Hanley - Arnold Bennett's “ Paris of the Potteries”
Presented by Staffordshire Film Archive
A stroll through Hanbridge - Arnold Bennett’s fictional name for Hanley - in the company of tour-guide par excellence MERVYN EDWARDS.
This filmed walk was sponsored by the Dudson Centre and the Arnold Bennett Society for the Heritage Open Days last autumn. The Dudson Centre stands at the lower end of Hope Street, Hanley, immediately across the road from the birthplace of Arnold Bennett - which was a lowly pawn shop, busy with a community constantly needing to pawn clothing and personal possessions to get sums of money “to get them by” until they could afford to retrieve their pawned items.
The walk takes us to a dozen or so key locations on a route through the lower streets of Hanley. At each stop we can see clues to important aspects of both Hanley's past and events in Bennett’s novels and short stories:The impressive painted wall murals on Hope Street of Captain Smith of the Titanic and a steelworker at Shelton Bar iron and steel works, the premises of the great Lewis’s department store (McIlroy’s in Bennett’s day), the site of the former Chicago nightclub in Foundry Street and the former Evening Sentinel building, the Odeon site on the corner of Trinity Street - previously The Grand Théâtre, the old Theatre Royal facade in Brunswick Street - Hanbridge’s ‘people’s theatre’, the front of the Theatre Royal in Pall Mall - Hanley's cultural center and site of a controversial confrontation, the former Hanley Town Hall in Albion Square, built as the Queen’s Hotel and where Arnold’s father trained as a solicitor and had his office.
And finally the Arnold Bennett Statue in Bethesda Street, surveying the citythat Bennett magnificently transformed into the Five Towns of the Potteries.Archive film footage brings these places alive as Mervyn gives us all theinsights into Hanley’s past and how it inspired Arnold Bennett to create hiscity-centre of Hanbridge - “Paris of the Potteries”.
No trailers or adverts. Films start prompt.
Community day films are drop in free events.
No trailers or adverts. Films start at 11am prompt.
MAC Community days brings you a programme of accessible film all in a bid to break barriers and create a happy place for our community. MAC Community days are in partner ship with Able Stoke, North Staffs Pensioners' Convention, and Staffordshire Sight Loss.
