...about the "real" Angel Street

In Victorian times and well into this century, Angel Street was located off Higher Hillgate in Stockport, UK (near Manchester). Angel Street contained typical examples of poor working class houses of that period. At the top of the street, two shops fronted onto Hillgate, with the living accommodation down the side. The living accommodation still has the traditional painted graining on the woodwork of the windows, which was very popular in the late 19th Century. Angel Street was renamed Alberta Street, in the 1950s. You can visit the Stockport History Trail for some interesting facts and photographs of the area.

After reading that there were shops on this "Angel Street" of the past, and remembering that my grandfather moved to the US from somewhere in England as a child, during the 1880s, my level of curiosity began to intensify. What had inspired me to choose the name "14 Angel Street?" And what led me to this information...

I sent an e-mail through the web site where the information about the "real" Angel Street was located, asking if there was any record of whether there had been a shop at number 14 Angel Street, or who may have lived there. I was then directed to write to a Mr. Reed at the Stockport Heritage Magazine with my inquiry. I received a reply with some photocopies of old photographs of people who lived on the street. It was a very depressed area in those days, and that was the extent of the information I received from that source.

To my great surprise, four months later, I received a letter from a Ms. Sumner, who reads the Stockport Heritage Magazine. Apparently, my letter had been published in the magazine, and it caught her attention. She very kindly sent me a copy of a book she had on her bookshelf, entitled "Angels From The Meadow," by James Stanhope-Brown, which has references to Angel Street and depicts some aspects of life in the Manchester area around the time my grandfather's family emigrated from England. She also sent me a copy of the magazine which contained my letter.

Well, I never did find out what existed at number 14 Angel Street, Stockport, UK. However, I am very grateful to Mr. Reed for responding to me and to Ms. Sumner for very generously sending me her copy of "Angels From The Meadow." The book is very interesting and has served as an inspiration for much of the design of this web site. And, because of this wonderful world-wide-web and making contacts I never could have made without it, "14 Angel Street" is more than just the "virtual" address of a fantasy Victorian giftshop. It was once a "real" Victorian address.