Culture
Charles Dickens, whose grandmother was reputedly employed at nearby Tong Castle, visited the town on several occasions and many believe that the buildings in his book, The Old Curiosity Shop, were based on those in the town. The Shifnal Historical Society report that he was very taken with the architecture of the town, and for that reason, he based The Old Curiosity Shop on The Unicorn Public House, now known as Naughty Nell's.
Mary Arnold, later known as the writer Mrs Humphry Ward, went to boarding school in the town at Rock Terrace. Her schooldays gave background for one of her later novels, Marcella (published 1894).
It is widely believed that Shifnal was the origin of P. G. Wodehouse's fictional town Market Blandings.
In the 1968 Shifnal Carnival was launched, a revival of the Shifnal Club Day - itself deriving from an annual parade by the 'Dove Club' friendly society. Taking place on the last Saturday of June, a funfair is set up on the main street, as well as the usual procession.
In 2010, after research as part of the town plan, The Shifnal Festival was revived due to residents expressing interest for a festival of arts, culture and entertainment.
In the 1990s and 2000s Shifnal become well known throughout the region for its annual Christmas lights display, which attracted visitors from the outside the town.
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Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“To be a Negro is to participate in a culture of poverty and fear that goes far deeper than any law for or against discrimination.... After the racist statutes are all struck down, after legal equality has been achieved in the schools and in the courts, there remains the profound institutionalized and abiding wrong that white America has worked on the Negro for so long.”
—Michael Harrington (1928–1989)
“It is of the essence of imaginative culture that it transcends the limits both of the naturally possible and of the morally acceptable.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)