Angel Meadows Sound Walk and Sound Drawing

A fantastic and enthusiastic group from Back-on-Track lead by Rachel Shore and myself spent a cool blustery afternoon in Angel Meadows.

We can learn a lot about the history of Manchester in the history of Angel Meadows. Isn't it fascinating how certain locations tell a story that speaks for so much more than its tiny geographical location.

Before you read our blog or see our images please take a moment to look at some of the history of Angel Meadows to give a bit of context.

The friends of Angel Meadows who worked hard to have the site regenerated into a public park in the 2000s have documented some of the historical context here:

http://www.friends-of-angel-meadow.org/page26.htm.

If you want to do this walk yourself - there is a well resourced walk on Discovering Britain that has information and maps and even an audio guide, it is called Slums Squalor and Salvation...

For us, we were exploring Angel Meadows as one of the only Green Spaces in the Northeast of the city centre. We gathered at the entrance by Angel Street, and were all astonished by how loud and noisy that part of the park was. But from there we embarked on a Sound Walk around the perimeter of the park, which took us away from that main road and towards the tram tracks at the bottom, as we passed under trees with yesterdays storm still settling down we were treated the most amazing sounds of the circling wind moving the leaves and creating that rushing, brushing, crisp, almost metalic sounds of the leaves moving through air. At certain parts of the walk we were treading over freshly fallen twigs and tree debris and the sounds kept changing as we encircled the main park.

Please see here for our sound drawings, leaf rubbings and reflections on listening in Angel Meadows.