a response to changing tastes, or possibly to overcome the practical difficulties of moving large objects, such as furniture, about the house.

In its later years in private ownership, the house was used partly as the Staircase Café until 1989, and into the 1990s as storage for Gardner's Green Grocery and Fruit stall which stood in the market, immediately in front of the house itself.

The house, including the staircase, was painstaking restored using traditional materials, tools and techniques, following a major fire in 1995,{{cite news |last=Warden |first=Sarah |date=21 January 2013 |title=Amazing rebirth of Staircase House |url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/amazing-rebirth-of-staircase-house-1082997 |work=Manchester Evening News |access-date=3 August 2023}} the second of two arson attacks on the semi-derelict building. The restoration was undertaken by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, after having compulsorily purchased the property, following a long and persistent campaign to save it by a local conservation group, the Stockport Heritage Trust, beginning in 1987.{{cite web |url=https://www.woodawards.com/portfolio/staircase-house/ |title=Staircase House |publisher=Wood Awards |access-date=3 August 2023}}

The Trust, local volunteers, argued that the house was a unique survival and should be preserved and, on that basis, it dissuaded the council from demolishing the building as a dangerous structure as had been previously proposed.{{cite news |date=18 January 2013 |title=Museum tribute to unsung heroes |url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/museum-tribute-to-unsung-heroes-1082544 |work=Manchester Evening News |access-date=3 August 2023}} Stockport Heritage Trust financed tree-ring dating establishing the date of the earliest remaining parts of the house as 1460.{{cite web |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/12-2003 |title=Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers from Staircase House, (30A & 31 Market Place), Stockport, Greater Manchester |date=4 February 2003 |publisher=Historic England |access-date=3 August 2023}} They commissioned the first measured architectural survey of the building and were successful in pressing for it to be upgraded officially from its Grade II designation in 1975 to a Grade II* listed building in 1992.{{cite web |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1356855?section=official-list-entry |title=Staircase House |publisher=Historic England |access-date=3 August 2023}}

Now open to the public, Staircase House offers a unique glimpse into the life of medieval and renaissance Stockport, the origins of the town, its status as a borough and a market town, and the subsequent stages of the house's development until the 1940s, when it was last used as a private dwelling.

It forms part of Stockport Museum, with a collection that includes objects and displays from the Palaeolithic period, the Mellor Iron Age hilltop settlement, through medieval times, the local Victorian era textile industry, the impact of World War I, Strawberry Studios, and the history of sport in the town.{{cite web |url=https://www.stockport.gov.uk/about-stockport-museum |title=About Stockport Museum |publisher=Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council |access-date=3 August 2023}}{{cite web |url=https://artuk.org/visit/venues/stockport-museum-5275 |title=Stockport Museum |publisher=Art UK |access-date=3 August 2023}}

{{portal|Greater Manchester}}

• Hat Works, the UK's only dedicated hatting museum, located in Stockport
• Stockport Air Raid Shelters, now part of Stockport's museum service
• Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester
• Listed buildings in Stockport

{{reflist|2}}

{{commons category|Staircase House}}

• [https://www.stockport.gov.uk/topic/staircase-house Staircase House website]
• [https://www.stockport.gov.uk/topic/stockport-museum Stockport Museum website]

{{Museums and galleries in Greater Manchester}}

{{Buildings and structures in Stockport Borough}}

Category:Buildings and structures in Stockport

Category:Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester

Category:Houses in Greater Manchester

Category:Historic house museums in Greater Manchester

Category:Museums in Greater Manchester

Category:History museums in Greater Manchester

Category:Tourist attractions in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport

Category:Culture in Stockport