Our Walks

Our walks

Below is a list of the walks available from Walk Manchester. To find out when our walks take place, please view our walk timetable.

You can also download a summary of all of our walks here: Walk Manchester - Our Walks.

The Arts

Manchester Uncovered

A tour that cherry picks its way through Manchester unveiling it's hidden gems.

Walk the Boards Theatre walk

Trace the history of Manchester’s theatrical past and present.

Fac 51 Music walk

A must for anyone interested in music, this tour visits the shrines of Manchester’s best.

City of Culture

Discover the wealth of Manchester’s Orchestras, poets, playwrights, novelists, musicians and painters.

Take a trip on this musical journey from the Renaissance to the present day in the splendid company of Manchester's best. Hear the sounds of world premieres, the finest composers who came to this city, listen to both home grown and the international.

The Manchester Literary Walk

Join the bards, poets and playwrights of Manchester’s best on this literary romp through the city’s heritage.

Gothic Manchester

From the glories of the Town Hall; Manchester’s municipal cathedral, past the John Ryland’s Library; Manchester’s temple to knowledge, to the glories of Manchester’s actual Cathedral, this tour explores these outstanding structures and the treasures within them.

The Arts in Manchester

The World of LS Lowry

Relive the route of the shy rent collector, a landscape many understand to be the image of the industrial north, revisit places where he stood and explore the images and psychology of the man and city he created.

Pop Art to Picasso

Trace a history of the Art of Manchester from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Impressionists, the work of L S Lowry to the Street sculpture of George Wylie. See the influence of Any Warhol in the poster designs of Peter Saville and look at urban art on the streets of the Northern Quarter.

The Manchester Impressionist- Adolphe Valette

Explore the clouded spires, the reflections in the water, the atmospheres and passing moments of an Edwardian jewel. On this tour you can experience both painting and real subject in a uniquely hands on Manchester experience only matched by a trip to Monet’s garden itself.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

See the impressive collection of Manchester’s Pre-Raphaelite work; map the themes, the obsessions, the women, the progress of the movement and finish under Ford Maddox Brown’s 12 murals in the Great Hall.

The Manchester Murals

Explore this hidden treasure; see beyond the murals into the politics of Ford Madox Brown and the city that gave his commission. The tour is fascinating mix of great art, history and hidden meaning.

Architecture

21st century Manchester the birth of cool

Sleek and chic, bold and breaking the new frontier. Manchester is the 21st century city.

Architecture Revealed

Join this tour of Manchester and see everything from the Athens of the north to the soaring skyscrapers of the modern.

Architecture Revealed: Oxford Street to Saint Anne’s

Temperance halls, Towers and colonnades, Great warehouses, hidden churches, the glory that is Ryland’s Library.

Picc to Chips

Weave your way through some of the most interesting architectural designs in the city; Venetian copies, Scottish Baronial, Wedding cake decorative, modern chic, Edwardian Baroque the best of Building Design Partnership.

Gothic Manchester

Historical Manchester

"Up in Arms" - Manchester Fights Back

Burning Barns, A Bonnie Prince, Bunkers, the Blitz, secret tunnels and the effects of the Somme- Explore the Effects of the Civil War, the Boer War, the Jacobites, The Somme, The Blitz and Nuclear war on the city

Poverty and politics; Social and Industrial tour

Politics and poverty, cholera pits, mills and markets, relive the lives of Manchester’s Victorian poor. Scuttlers, hawkers, mill workers and political thinkers, on this tour you will meet them all.

Political Manchester; the radical outlook

From the library at Chethams, visit a collection of sites forming Manchester’s political and radical heart.

Victorian Food Walk

How a city feeds itself is a startling insight into how it works as an organism. On this walk discover not just what the Victorians ate; Tripe, ice cream, gruel, etc an insight in itself into the terrible social divisions of the day, but map the development of how they managed to get food to themselves

The Life and times of Frederick Engels in Manchester

His knick-name was the “general” he lived in rented accommodation under a pseudonym most of his life, he was followed by the Prussian secret police, he rode with the Cheshire hunt and his best friend just happened to be Karl Marx.

Life on the Left

From the peace gardens to the Suffragettes map out the places where human rights and many of today’s political rights were fought for and won in this notorious city.

The Great War Walk; Walk with the Heroes

Move through the First World War on the streets of the city with the heroes of Manchester.

Peterloo

Relive this epic day step by step. Go back in time on the very streets of this most Mancunian of outrages. Start with the politics, the characters and the day’s events; the charge, the victims and the blood-stained streets then finish with the legacy outside the Free Trade Hall.

Manchester Town Hall

Explore the city’s most magnificent Gothic palace and the men who built it.

Chethams

The oldest free lending library in the country, a seat of learning and excellence, now an elite music school.

Wrong Side of the Law

Murderers, body snatchers, mobsters, hangmen, rich men, poor men, beggar men; this is a walk through Manchester’s criminal underworld.

Rochdale Pioneers

One borrowed a wheelbarrow, pushed it into Manchester, one was guard on the longboat that despatched Napoleon to St Helena, 14 were Unitarians, 17 now lie together in Rochdale cemetery...

Formidable Women

They broke the mould of a man’s world, they challenged the rulebook, redefined what was acceptable and what was unacceptable.

Underground Manchester

Go deep underground into the subterranean world of canals, air raid shelters, hidden crypts, hidden rivers, hidden tunnels and much more. Relive the Manchester blitz of 1940 and discover some of the city’s most secret vaults.

The CO-OP

Without doubt the most influential organization ever to come out of Manchester. See how it challenged and changed not just Victorian England but the entire world.

City Explorers

Manchester Canals

Escape the noise of central Manchester, and explore the sublime heart of the city’s canal heritage. Roman forts, railway viaducts, cotton palaces, parks, secret tunnels, this walk includes them all and much more.

Northern Quarter

Radical Manchester’s spirit lives on in the Northern quarter, its music, its fashion, and its breweries its clubs and its art.

Manchester by Moonlight

Get to see the best of Manchester only lit by the romantic moon.

Castlefield

The Romans were here first then the world turned upside down as the industrial revolution poured into the city. Explore Castlefied’s rich past and present, now the epicentre of historical Manchester where rail, canal, bridge, railway line and museum create a visible reminder of where the city grew from.

The Rochdale Explorer

Know your town; relive Rochdale’s industrial past, its history and famous characters; the vision of the Pioneers, the independence of its political giants, the squalor of its working poor.

Pub Walks & Quizzes

Music nights, pre theatre talks or crime and punishment walks-ideal for office parties or groups over 6 who want to start their night out with a difference.

John Ryland Library

The jewel in the crown of Manchester’s already famous Libraries, explore the treasures of this Iconic building and unmask its secrets. Some call it the Taj Mahal of the city; maybe you will fall in love with it as well.

Strangeways Explorer

Riots, revolutionaries and Irish republicans, secret letters, prison breakouts and secret police this walk has them all.

Salford Quays

Closed in 1982 then completely transformed, the docks are now one of THE places to visit in the city.

Central Library Explored

Don’t miss this great chance to go into the very heart of Manchester’s Central Library. See how it reflects the best of the city; the Architecture, the art, the history, the culture, the music, the literature, the politics, the science and the diversity.

Can't see the walk you're interesed in?

We also offer bespoke walks - please get in touch with us via the contact page and we'll see what we can do for you.