Stockroom is Stockport’s brand new creative and cultural space — part library, part performance venue, part community living room. Housed on Merseyway, it’s a place built by and for the people, full of stories, ideas, and possibility.

Greater Manchester has always been a place of firsts — not because we shout about it, but because we just get on with it. While London was busy polishing its image, we were grafting, building, and quietly starting revolutions. From libraries to nightlife, co-ops to community organising, this region’s been leading the way for centuries — often without the credit. So here’s 10 times we set the pace, and the South just followed.