Altrincham Station (20)
Altrincham Station is on the site of the medieval Skin Pit Field, which was used for leather processing. Maps also show that there were tenterframes in the area of the station where bleached and fulled cloth would be stretched on tenterhooks.
Altrincham and Bowdon stations were both built in 1849 but the present station replaced both in 1881 and the old stations were closed. There is a Blue Plaque in the booking hall commemorating 150 years of the railway to Altrincham. The original Altrincham Station was situated just south of the footbridge near The Old Mill pub and Bowdon Station was near Lloyd Street. The line was electrified in 1931 at 1,500V DC and changed to 25,000V AC in 1971. The Metrolink was opened in 1992 replacing the electric trains and runs on 750V DC. The Clock Tower is a listed building of 1880 and nearby there used to be a horse cabbies’ hut.
Opposite to the railway station on Stamford New Road are the Station Hotel (44) and number 42 which are both listed. To their right is the modern Library where, on the first floor, there are citations in the entrance on the first floor to Captain E K Bradbury VC, son of Judge Bradbury, and Private W Speakman VC. There is a large elaborate chair in the Jacobean style in the lending section which is one of two carved from a Dunham oak tree and presented to the Court Leet in 1875 by Edward Neild of Bowdon when he was Mayor of Altrincham. Neild was a partner in a furniture-making firm originally established by John Starkey in 1790 in the town. In the reference section of the library there is the bell from Oakfield Street School.
The area was extensively redeveloped in 1966 before which Kingsway (the bottom end was called Station Road when it was built about 1850 until 1908) came out at the pedestrian crossing. It contained one of three Co-op stores in the Altrincham area and the 1908 Temperance Billiard Hall. Further on down Stamford New Road on the left was the 1898 Jubilee Baths. Next door where Station House is now was the Picture Theatre, which existed from 1913 to 1966. Hilaire Belloc lectured here in 1917 on the war effort and it had an orchestra into the 1930s.
At the northern end of Stamford New Road The Old Mill on Grosvenor Road may refer to a water-powered corn mill of about 1500, just north of the present building, probably fed from Hale Moss. In 1777 the mill was demolished and a new cotton mill built, with steam added in 1796 powered by a Boulton & Watt engine and used until the 1840s when it reverted to a corn mill and bobbin-turners.