Today’s guest blog is by Capsule’s Sarah Lafford: Pose outside the Chelsea Hotel a la Patti Smith, visit the home of underground punk, CBGBs, or go to the ‘most famous club in the world’, the Cavern Club. Paying homage to the music we love should surely be an opportunity to display a certain level of [...]
The Still Walking thing is to reconsider various places and themes as tourist destinations and to create guided tours to explore them. The idea came after being bored once too often by official guided walks – listing every lord mayor the town has had, how many windows there are in the Town Hall – and [...]
Looking at Victorian Architecture can be like seeing evidence from an ancient civilisation, one far in advance of our own. Their buildings were designed to allow adaption and extension without spoiling an intrinsic harmony, but so often when we do, it is with an insensitive eye and clumsy hand. The new bricks don’t quite match [...]
There’s something of Sherlock Holmes about Neil Holland’s tour for Still Walking: Hidden in Plain Sight – The Sculpture of William Bloye. Bloye is surely Birmingham’s most prolific sculptor and the city centre contains dozens of examples of his work. But few among us would be able to identify his work if prompted. How is [...]
I like to introduce some of my guided walks with the observation that every square foot of our built environment is there deliberately. Someone has drawn, designed and created all of it (not the same person). It all has a job to do and the right – or adequate – materials have been chosen for [...]
Still Walking returns with a short programme of events to start the summer. What do Black Sabbath, Moss, The Golden Boys and Cradley Heath have in common? Possibly nothing, other than they’re all on the bill between Fri 31st May and Sun 2nd June (although do let us know if you think of a connection). [...]
Yesterday I joined Laira and Ellen to walk through the moss tour which forms part of the Birmingham Architecture Festival. I’d been excited about the tour since I heard about it a year ago: it seemed to exemplify what the Still Walking festival is all about. There’s no curatorial policy as such, but the festival [...]
Selly Oak: Discovering Traces I led a very enjoyable Still Walking tour on Sunday for Art Soak: I stepped in at short notice to replace the scheduled local history run through. The timing was good: over the previous two days I had led the Subterraneans and Invisible Cinema tours for the Flatpack Festival and Discovering [...]
This is a walk I’ve wanted to do for a while; or rather a destination I’ve wanted to get to, which on this occasion meant a long walk. The Uffington White Horse is by far the oldest of England’s hill figures, all the others are by comparison modern. Uffington’s white mare is about 3000 years [...]
The street I’m most familiar with in the world is Forest Road, in Moseley, Birmingham. I’ve been walking up and down it since 1994, possibly more times now than the street I grew up in. I think if you pace a street enough times, it becomes yours – your patch. This comes incrementally; when you [...]