Hockley, Nottingham facts for kids
Hockley is an area near the city centre of Nottingham, England. It lies adjacent to the Lace Market area and has many well-preserved Victorian buildings. There has been a mercantile presence in the area since at least the 13th century. With many bars, restaurants and clothes shops, it is a vibrant and modern area of the city. It has been described as "the Soho of Nottingham."
History
The area was originally (from around 1285) called "Walker Gate", from the practice of "walking" or stamping upon cloth to make it softer after weaving. Up until the 20th century Nottingham's fortunes have been tied to the "rag trade" (cloth industry), and from 1343 to 1345 the price of wool in Nottingham Market was taken as the standard for all England. However, it has not always been quite as pleasant as it is now: Sir Jesse Boot, son of the founder of the Boots the Chemist and the architect of the business empire it is today, was born in poverty in the area in 1850.
Culture
Hockley is home to many design, fashion, New Age and record shops, and galleries, bars and cafés.
Hockey has an arthouse cinema, the Broadway Cinema which is "the East Midlands' flagship cinema and production house with an established national and international reputation for film exhibition, production and festivals". It was known for the annual film festival ("Shots in the Dark") it once held, whose honorary president was Quentin Tarantino. This apparently came to be after the cinema was the first in the UK to show Pulp Fiction, straight from the Cannes Film Festival - complete with French subtitles. Another cinema that once operated in Hockley was the The Screen Room, which is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest commercial cinema, with just 21 seats and a single screen.
