Sharston Materials Recovery Facility Tour

Posted on: March 20th, 2025 by mlpEditor

Experience first-hand where recycling happens! The Sharston Materials Recovery Facility processes recycling from nine Greater Manchester boroughs, expertly sorting materials like glass, steel, aluminium, and various plastics.

Our two-hour visit includes a comprehensive tour of the facility guided by the passionate Education Team. You’ll witness the story of the first stages of the recycling journey – from mixed to sorted – and on its way to becoming something else. Enjoy discussion time to ask questions about proper recycling practices and learn what truly happens to items after they leave your bin.

 

Important Information:

  • The tour involves walking and stairs
  • Casual clothing recommended (jeans and trainers ideal)
  • Safety equipment (including hard hats) will be provided
  • Please inform us in advance if you have pacemakers, insulin pumps, cochlear implants, or mobility needs, as we’ll customize the tour to avoid strong electromagnets used in processing
  • This educational experience is completely free of charge

 

Getting there

  • The site is at Longley Lane, Sharston M22 4RQ.
  • It is an 18-minute walk from Gatley railway station.
  • There is a visitor car park on site.

Manchester City Centre Peace Trail: A Guided Walk

Posted on: March 14th, 2025 by mlpEditor

Curious about the hidden stories of peace in our city? Come along with Steve Roman, passionate peace activist and storyteller, as we wander through Manchester’s streets uncovering the remarkable Peace Trail during Manchester Peace Week.

Meeting Point: Manchester Victoria Station, underneath the large, tiled map

Duration: 2 hours

Accessibility: It is suitable for people in wheelchairs. The route is paved and flat, apart from one slope. When we go through the Library there are lifts for those who need them.

 

Our Shared Journey

Together we’ll explore how ordinary buildings and familiar corners of Manchester hold extraordinary stories of peace activism and social change. What might we discover about our city’s evolving role—from industrial powerhouse to global advocate for justice and peace? Each stop invites us to see Manchester through fresh eyes.

 

The walk will include the following themes / sites with perhaps some new perspectives:

  • Migration and the movement of peoples
  • Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Manchester Cathedral and the campaign against Chattel Slavery
  • John Dalton, the “Nuclear Timeline”, the Peace Garden, MAG (Mines Advisory Group) and the Nobel Peace Prize
  • The Hidden Gem and religious tolerance, Free thinking and Science
  • The Free Trade Hall, Suffragists and Suffragettes
  • and, subject to time, Peterloo, the popular reform movement and Engels

 

The guide is donating his fee to charity

 

Join the Wider Conversation

This walk is part of Manchester Peace Week—a community celebration brought to life by CARISMA (Community Alliance for Renewal, Inner South Manchester Area). Professor Erinma Bell’s vision continues to evolve as we gather for this annual tradition, creating spaces where peace, safety, and harmony can flourish across our diverse communities.

Don’t miss the week’s culmination at the Moss Side Millennium Powerhouse, where the everyday heroes weaving peace into the fabric of our neighbourhoods will be celebrated.

Wonder more at: carisma.me.uk | discoverpeace.eu | manchesterpeacetrail.org.uk

Through the Shop Windows: A Victorian Salford Experience

Posted on: December 16th, 2024 by mlpEditor

Experience the magic of Victorian Salford at Lark Hill Place – a meticulously preserved piece of local history within Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

Step into an evening in old Salford, where gas lamps cast a warm glow over cobbled streets lined with authentic shop fronts rescued from the city’s past. This remarkable recreation, established in 1955, preserves the character of 1870s Salford through carefully salvaged features from houses and shops that would have otherwise been lost to time.

Wander down the atmospheric street with our expert guide and discover the stories behind the Music Shop, Toy Shop, Chemist and Druggist. Call in at the Blue Lion pub, the Blacksmith and Wheelwright, and peek into the Artisan’s cottage and Dressmaker and Haberdasher. Each shop window and doorway offers a glimpse into daily life in Victorian Salford, filled with authentic objects and products from the era.

Your tour continues into the Victorian Gallery, home to historic masterpieces that tell the story of Salford’s rich artistic heritage. Afterwards, enjoy complimentary tea, coffee, and biscuits while chatting about your experience (£7.00 per person).

Join us for an unforgettable journey through time that brings our local heritage to life.

 

Good to know:

The tour will start at 1.30pm. Please arrive in good time. We will meet at the Information Desk in the museum.

After the tour has finished, why not make the most of your visit by exploring the museum gallery’s current exhibitions at your own pace:

Guided tour of Victoria Baths

Posted on: November 27th, 2023 by mlpEditor

Discover more about the history and architecture of Victoria Baths: ‘Britain’s finest historic municipal swimming pool’.

