[it's from Portland] a historical walking tour of Manchester's stone

The Material City- Stone tour:

What do different types of stone mean in the city of Manchester? How has the way we’ve used stone changed over time? How can stone take us to places beyond the city?

Join The Material City stone walking tour to find out.

We’ll meet in front of Bridgewater Hall and then we’ll walk approximately 1 mile over 2 hours to the main entrance of Manchester Cathedral.

On the way we’ll chat about fossils, erosion, and stone as a status symbol. We’ll be thinking about how humans have used stone, what stone has meant to us over time and environmental impact of quarrying. We’ll gaze at granite, Portland Stone, red sandstone (and more) then we’ll ask ourselves: “how does this stone make us feel?”

And after all this effort, we might discover that stone is not as permanent as we think.

What is “The Material City”

This is a project that gives you a different way of looking at an urban environment. The aim is to make you stop and think about the everyday things that make up the city of Manchester. Things like brick, tarmac, sandstone, and canal water; things we walk past, walk over, and ignore as part of the background noise. A Material City tour invites you to interact with some of Manchester's key components -water, stone, air- and learn how their material properties influence humans and explore the history of this influence in the urban environment. This is a mix of new materialism, environmental history, and urban history. Find out more on The Material City project's website: thematerialcity.com/