Walks & Tours
Statues, Signs & Symbols
Next tour: The Manchester Bee and Other Spectacular City Symbols, Tue 16 Oct 2018 . Meet: Queen Victoria Statue, Piccadilly Gardens, 2.30pm. Ed Glinert is trawling the streets of Manchester locating every last interesting symbol that might reveal the really interesting history of Manchester. We will start with the ubiquitous story: the full story behind …
Continue reading
Lost Rivers & Canals
Next tour: No dates yet. Meet: Victoria Station wallmap (within spitting distance of three ancient waterways). What’s lost?: The Tib: gone; the Dene: nowhere to be seen (if it ever existed); Hanging Ditch: dried up. These are just some of the lost rivers and canals of Manchester. We will stay dry, or as dry as we …
Continue reading
Along the Ashton Canal to the Portland Basin (long tour!)
Next tour: No dates yet. Meet: Malmaison Hotel, No. 3 Piccadilly, time tbc. This is a big one, aimed at all you trekkers. We follow the Ashton Canal, from the city centre, past the steepest street in the world, the oldest skewed bridge in the country, Piccadilly Village, the Chips Building in Ancoats, the old …
Continue reading
Suffragette City/The Pankhursts
Next Tour: Sunday 13 October 2024, 1pm. Meet: Outside Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street. Booking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite. * This tour takes place on the anniversary of the Suffragettes disrupting the Liberal opposition’s rally at the Free Trade Hall in 1905. It is now nearly a hundred and five years (1 …
Continue reading
Le Corbusier’s Manchester
Next tour: Sometime in 2023, we hope. Meet: Outside the Mercure Hotel, Portland Street, time tbc. The two most powerful influences on 20th century architecture were the American Frank Lloyd Wright and the Swiss Charles Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier (“the crow”). Wright believed in working in harmony with nature, brilliantly seen in Fallingwater, the rural …
Continue reading
Manchester in the 1930s
The country torn apart by unemployment, turmoil and poverty. The world at the brink of war. But hey, let’s not worry too much about today. Things were bad in the 1930s as well. But all was not doom and gloom in Manchester. The east of the city was the workshop of the world; the Docks were …
Continue reading
Alderley Edge
Next tour: 2019. To be arranged. Meet: Alderley Edge station, time tbc. Join Steve Bourne for a lovingly long trek through this verdant, woody, colourful Cheshire setting, complete with local stories of fact and folklore: from the Bronze age to 21st century celebrities, with King Arthur, the Druids, copper-mining Romans, the Jacobite army and the …
Continue reading
Lindow Moss
Next tours: Sunday 12 August 2018. Meet: Wilmslow Station, 1pm. Put on your sturdy footwear to join our resident guide Steve Bourne for a walk through Wilmslow, followed by a spot of “bog-trotting” around Lindow Moss – a place made famous by the discovery of the “Lindow Man” in the mid-1980s. Dating back to the …
Continue reading
Macclesfield
Next tours: 2019. Meet: Macclesfield station, time tbc. Leave the Mancunian mills behind to meet the “Maxonians” in the only mill town that wasn’t bombed during WWII. With three former Roman roads meeting nearby, “Silk town” (or “Treacle town” as it is also known) has long been a major trading post between the Pennine Hills …
Continue reading
Marple & the Roman Lakes to Disley
Next tours: 2019, to be decided. Meet: outside Marple Station, time tbc. What a walk! This is going to be a long trek, through some of the most pleasing and delightful countryside in the region, so build up some reserves of energy and clean your boots. We start at Marple station and head downhill to …
Continue reading