Pop superstar Harry Styles' legion of fans will soon be able to get the proper walkabout through his hometown of Holmes Chapel.
'Harries' attending Styles' tour stop in Cardiff, Wales, June 2023.
The Holmes Chapel Partnership, a community group in the Cheshire village where Styles grew up, has decided to hold auditions for superfans – lovingly known as 'Harries' – for placement as official tour guides. As noted in The Guardian, the demand for these positions is so great that auditions will be held in late April, reminiscent of Styles' own X Factor tryout, with Saturday morning tours starting in June, in addition to weekday tours running until September.
No doubt who this crowd is looking at. Styles in Venice, September 2022.
The Cheshire village where Styles grew up has been inundated with fans over the past several years, all eager to visit places that shaped his life before his superstardom days in One Direction. However, many of these fans as noted in The Guardian, were "risking life and limb" to connect with Styles by visiting sites like the Twemlow railway viaduct along Macclesfield Road. Styles made the wall famous when he scrawled his name (since rubbed off) during the filming of his 2013 biopic This Is Us.
The 'vaulted' Twemlow Viaduct along A535 in Holmes Chapel.
The influx of Styles-mad visitors to Holmes Chapel amounted to over 5000 in the last year, mainly due to Styles' concerts in Manchester last December (which is a 40-minute train ride to Holmes Chapel). Although an unofficial walking map of "Harry's Trail" was available and led to an uptick in local business, the Partnership wants to make it official, with stops at Styles' schools, his former home on London Road and the Chinese restaurant where he squired onetime paramour Taylor Swift.
As it was, Harry. At the BRIT Awards, 2023.
The biggest draw has been W Mandeville's, the bakery that Styles worked at part-time, even up to his X Factor audition. A life-size banner with Styles hefting a loaf of white coburg is available for photo-taking.
According to the Independent, "Superfan applicants aged over 16 could secure the role if they are 'knowledgeable and enthusiastic individuals' who have 'a genuine interest in Holmes Chapel, its history and links to Harry Styles,' according to the job advertisement.
A half-day assessment session will be held April 20 at the Holmes Chapel Community Centre on Station Road to fill the paid positions.
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Though the past year has been a relatively quiet one for Styles, he had a monstrous 2022, when his chart-topping second solo album Harry's House won a clutch of accolades, including the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and the BRIT Award for British Album of the Year. Also that year, he performed his 15th gig at New York's Madison Square Garden, headlined the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and starred in two films with gala premieres at fall film festivals: Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darling and Michael Grandage's My Policeman.
