Belle vue was opened by William Crisp in 1834 it was advertised as belle
vue tea gardens. It was open from 1834 to 1980 when it was closed down.
It attractions included maharajah the elephant , ball rooms , the speed
ways etc. It was three times the size of disneyland and people would
come from all over to visit.
We had
several talks about Belle Vue and we also got the chance to visit a
archive where there were old photo's, newpaper articles and pamphlets.
Its hard to imagine that this enormous attraction was once in
Manchester. The two talks we had contridicted each other I felt the
first talk by Claire Turner talked about nostalgic memories that people
had about the park but she also went on to talk about how it was also an
un spoken part of Manchester history. Our next talk was by Michael
Power who painted the park in a completely different light talking about
animal cruelty. This gave me the idea to look into animals used in
zoo's and circus shows in the 1950's when circus shows were around alot
more. I can link it into my quilting as big quilts are very nostalgic
people pass quilts down through generations and embroider memories into
them. I want to combine these two ideas together the nostalgic memories
people have with the brutal truth behind them too.
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