- Visit/Tour
- Arts & Culture
- Manchester
- 10 August 2025
Stone: An Historical Walking Tour of Manchester
View Manchester from a different angle
10 August 2025
10:30am - 12:30pm
£12.00
Overview
This walk looks at our city of Manchester from a different angle – how stone is used and the response which that triggers in us.
The city of Manchester is a collection of materials, each of which has a shifting place and meaning in the urban environment.
Stone is only one of these materials, but it is embedded in the fabric of Manchester in the form of some of our most iconic buildings.
Our Central Library is built from Portland Stone from the South Coast, the Town Hall is faced in Spinkwell sandstone from Yorkshire, and St Ann’s Church is a multi-coloured mix of sandstones from the north.
Across the city stone is a status symbol, a durable building material and an aesthetic choice.
This tour explores all of this and more, as well as asking the all-important question: how does stone make you feel?
Charlotte Coull
Charlotte Coull is an independent scholar and public historian with a PhD from the University of Manchester. Her thesis examined the agency of stone in the development of British archaeological practice in India and Egypt and her research interests include materiality, environmental history, colonial knowledge creation and public engagement.
Together with colleagues Charlotte leads walks around Manchester and you can find details at https://www.elementaltours.com/
You can find Charlotte on Instagram @drcharlottecoull, on her website https://charlottecoull.com and also on YouTube where she has a channel called The Applied Historian – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaX8AUBWCnAzx8aJAhpNTYQ
