This trail through our industrial, ghostly past includes a haunted motorway and old dye works repurposed as cute cottages
Part one | Part two
Heritage tourism should be about crisis and decay as well as conservation. As Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley write in Edgelands, their psycho-geographical field guide, “England … offers the world’s most mature post-industrial terrain.”
We were first to turn the engines on, and the lights out. It’s a pity we don’t make more out of our working-class ghost past. In many countries, regions are packaged to curious visitors through trails typically themed around wine or a foodstuff or a path taken by invading forces or someone notable. Where is the UK’s textile trail, its cider-making highway, its salt road and its coal circuit? The towns below, scintillating on their own terms, also serve as access points to the hidden histories of contemporary Britain. Continue reading...
