Walking a nineteenth century street

I wrote yesterday about the fact that ‘Radwinter’ my novel about a family in search of their roots, is the first story i have written which has involved proper research. Because it is looking at how someone might explore their past, it is done from a twenty-first century point of view, so I haven’t had to immerse myself in what it must have been like to live a hundred and fifty years ago; even so my main character who is doing the research, tries to imagine what it must have been like for his ancestors to live in poverty, sleeping rough in the 1830’s, living in a Workhouse, walking the streets of a nineteenth century seaport, or labouring in a brickworks as the nineteenth century building and housing boom takes off.

We were in Salford recently and visited the excellent museum there, and downstairs was a reconstruction of Lark Hill Place: “an atmospheric re-creation of a typical northern street during Victorian times. The street is set at the turn of the last century, although many of the items are older to show development over time. The ambience is set at teatime on a winter’s evening when the street gas lamps have just been lit. The sounds of children playing, horse-drawn carriages and a ‘knocker-upper’ fill the street. Walk down the street and take a peek inside the any shops and houses, including a toy shop, chemist, grocers, a blacksmiths and an artisan’s cottage. Lark Hill Place was originally created in 1957 when many shops and houses in central Salford were being demolished to make way for new developments. Many of the shop fronts that are in Lark Hill Place today were saved and restored. The interiors have been furnished and are full of authentic objects, recreating the way they were used in Victorian times.”