People / My Bristol Favourites
My Bristol Favourites: Sheila Hannon
Sheila Hannon is creative producer of Bedminster’s Show of Strength Theatre Company, the creators of the Hen & Chicken (1989) and Tobacco Factory (1998) theatres.
Show of Strength is now best known for their theatre walks around areas including the docks, Bedminster, Clifton and St George; with a new walk following in the Bristol footsteps of Cary Grant starting on March 29, and a tour around Hotwells coming later this year.
Show of Strength’s current project, From Bristol to Botany Bay explores the lives of ten women transported from Bristol’s Newgate Prison, with a window display in the Galleries – the site of the old prison.
is needed now More than ever
These are Sheila’s top-five Bristol favourites:
Hebron Burial Ground
Getting Up To Stuff’s sculpture of Princess Caraboo can be found in Hebron Burial Ground – photo: Benji Chapman
“Hidden just off North Street, and unknown even by many locals, this small graveyard has some fabulous memorials (for example, a man called Hamlet). It’s also the burial place of early 19th century impostor, Princess Caraboo, with a sculpture by Getting Up To Stuff. Particularly beautiful on a sunny morning when the lilac’s in bloom, it’s part of our Blood and Butchery in Bedminster tour.”
Ashton Court Mansion
The ‘ghosts’ of the Smyths in Show of Strength’s ‘The Mansion Through Time’ – photo: Zuleika Henry
“The site of a manor house since the 11th century and home of the Smyth family for 400 years. Bristol City Council acquired Ashton Court Mansion in a dilapidated state in 1959 and now it’s even worse. Artspace Lifespace, who recently opened the wonderful Sparks in Broadmead, are temporary custodians, but this fabulous place needs to be saved for Bristol before it’s too late.”
Denmark Street
Cary Grant worked at the Hippodrome when he was still known as Archie Leach – photo: Martin Booth
“Soho eat your heart out. Archie Leach used the Hippodrome stage door here when he worked backstage aged 14 – and Cary Grant lunched at Harvey’s restaurant, bought his spectacles from Dunscombe’s on the corner, and got his favourite fish and chips from the Rendezvous, 60 years old this year. Our new tour, Raising Cary Grant with Cary Comes Home festival, visits and reveals all.”
Docks Heritage Weekend
Docks Heritage Weekend is a celebration of Bristol’s maritime past – photo: Show of Strength
“Prince’s Wharf, in front of M Shed, is the last ‘working’ city centre dockside and October’s Docks Heritage Weekend brings it to life, with a lot of help from Chris Ecclestone and his brilliant volunteers. Vintage lorries, steam engine, original cranes, diesel tug John King (1935) and fireboat Pyronaut (Albion Dockyard, 1934) are all still working. As the granddaughter of a Liverpool docker, it’s great to be a part of it.”
Glenside Hospital Museum
“Glenside Hospital Museum in Fishponds is a brilliant museum of mental health created by pioneering psychiatrist Dr Donal Early in what was once the chapel of Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Dr Early had worked there since the 1940s and I met this extraordinary man in the late 1990s. Elsie Leach, Cary Grant’s mother, was incarcerated here from 1915 to 1936 when it was the Fishponds Asylum.”
Main photo: Show of Strength
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
