The Greater Manchester town of Stockport has a long history. Its imposing railway viaduct – testimony to the region’s industrial past – towers over a medieval marketplace that is celebrating its 750th anniversary this year. My route through the winding streets also brought me past the town’s vast underground network of second world war air-raid shelters.
Beneath all this lies evidence of human settlements dating even further back – 10,000 years, by the latest estimates. The town’s Stockport Story Museum has revamped its ground-floor exhibition space to accommodate a large hoard of early artefacts uncovered in the area.
Set in an attractive red-brick building, the museum also has a tourist information centre and gift shop. Its wooden decor subtly mimics the adjoining Staircase House, a Grade II*-listed dwelling dating from the 15th century, whose quaint outer wall juts inside the museum foyer.
The entrance to the Origins Gallery, which reopened in July, takes visitors over a small bridge spanning an exposed medieval street – a nice touch that immediately connects people with the town’s past.
The gallery, the first stage in the museum’s comprehensive journey through Stockport’s history, moves from early mesolithic arrowheads through to Roman coins.
Housed in a surprisingly small room, the Origins Gallery makes inventive use of its limited space. One showcase lies underfoot, and graphic panels line every available wall.
This new layout has allowed the museum to increase the number of objects on display by a third, as well as to incorporate new audiovisual elements. But the exhibition still feels uncluttered, with the middle of the room left clear, except for a couple of spaces to sit. The furnishings are basic, although low lighting provides atmosphere.
On two levels
The exhibition serves a dual purpose. Not only does it display artefacts, it also recounts the intriguing story behind the ongoing excavations, which began in the mid-1990s, when two local residents noticed unusual crop marks on nearby Mellor Hill.
They organised a privately funded dig and, after it became clear that the site was of major importance, established the Mellor Archaeological Trust. Since then, the trust has relied heavily on local volunteers – so the objects on display have a special resonance with the local community.
As its name promises, the gallery takes visitors right back to the start. Just inside the doorway, a label announces the museum’s oldest exhibit: antler bone shards from 9,000 BC.
Opposite, there is a dramatically lit reconstruction of a cave complete with two neolithic skeletons. The scene is a startling yet effective introduction to the exhibition.
Alongside the cave, a small alcove attracts the attention of passing children. Here they can piece together a broken pot, dress up with a hard hat and trowel, or write down what they would leave behind for future archaeologists to find.
“A bucket and spade,” writes one helpful student. But it seems a shame that this play area is so near the entrance – I saw several children stopping at it before racing off without a glance at the other exhibits.
Next up are audio recollections from people who took part in the archaeological project, including trust co-founder Ann Hearle. The recordings have an engaging and conversational tone, although they could do with a little judicious editing (one appears to have taken place under a noisy rookery).
Unclear narrative
Moving along, large graphic panels offer a loose chronology of the ancient settlements, while interactive screens give further context to the conservation work.
The layout is slightly awkward, as visitors must go back and forth between the displays to piece some of the information together, making it somewhat difficult to establish a clear narrative.
But panels and exhibits are cleverly arranged into themes rather than dates, which gives the gallery the flexibility to put much more on display. Bronze age pieces fall mainly under “death and burial”, while “food and farming” and “trade and status” show artefacts from the iron age to Roman times.
In the pre-exhibition publicity, much was made of the gallery’s star exhibit: an incomplete, 4,000-year-old funerary necklace constituting the largest hoard of bronze age amber beads found outside of southern England.
It was unearthed in 2008 during excavations at Shaw Cairn, a bronze age burial site on Cobden Edge, in Stockport. It is believed the necklace was made in Whitby by a skilled jet worker.
It’s obviously a very important find. The background material, including a computer-generated reconstruction of the necklace, is excellent. But because of its fragility, the necklace itself is shown in semi-darkness at the back of the death and burial case. This is probably unavoidable, but it’s a shame that it could not have been given more prominence.
On a nearby pedestal, the gallery boasts another important exhibit: the iron age Mellor Pot, a near-complete 300 BC vessel with the fingermarks of its maker still visible on the rim. Unlike the necklace, this piece is beautifully lit and displayed in a case of its own.
Towards the end of my tour, I got an unwelcome jolt when a film at the far side of the room began playing at full volume. It was a re-enactment of the fabled Coombs Rock battle performed by a neighbouring primary school – a great example of the museum’s innovative outreach work, but distracting in such a small environment.
After it was played twice more, I was sorely tempted to take a neolithic axe-head to the screen. A pair of headphones would not go amiss here.
The Origins Gallery is a strong testament to Stockport’s important archaeological heritage. But while it manages to pack a lot into a small space, I left feeling that a more cohesive layout and a higher profile for the gallery’s star exhibit would do more justice to the achievements of the trust’s volunteers.
Geraldine Kendall is a freelance journalist
- Cost £10,000
- Main funders Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Heritage Lottery Fund via the Mellor Heritage Project
- Exhibition production in-house and in partnership with the Mellor Archaeological Trust
- Exhibition design in-house (led by Joanne Dunn, collections access officer, social history)
- Graphics in-house (Terry Mullaney, senior design technician)
- Audiovisuals Take 27, Virneth Studios