The Grade 2 listed building was opened to the public in September 1906 and cost £59,144 to build. In his opening address, the Lord Mayor of Manchester described the building as a “water palace”. For 86 years Victoria Baths provided both essential and leisure facilities. Private baths and a laundry were housed there along with three swimming pools and a Turkish bath.

No expense was spared in the design and construction of the building, Manchester having at that time one of the world’s wealthiest municipal coffers. Many of Victoria Baths’ finest decorative aspects can still be enjoyed today. The facade has multi-coloured brickwork and terracotta decoration, the main interior public spaces are clad in glazed tiles from floor to ceiling and most of the many windows have decorative stained glass.

Whilst the facilities, architecture and unique atmosphere of Victoria Baths was enjoyed by local residents for many years, in 1993 Manchester City Council decided to close the building as they couldn’t justify the expense of keeping them open. A Charitable Trust was formally set up in the same year, with the aim of fully restoring the building and bringing it back into public use.

The Trust took control of the building in 2001 and in September 2003 Victoria Baths won the first series of the BBC’s Restoration programme. It was awarded £3.4 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and a restoration project began in 2007.

Whilst there is still a lot of work to be done, the building now hosts many events and has over 30,000 visitors a year. Join us for this tour to get a insight into Victoria Baths’ past, present and future.

 

Good to know: We will meet in the main entrance area. The tour will start promptly at 10.00am, so please arrive in good time. Refreshments are available – please see ticket types for further details.

The Human Condition in four dimensions: sculpture at Manchester Art Gallery

Posted on: August 31st, 2023 by mlpEditor

What can we learn about ‘the human condition’ through the artworks in Manchester Art Gallery’s ‘Out of the crate’ exhibition?

The gallery holds an early piece by the modern sculptor, Henry Moore, titled Mother and Child (1925), that will greet us at the start of this tour. This remarkable work seems to contain so much energy within such a restricted space. The emotional bond between mother and child is somehow intensified by the sense of mass and gravity.

Henry Moore said that sculpture was just an interest in shape and form and that anything at all (for example a tree, a cloud or a person) might provide the spark for a creative idea. And it is the extension of this notion that has enabled the frontiers of the genre to expand so that the more contemporary and ground-breaking works in our exhibition can challenge and provoke in the way that they do.

Perhaps it is because sculptures seem to occupy a similar space to ourselves that we find them so imposing. But how much do they reveal of the artists behind them and how well do they illuminate the joy and pain of human existence?

Join volunteer tour guide John Ward in an exploration of some of Manchester Art Gallery’s most thought-provoking sculptures.

Good to know: We will meet in the main entrance of the gallery. The tour will start promptly at 2.00pm, so please arrive in good time.

Conversations through time: Historic and Contemporary Art

Posted on: August 21st, 2023 by mlpEditor

How do Historic and Contemporary Art speak to one another at Manchester Art Gallery?

One of the most exciting things about the display of art at Manchester Art Gallery in 2023 is the cutting-edge contemporary pieces living in the immediate presence of dreamy seventeenth century landscapes, Dutch Golden Age portraits and world-famous Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces. How do these vastly different pieces relate to each other?

Take the example in the illustration here: on the left, a detail from George Stubb’s The Cheetah and a Stag with Two Indian Attendants painted about 1764; on the right, a detail of 14/73 by Jeremy Moon (painted in 1973). The one draws upon the deep well of age-old human experience. The other operates on the very frontiers of the unknown. But are these paintings so very different from one another?

Few subjects divide public opinion in the way that contemporary art does. But we are also reminded that a relentless creative impulse has always driven artists to explore alternative worlds in which they can then provoke, challenge and question. This is equally true of these two very different artists, George Stubbs and Jeremy Moon. Their works will begin the tour.

Earlier this year, novelist and critic Sarah Dunant spoke on Radio 4 of how when “the past is speaking to the present, it can be a rich conversation”. Join gallery Guide John Ward as we put this observation to the test, by taking several different journeys back and forth across the centuries.

Good to know: We will meet in the main entrance of the gallery. The tour will start promptly at 2.00pm, so please arrive in good time.

Guided walk – Manchester and Slavery: abolitionists and manufacturers

Posted on: August 10th, 2023 by mlpEditor

Explore the contradictions of the eighteenth and nineteenth century city of Manchester with regard to slavery.

This walking tour looks at how Manchester and the slave trade were linked – and complements the recent publication of the UCLan report, ‘The Manchester Lit & Phil and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1780-1865’.

The tour passes sites associated with abolitionists determined to remove the stain of chattel slavery, and other locations where slave-picked cotton was used by manufacturers – some of whom were also abolitionists. It examines the contradictions of the eighteenth and nineteenth century city of Manchester with regard to slavery.

During the tour, stories of key individuals will be shared. These people include the Heywood and Gregg families, Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Percival (co-founder of the Lit & Phil), John Edward Taylor, John Bright, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Gaskell, Abel Heywood, William Andrew Jackson, amongst many others.

