Short for steam ship, ‘SS’ denotes a boat powered by steam. Such boats included the grand ocean liners which once set sail across the ocean from Liverpool – a port connected to Stockport by the River Mersey, which begins at the confluence of the Goyt and Tame rivers in the town centre. The Mersey joins the Manchester Ship Canal and flows out through Cheshire and Merseyside before reaching the sea at the Wirral.

SS Norris is the centre point of Hatton Hilltop Sanctuary, a fenced off nature garden within the Heaton Norris Park. It’s the sole survivor of what was once a play area for the children of the surrounding area. The Sanctuary takes its name from Hatton Street, the steep cobbled road which runs alongside it, before ending abruptly at the motorway. Stockport town centre is full of streets like these; small passageways and flights of steps with hand rails running down the middle, connecting the different levels on which the town is built. Archival images from the 1960s show Hatton Street to be a rundown area of terraced housing, shops, small businesses, pubs and a cinema. When the M63 (now absorbed into the M60) was built in the 1970s, it cut the street off from the rest of the town: now, viewed from beneath, St Mary’s Church appears to perch precariously on a ledge above the fast-flowing traffic below.