Walking Heads is delighted to collaborate in a new Nottingham audio tour. As in Glasgow, creative industry is reinventing the post-industrial city.  Here Lucy Brouwer describes the making of Nottingham Creative Quarter audio tour and what it reveals about new life in an old city.

 

old buildings reflected in modern glass window, an image on Nottingham audio tour

PICTURE ©LAMAR FRANCOIS HTTP://WWW.PICTUREDBYLAMAR.CO.UK/

When I pitched the idea of an audio walking tour, like the ones I had worked on for Walking Heads in Glasgow I didn’t realise quite what I was letting myself in for…

Around a year later and the Nottingham audio tour is complete. I’ve met dozens of interesting people who are transforming Nottingham into a vibrant, creative space.

Why make a Nottingham audio tour?

These days, Nottingham has thriving art and music scenes, independent shops, decent coffee and even the first independent UK book shop to be opened this century, Five Leaves Books.

Working in association with Walking Heads, my colleagues based in Glasgow, we realised that these two great post-industrial cities have much in common. They are re-inventing themselves for the challenges of the 21st century.

Using the GuidiGO platform, the beautifully illustrated audio tour looks at the history of the area of Nottingham now designated as The Creative Quarter. There we meet some of the people who work in the varied creative industries in the area.

A lacy composite of Nottingham buildings

LACE MARKET SQUARE (CQ), THE ADAMS BUILDING, BACK DOOR DETAIL, BROADWAY & BIRKIN BUILDING (GEOGRAPH.ORG.UK)

Lace weaves through the tour which takes in The Lace Market, Hockley and Sneinton Market. We visit New College Nottingham, where students of art and design learn their trade, and meet established independent craft practitioner Debbie Bryan who takes inspiration from the Nottingham’s lace heritage.

We find hidden gems in unexpected places, like a Morris & Co window in the largest pub in town. And drop in for a chat with cultural magazine Left Lion, who bring Nottingham musicians, actors and writers into the limelight.

churches and galleries

UNITARIAN CHURCH WINDOW BY MORRIS & CO; NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY DETAIL (GEOGRAPH.ORG.UK), ST MARYS ON LIGHT NIGHT (KEVIN MARSTON); THE GALLERIES OF JUSTICE (GOJ).

Contemporary culture is an exciting mix. We will visit the well established cinema and film centre at Broadway – and the newer “playable building” that is home to the National Videogames Arcade. Finally we step through the gate of the transformed Cobden Chambers to find independent businesses getting established with the help of Creative Quarter.  Not to mention (though we must) tales from Dawn of The Unread, where Nottingham’s literary past weaves through the history of textiles and architecture.

The tour is narrated by Nottinghamshire-born Dorothy Atkinson and we recorded at JT Soar, a nearby studio & music venue which used to be a Fruit and Veg warehouse.

Dorothy Atkinson at Sneinton Market, a stop on Nottingham audio tour

DOROTHY ATKINSON AT SNEINTON MARKET

The tour features archive photos from Picture The Past, who have kindly let me use images as a pilot scheme.

This article first appeared on Lucy Brouwer blog is reproduced with Lucy’s  permission.  The feature image is Ghosts of Saturday Night, a slow release photograph of cab trails through Nottingham Lace Market by DncnH