Polluted by the silk, hat and cotton trades during the Industrial Revolution, the Stockport-stretch of the River Mersey suffered years of neglect until 20 years ago, when the council and Mersey Basin Campaign started to clean it up.
The progress made has prompted Liverpool-based artist Colin McPherson to tell the story of the people who live, work and love the Mersey in a book of photographs supporting the campaign.
His exhibition, Mersey: The River That Changed The World, opens at Stockport Art Gallery tomorrow and features portraits from the book that aim to paint an historical portrait of the changing river.
"The Mersey revealed so many secrets and surprises at every turn that it proved easy to photograph," McPherson said of the project. "It provides work, recreation and shapes the environment around it.
"I was captivated by the form and function of the river; an environment shaped by the human hand."
Decline
The installation tracks the ways the river changed following the decline of the heavy industry which originally brought prosperity to Stockport, and how the Mersey has been cleaned up since then, now becoming popular with walkers and canoeists.
Stars of the exhibition include artist Helen Clapcott, who has spent her life painting Stockport with particular focus on the Mersey Basin.
Helen said: "The river has definitely improved over the last 20 years.
"You can actually see kingfishers and life at the bottom. You can walk and cycle along the banks, even where it crosses the middle of the town."
The gallery is also running Heritage open days, with walks and river talks to give visitors the opportunity to explore the banks of the Mersey.
Visitors are also encouraged to contribute their views and feelings about the river to the show to prove there's more to that brown bit of water by the shopping centre than you might have thought.
Stockport Art Gallery, Greek St, Stockport. From Saturday until Saturday, November 1. Free.
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