North West Sound Heritage has commissioned local sound artist Hayley Suviste to create a new sound walk around Chorlton Green and Beech Road, using interviews from The Manchester Studies Unit’s extensive oral history project from the 1970s and atmospheric sounds from the BBC’s sound effects library.
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Test our new Chorlton Soundwalk and get a free OBSOLETE SOUND ARCHIVE CD!
Chorlton Green stop: New Year, bands, maypole, suffragettes and WW1
Older adults (born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) were interviewed about their time growing up, living, and working in Chorlton between 1900 and 1950. Their clips bring to life what old Chorlton was like – from the smithy on Beech Road, to skating on the meadows and singing Christmas carols on the green.
You don’t need to download any software to go on the walk – any browser on your phone will open it up and play content based on your location.
There is a suggested route for the sound walk (A to B); however, feel free to explore as you wish. We advise using headphones and walking at a gentle and leisurely pace, listening to the audio in each section, and moving onto the next section when the audio stops.
If you can’t make it to Chorlton, you can listen to the tour from a desktop computer at home. To go on the tour remotely, go to the Chorlton sound walk, click Open, click Go when it’s loaded, click on the icon of the person at the bottom left, and then drag and drop the icon that appears at point A on the map into whichever blue area you would like to go. The clip will start to play over an image and a bit of text about the recording.
The full-length interviews are available to listen to at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre. Find out more about the Manchester Studies Oral History Collection.
Field recordings from BBC Sound Effects (bbc.co.uk – © copyright BBC). Images from the Manchester Local Image Collection.
Discover more of Hayley’s work at www.hayleysuviste.co.uk.
If you have five minutes, please let us know how you found the sound walk experience:
Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.