Lads’ Club Wellington Street Stockport

THE STOCKPORT LADS’ CLUB – Lads’ clubs have now got past the experimental stage, and we may expect to see institutions of this kind springing up in all considerable towns. In Stockport a fine building has been erected for the purpose, and will be opened next month. It has cost £2,500, and the community has taken so much interest in the scheme that it will probably be opened free of debt. The club is arranged very much on the lines which have worked so well in Manchester. It will afford the working lads of Stockport abundant opportunities of recreation and physical and social improvement. The club has a large gymnasium, an entertainment room, reading-room, games room, and classrooms. The club has been built on an excellent site in Wellington Street. It is a high and somewhat airy spot, and yet central. The building has two fronts, one to Wellington Street and the other to London Square. On the Wellington Street side the building shows three storeys of extremely handsome design. The material is brick with terra cotta dressings and mouldings. The general outline is Elizabethan, and both in form and colour the club goes well with the handsome new premises of the reform club, a little further along the street. The architect was Mr Alfred Darbyshire. On the basement floor are the library, a workshop, a classroom and store-room. The first floor is to be entirely devoted to entertainments, and here there is a spacious and comfortable-looking room. On the second floor, liberal provision is made for indoor games of all kinds. The gymnasium will perhaps be the most prominent feature of the club, and space for this department is found on the London Square side of the building. [Manchester Guardian 25 March 1890 page 9]

Reference    Manchester Guardian Saturday 14 November 1891 Page 9 with illustration
Reference    Manchester Guardian 25 March 1890 page 9