One Day in the Corn Exchange
From the collection of
Established in 1977, the North West Film Archive preserves moving images made in or about the North West of England for the education and enjoyment of the region’s people. Part of Manchester Metropolitan University Library’s Cultural Collections, and based within Manchester Central Library’s Archives+ partnership, we are a specialist resource dedicated to saving and growing our region’s rich filmed history.
One Day in the Corn Exchange
Inside the Exchange's indoor market - a record of a lost part of Manchester.
The Corn Exchange is a fine building in Manchester city centre built in the late Victorian era, becoming popular a century later as the home of an indoor market with independent traders selling clothes, jewellery, books, records, and bric-a-brac. In this short film, some of the traders talk about how poor economic conditions nationally have affected sales, and browsing visitors offer their thoughts. More recently, the bombing of Manchester city centre in 1996 caused severe damage to the building, which was subsequently redeveloped as an upmarket retail centre.
A short film shot inside Manchester's Corn Exchange when it was a place of independent traders, bric-a-brac shops and cafes. Traders in the Exchange talk about how poor economic conditions have affected sales, and visitors offer their thoughts.
From the collection
How We Shopped
From the high street to the information superhighway: shopping undergoes a makeover.
The 1980s heralded a sea change in the way we shopped - and what we shopped for. Reflecting the growing impact of new technologies, from the arrival of credit cards to the consumer electronics boom and ultimately the internet shopping age, this collection also journeys through the changing face of our high streets into the 1990s and beyond.
This is the era of out-of-town supermarkets and supersized shopping malls muscling in on the traditional town centre trade. Many smaller villages faced the loss of local shops entirely, but they didn't give up without a fight. Alongside these existential threats, local news reports investigate such emerging issues as convenience food labelling, shoplifting and the campaign to 'Buy British' as domestic manufacturing continued its long and painful decline.
Glimpses of long-lost chain stores, brands and products that once dominated everyday life across the UK may inspire more than a whiff of nostalgia. Yet this collection also tells a story of continuity: despite the all-powerful internet, we do still seem to want to come together to shop in the 'real world', not least at Christmas, and those seasonal shopping moments are here waiting to be unwrapped
33 videos in this collection
2
Shoplifting Is On The Increase
7
Round Robin: Think British
8
Debden Village Shop Re-opens
9
Anderson and McAuley Department Store
10
Credit Card Shopping in Northampton
11
Villagers Open Community Shop
14
Yvonne Aston is the New Outsize Model
15
Chinese Supermarket in Nottingham
17
E Numbers in Everyday Popular Products
18
Battle Goes On Over Sunday Trading
21
Shop Safely on the Net: Virtual Mail (BSL / subtitles)
23
One Day in the Corn Exchange
24
St Mary Street - 50 Years On
27
Supermarkets and City Living
28
Oh No... Not Another Manchester A-Z
31
The Commercialisation of Easter
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