Residents reveal stories for sound walk

Sat 17 and Sun 18 July 2010

Lucy looking over the rooftops from the top floor of the Heritage Centre

Joan sharing her experience working as a volunteer at the Heritage centre

Marion sharing historical information with Lucy at her house on the Causeway

Marion with details of a previous audio tour of Wirksworth (in her husbands studio)

Lucy chatting to Jez; Wirksworth's infamous postman at the Wirksworth Festival offices

Lucy and Evan discuss Jack Doxey at Evan's House on Green Hill

Evan standing outside his home at 63 Greenhill Lane, formerly inhabited by Jack Doxey

Wirksworth stories needed for sound walk

Click to enlarge poster

If you would like to share your stories of Wirksworth, please contact me at lucystevensaudio@gmail.com. I am hoping to be in Wirksworth on the following dates to discuss your stories.  Venue TBC.

July

Sat 3, Sun 4, Mon 5, Sat 17, Sun 18, Mon 19

August

Sat 7, Sun 8, Sat 15, Sat 21 and Sat 28

The story of Wirksworth

22 June 2010

St Mary's Church

Wirksworth is a small market town in Derbyshire, on the border of Amber Valley and Derbyshire Dales districts with a population of 9,000.

The Story of Wirksworth (based at the Wirksworth Heritage Centre) encompases the history of the town from prehistoric times to the modern day.  The prosperity of the town was built on lead mining which declined in the nineteenth century.  Quarrying and the manufacture of tape then became the principal occupations which have only recently died out.

Wirksworth Heritage Centre is a useful resource to residents and tourists wanting to find out more about:

• The Steeple Grange Light Railway, go on a journey through dramatic limestone scenery.
• The Town Hall built in 1873, the hall’s facilities are popular for leisure and social events.
• St. Mary’s Church is believed to date back to around 653 AD and contains Saxon carvings.
• The Adam Bede Cottage, made famous by Author George Eliot’s book, Adam Bede.
• The Gell family, a family of wealthy lead merchants with a 600 year history within the town.
• The textile mills, made famous for producing the red tape used on legal and government documents.
• Moot Hall, a miners’ court still exists, though the present building dates from 1814.
• Babington House, used as a workhouse and a hospital from 1724 to 1829. It is located on Green Hill.
• A short story A Wintry Peacock by written by D.H Lawrence during the bitter winter of 1918-19.
• The town as a host for television programmes, including Peak Practice and the BBC’s Casualty.
• Annual Well dressing events, to celebrate the arrival of piped water.
  
• The Puzzle gardens- a collection of houses perched on the hillside above the Dale.
• The remains of a Wooly Rhino found in the 19^th century at Carsington Pastures in the Dream Cave.

I found the following websites very useful when looking into the history of Wirksworth

www.wirksworth.org.uk A one-place-study of Wirksworth. This includes: census, church monuments, crimes, church wardens’ accounts, maps, a transcription of “Ince’s pedigrees”, monumental inscriptions, old photos, Parish Registers and wills collated by John Palmer.

www.wirksworth.net Wirksworth.net aims to develop a website to provide a digital information source to the people of Wirksworth and the surrounding area.  The resource will include opportunities for local people and groups to air views and to contribute content.

Where to walk in Wirksworth?

20 June 2010

After walking for 5 hours around Wirksworth, I have selected areas and buildings of interest, which will make up the sound walk.  The route for the walk will take approximately 17 mins.  I am completely open to suggestions for altering the walk to incorporate other areas and buildings, if residents of Wirksworth have an interesting historical, cultural or personal story that they would like to include.

Sun burn, blisters and a hand full of pigeons

17 June 2010

Its a lovely sunny day in Wirksworth.  I met with David Gilbert at the Wirksworth Festival offices on North End to discuss my proposal; Don’t Shoot the Messenger (a series of sound walks for the East Midlands based on a birds eye view of the city) for Wirksworth Festival, a contemporary art festival taking place over two weeks in September 2010.

Don’t shoot the Messenger proposal for Wirksworth Festival 2010- To produce a site specific, downloadable binaural audio sound walk, inspired by the adaptation of one of the most common ‘city birds’- the feral pigeon. ’City birds’ is the terminology given to species, always ready to exploit a potential food source or a suitable nesting site. The walk will take the form of a tour guide based on the exploration of public space, including spaces where pigeons nest and roost. The walk will address the notion of the pigeon as vermin and celebrate the important roles throughout history.

The soundscape will be constructed (via in-ear microphones), using layers of recordings including ambient sounds of the city, with directional instructions and a narrative. Visual aids (reverse graffiti or vinyl’s) will accompany the soundscape, to enable the listener to re-trace my footsteps. Using theories of psychogeography, the narrative will explore my own experience of the city as well as local residents and commuters and the notion of a pigeon’s perspective looking down onto the city.

The soundscape will engage residents of the city, including the bird watching community within the East Midlands, (of which I am a member of several groups) to build an accurate representation of the birds living within the city. It will also raise awareness of the cultural and historical references of the surrounding environment, using precise three- dimensional sound to create an experience of physical immediacy and complexity, offering the listener a multitude of sensations, leaving them unable to distinguish between what is ‘live’ sound and what is recorded. This method of immersion means that I am able to take pedestrians off their predictable paths, giving them a new awareness of their surroundings.

After walking around Wirksworth with David it became apparent that this area wasn’t exactly over- run with feral pigeons.  I did see a few wood pigeons, but not many, along with the calls of swifts, chiff chaffs, black birds and a song thrush.  Therefore the final audio walk will differ to the initial proposal based on the viewpoint of a feral pigeon, to reflect the immediate surroundings and wildlife of Wirksworth.

The Town Hall, apparently the pigeons favourite place to roost in the whole of Wirksworth

Green Hill, one of the many wonderful windy and very steep pathways