Ten things you didn't know about... Stockport

Stockport is brick-solid
Stockport's Victorian-era railway viaduct is Western Europe's biggest brick structure. It is 34 m (111 ft) high, the 27 arches required 11 million bricks and it took 600 workers to build it. The viaduct opened in 1842 to carry trains from Manchester to London across the River Mersey.

Famous Stockport people
Famous people born in Stockport include broadcaster Joan Bakewell, politician John Gummer and TV presenter David Dickinson.

Stockport was immortalised by LS Lowry
LS Lowry, though a native of Manchester, visited Stockport frequently to paint his industrial scenes here. He memorably captured Stockport's railway viaduct in many paintings and drawings.

Stockport is a home of Lamborghini
Stockport is home to one of only four Lamborghini dealerships in the UK.

Strawberry Studios in Stockport was top of the pops
Stockport was home to Strawberry Studios, the recording home for such rock luminaries as 10cc. Named after the Beatles' song Strawberry Fields Forever, it attracted the biggest names in pop throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Stockport saw a miracle landing
Stockport was the scene of an air crash in 1967 when a charter plane heading to land at Manchester Airport fell out of the sky onto the Hopes Carr area. Amazingly, there were 12 survivors and no one on the ground was killed by the British Midland Canadair C-4 Argonaut.

Karl Marx's pal was a little harsh on Stockport
Friedrich Engels, the 19th-century philosopher who co-wrote The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, wrote in his 1845 book, The Condition of the Working Class in England, "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."

The last British tennis champion came from Stockport
Fred Perry was born in Stockport in 1909. He won Wimbledon and the US Open three times each, the Australian and French titles once each, and was the world's top player five times in the 1930s. He remains the last Englishman to win Wimbledon.