The Ironworks Line
Riveted spans, slag-brick warehouses, and the crane that unloaded the city's first sheet glass. The river did the heavy lifting; the buildings still show it.
2.4 mi2 h 30ascent 40 ftmeets: the tide gauge
Four routes, one city, surveyed on foot and inked by hand. Pick a line on the plate, or read the waybook.
Walking tours · on foot only
Architecture walking tours of [set your city]
The homepage is the map. Drag the plate, follow an inked line, open a pin. Prefer words to wayfinding? Switch to the list.
Sample plate: redrawn per cityThe Colonnade Circuit
Banking halls that wanted to be temples, a courtyard of ghost signs, and the exchange steps where grain prices once travelled by pigeon.
1.6 mi1 h 45level throughoutmeets: exchange steps
The Rise Ascent
From the almshouses to the cathedral parapet, up the only street that kept its medieval roofline. Bring shoes with opinions about cobbles.
2.1 mi2 h 00ascent 210 ftmeets: lantern gate
The Glasshouse Meander
Victorian glasshouses, a terrace of model housing built to shame the slums, and a street that spent its first sixty years as a canal.
2.8 mi2 h 45ascent 60 ftmeets: garden east gate
Legend: 01 solid · 02 dashed · 03 dash-dot · 04 long dash. All routes walked weekly, rain honoured.
Drag to pan · scroll to zoom · plate focused: arrows pan, + and − zoom, 0 recentres
The waybook: all four routes in walking order
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The Ironworks Line
Riveted spans, slag-brick warehouses, and the crane that unloaded the city's first sheet glass. Starts at the tide gauge on Navigation Row and follows the north bank downstream. Full field notes on its own page.
2.4 mi · 2 h 30ascent 40 ft · meets: the tide gauge -
The Colonnade Circuit
Banking halls that wanted to be temples, a courtyard of ghost signs, and the exchange steps where grain prices once travelled by pigeon. A level loop around Old Exchange; good in any weather.
1.6 mi · 1 h 45level · meets: exchange steps -
The Rise Ascent
From the almshouses to the cathedral parapet, up the only street that kept its medieval roofline. The climb is honest and so are the views. Bring shoes with opinions about cobbles.
2.1 mi · 2 h 00ascent 210 ft · meets: lantern gate -
The Glasshouse Meander
Victorian glasshouses, a terrace of model housing built to shame the slums, and a street that spent its first sixty years as a canal. Ends at the garden gates as the light goes long.
2.8 mi · 2 h 45ascent 60 ft · meets: garden east gate
02 · The guide
Who walks in front
[Set your guide's name] has spent [set years] reading this city at walking pace: survey maps in the archive, ladders on site, and a notebook that never quite dries out. Training as [set your credential, e.g. an architectural historian or a conservation architect] is stated here plainly, then proven on the pavement.
"Stand on the corner by the tide gauge at nine and watch the sun clear the parapets one bay at a time. The whole terrace is a sundial. That is the sort of thing I will keep pointing at until you see it too."
Groups stay small enough to stop in doorways without becoming an obstruction: twelve walkers at most, usually fewer. Questions are not an interruption; they are the route.
- Group size
- 12 at most, every walk
- Pace
- Unhurried: roughly a mile an hour, with long stops
- Weather
- Walks run in rain; plates are waterproof, guides nearly
- Languages
- [set your languages]
03 · Stations
How a walk runs
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Muster
We gather at the meet point printed on your slip, ten minutes before the hour. You get a folded copy of the plate, yours to keep and annotate.
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The line
We walk the inked route exactly as drawn: no coaches, no shortcuts. Every stop is a building you can stand in front of and question.
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The vantage
Each route ends somewhere with a view that explains the rest of it: a parapet, a bridge, a garden gate. We stop talking and let the city finish the argument.
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The margin
Afterwards, a reading list and the day's field notes arrive by email. No mailing list follows unless you ask it to.
04 · Provisions
Before you set out
- What a place costs
- [Set your price] per walker, paid on confirmation. Under-16s walk free with an adult. Private commissions are quoted per group.
- Boots and ground
- Pavement and cobbles throughout; the Rise Ascent climbs 210 ft on setts. Nothing technical, everything uneven. The Colonnade Circuit is the step-free route.
- Weather
- Walks run in rain and wind. We only cancel for ice or storm warnings, and then you choose a new date or a full refund. [Set your refund terms.]
- Cancelling
- Change or cancel up to 48 hours before muster for a full refund, by reply to your confirmation email. Closer than that, we will move you to another date once without charge.
05 · The survey
This site, measured
128 KB
Homepage, gzipped
Map, all four fonts, styles and script included
5.7 KB
JavaScript, gzipped
Pan, zoom, pins, folio and slip
0
Dependencies
No frameworks, no trackers, no tiles server
4
Font files
Spectral and Commissioner, self-hosted
06 · Commissions
A route drawn for your party alone
"Give me a date, a starting corner, and the thing your group argues about at dinner. I will draw a line through the city that settles it, or at least improves the argument."
Private walks for studios, schools, and stag-do escapees of taste. Any route above, or a bespoke line surveyed for the occasion. Twelve walkers at most, as ever.
07 · Reserve
Make up a slip
While you write, this page keeps a rough copy of the slip in your browser on this device alone. It travels nowhere else, and it is rubbed out the moment the slip goes off.