Key moments of the tour will include:

– the Thomas Clarkson speech which led to the first abolition petition from any British town or city in 1788

– the foundation of the Manchester Guardian in 1821

– confusion over the ship on the Manchester coat of arms granted in 1842

– the visit of Frederick Douglass in 1846

– the pro-Union city during the American Civil war in the early 1860s

Tour guide Jonathan Schofield’s commentary will be lively with a clear narrative, guaranteed.

 

Good to know: The walk will start at 2.30pm and finish around 4.30pm at the latest. We will meet outside Manchester Cathedral. Please arrive at least 10 minutes before the walk start time. The walk will finish at the Edwardian Hotel (formerly the Free Trade Hall).

Mushroom forage with wild gin at Fletcher Moss Park

Posted on: August 7th, 2023 by mlpEditor

Join us for this foraging tour to explore fascinating Fungi. Each species has its role and its special connection and purpose in its habitat. There’s lots to learn, including how to identify mushroom species.

The tour will begin with a taste of wild gin made from foraged delights. Suitably fortified, and with staff and baskets in hand, we will then head off into the woods to see what we can find.

By the end of the session, you should be able to confidently identify two or three species of mushroom that we have focused on, depending on what is coming up on the day. If we find enough edible species, we will be able to have a fry up at the end and sample our foraged delights!

 

Good to know:

The foraging tour will start at 10.00am. We will meet at the entrance to the park on Stenner Lane, by the Didsbury pub.

Getting there:

Bus numbers 23, 42, 42A, 157 and X57 all stop near the entrance to the park. Tram stops Didsbury Village or Didsbury East are about 7 minutes’ walk away.

Great Expectations – at the Royal Exchange Theatre

Posted on: August 3rd, 2023 by mlpEditor

Come along to the Theatre Group’s visit to ‘Great Expectations’ at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

From the Royal Exchange’s website:

This adaptation of a classic by Tanika Gupta is just pure genius. You’ll get to see the familiar Dickens framework, but it comes with a twist.

All my life they looked down on me, always cursing and abusing. But you, you will be different!

Bengal, 1903. Rumours that the British Empire plans to partition Bengal spread and uncertainty is never far away. For one Indian boy destiny is found on the banks of the River Padma before the Goddess Lakshmi. Here a promise is made. Born out of terror or kindness the choice Pipli makes that night will shape his life forever.

Pooja Ghai directs Tanika Gupta’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Pipli moves from his home in Rajshahi to the bustling streets of Calcutta. With an open heart he navigates unforgiving darkness and unsettling friendships in his search for a better future. For Pipli, dharma – the right way of living, is never far away.

 

Lit & Phil members and friends are invited to book their seats directly with the theatre for the 2.30 pm matinee performance on the 20th September.

There will also be a post-theatre meal at Cote Brasserie in Manchester at 5.30 pm. This will be an opportunity to share our views about the play in a relaxed atmosphere.

Please email the organiser, Joanna Lavelle, via the button above if you would like further information or if you would like to join us.

 

Good to know: There will be an online pre-event discussion led by Dr Manju Bhavnani before the play on Tuesday 12th September at 6.30 pm via BlueJeans and an online post-event discussion on Tuesday 25th September at 6.30pm. Email the organiser via the button above for signing in details.

If you can’t go to the theatre on September 20th, you can still join in the pre-event discussion on September 12th and/or the post event discussion on September 25th.

Bat Walk at Broadhurst Park Local Nature Reserve

Posted on: July 18th, 2023 by mlpEditor

**New date**

Join us for this evening outdoor walk to meet the bats of Broadhurst Park, delivered in partnership with the Friends of Broadhurst Park Community Group. Bats have a vital role in ecology but are increasingly endangered. Broadhurst Park is one of the best places in Manchester to encounter them!

The Bat Walk will start with an introduction to these fascinating creatures and the equipment we will be using to detect them through their echolocation frequencies. We will then take a leisurely walk around the park, with the hope that we will see the bats just after sunset; the time when they start flying.

Good to know:

The walk will start at 6.30pm and finish at 8.00pm at the latest, to give us the best chance of seeing these captivating creatures.

Temperatures can drop at night so please remember to wrap up warmly. If you can bring a torch, that would be helpful, but is not essential.

We will meet at the St Mary’s Rd entrance to the park (close to the St Mary’s Rd/Joyce St. junction) the blue gate by the side of St Mary’s Nursing Home, Moston, Manchester M40 0BL.

Getting there:

Broadhurst Park is about ten minutes’ drive from the centre of Manchester and 10 minutes from the M60 (Junctions 21 and 22). There is plenty of street parking near the site (on Joyce St., round the corner).

Bus numbers 181,182 and 52 pass down St Mary’s Rd. Newton Heath and Moston Metrolink station is about 5 minutes’ walk away.

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