One of Manchester’s greatest resources is unfortunately coming to an end. The contemporary museum, the Urbis is going to be taken over by a football museum in February 2010. The Urbis runs walking tours of Manchester. Everything from music record tours, history, gothic history, underground history, and even a Northern quarter tour (including a coffee), for £3-4. They are an amazing experience, 1-1.5 hours of history and commentary making the city come alive. I’ve done a few, and certainly intend to keep ticking them off until the end of January. It is impossible to know the depth of history in Manchester without someone who knows the idiosynchroncies of a particular post box, or building that now looks like any other building.
Often as I walk and hear the commentaries I think of the irony around my coming here. The industrial revolution was the main cause of the mass exodus from the UK to Australia, and New Zealand. In other words, the reason I grew up in New Zealand. And here I am ‘back in Manchester.’
