I recently attended a talk by Dr. Sandra HAYTON on the cellar dwellers of Manchester and neighbouring towns (including Stockport). My tree contains several instances of cellar dwellers in Stockport and it is salutory to read about them . Sandra's PhD thesis is online and Googling her name will bring up several references. Perhaps a talk at one or more FHSC group meetings could be arranged. I think she is based at Salford Heritage centre. To whet your appetites (or kill them?) here is what Friederich ENGELS wrote in 1845: "There is Stockport, too, which lies on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, but belongs nevertheless to the manufacturing district of Manchester. It lies in a narrow valley along the Mersey, so that the streets slope down a steep hill on one side and up an equally steep one on the other, while the railway from Manchester to Birmingham passes over a high viaduct above the city and the whole valley. Stockport is renowned throughout the entire district as one of the duskiest, smokiest holes, and looks, indeed, especially when viewed from the viaduct, excessively repellent. But far more repulsive are the cottages and cellar dwellings of the working-class, which stretch in long rows through all parts of the town from the valley bottom to the crest of the hill. I do not remember to have seen so many cellars used as dwellings in any other town of this district. " Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1845 Enjoy and learn. Eric Millward ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4716 / Virus Database: 3986/7967 - Release Date: 08/02/14