One week left to see Preston's lost film archive

There is a particular kind of pleasure in seeing a place you know well on film, especially when that film was thought lost. That is exactly what is on show at The Harris Museum & Art Gallery on Market Square, where the exhibition 'Inside the Archive' is running until Thursday 5 November. It is a rare multimedia showing of films from the British Film Institute's National Archive, brought back to the city where they were originally shot, and it costs nothing to walk in and see.

The centrepiece is 'Edwardian Britain' by Mitchell & Kenyon, a collection that was considered lost for at least eighty years before it turned up in a Blackburn basement in 1994. The firm was set up by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon in 1897, and their films captured ordinary life in and around Preston during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras: factory workers, churchgoers, schoolchildren, sportsmen and spectators, all reacting to the camera. The collection runs to more than 800 films, which the BFI restored in 2000 after they were found stored in three metal barrels in the basement of the former Mercers toy shop in Blackburn. Seeing these images back in the city they recorded gives the whole thing a weight it would not have anywhere else.

It is worth knowing how the BFI fits into this. Founded in 1933, the British Film Institute is the UK's lead organisation for film and the moving image, a cultural charity and National Lottery distributor. Its National Archive looks after one of the largest and most important collections of film and television in the world, preserving and developing it for future generations, with around 11,000 titles covering 120 years of British life. 'Inside the Archive' is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, which was awarded National Lottery Good Cause Funding.

If you have been putting it off, the clock is ticking. The exhibition opened on Friday 23 October and closes on Thursday 5 November, so there is just about a week left to catch it. On that final day, the museum is staying open until 21:00, which is helpful if you can only make it after work. It sits on the first floor of The Harris, so it is an easy add-on to a wander through the rest of the building.

And there is plenty more to see around it. The Harris is currently playing a full programme, so you can make an afternoon of it. 'Horrockses Fashions: Everyday Glamour & the Art of British Ready-to-Wear' runs from 19 September to 31 January 2027, 'The Birley Exhibition – Artist Led' opened on 18 June and carries on into January 2027, 'Feeding Chair' is on from 30 September to 4 April 2027, and 'Alternative Kids 1980 – We Met Again 2026' opened on 17 October and runs until 10 January 2027. Between them, there is enough to fill a good few hours, and none of it costs you anything. The only thing with a firm expiry date is the archive, so it is the one to prioritise before 5 November.