The Wire Works Exhibition opens in Golden Square on Saturday 15 October, celebrating one of the borough’s most significant stories from Warrington’s rich heritage – wire manufacturing.
The council have worked in partnership with Culture Warrington, artists Laurence Payot and Christine Wilcox-Baker and local media company, Ludovico to bring this project to life in an exhibition which will be an interactive blend of heritage and art, representing the story of Warrington’s wire industry through sculpture, film, dance, poetry and real-life accounts of what it was like to work in a wire factory in Warrington.
As arguably Warrington’s most important industry, putting the town at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, wire production dominated the town’s employment structure for over 100 years, employing an estimated 9% of all wire drawers in England and Wales and almost twice as many as its nearest North-western rival Manchester. Until the 1990s the local Rugby became known as “The Wire” (shortened from “The Wire-Pullers”), indicating how important wire making was in the town.
Many Warrington residents are unaware of the significance of this industry to Warrington (think St Helens and glass or Sheffield and steel) even though Warrington wire has had and continues to have a variety of uses throughout the world: from barbed wire used in the trenches of World War 1 to telegraph cables for communication; from scientific sieves to fencing masks; from suspension bridges to one of Lady Gaga’s spectacular dresses.
The exhibition will take over what was the Co-op Bank in the Old Market Square from Saturday 16th October until Saturday 20th November, opening to the public from Wednesday to Sunday each week.
For more information, follow the project on social media:
- Facebook: @thewireworkswarrington
- Twitter: @thewireworks
- Instagram: @thewireworkswarrington