Breathing   S  p  a  c  e  s

In July we ran workshops in Swinton Grove Park searching for, identifying and then exploring the oldest Mulberry Tree in Greater Manchester. We found that Swinton Grove Park actually has two! One is the oldest tree, and must have been part of the park when it was the gardens of Elizabeth Gaskell's house before it was gifted to the people of Manchester. The other is a younger Mulberry tree gifted to the park by Elizabeth Gaskell's House in a nice circular path. We stood and im

After reading Anthony Hall's brilliant description of his experiences walking with Alison Lloyd and Cora and Dave of Glassball the previous week and when I saw that there was another walk that fell into a time I could manage to attend I signed up straight away. I am so glad I did. I drove over from Manchester early in the morning and managed to contour the steep and narrow Church Lane approach to Diggle without encountering any oncoming traffic, as I emerged at the top where

Within the range of my middle age lifespan, I have already seen many changes to familiar spaces. I have in mind two contrasting examples. The first is Mayfield, sited along the banks of the River Medlock, wedged between the railway line into Piccadilly station and the Mancunian Way. When I first moved to Manchester this area was for me the archetypal decaying urban district of Victorian warehouses and more modern industrial units. I didn’t know the Medlock was even ther