There Are No Firm Rules - Platform Residency - Walking The Blue Loop

Walk
8 miles
Start: Sheffield Basin
Time: 16:00
End: The Riverside (Public House)
Time: 20:05
Direction: Anti Clockwise

The Blue Loop is a continuous loop of waterways and riverside walkways in the heart of Sheffield, made up of The River Don and Tinsley Canal. It travels for 8 miles from the city centre and flows close by the communities of Burngreave, Attercliffe, Darnall and Tinsley.

The walk was made up of two distinct parts -

The Tinsley Canal section was a traditional towpath walk, starting from Sheffield Quays - a developed public area full of shops and cafe's, and walking east through an ever post-industrial landscape, of demolition sites, empty warehouses and industrial units, under the M1 and ending at the confluence of the Tinsley Canal and the River Don. Along the fishermen-dotted way, the towpath provided us with traditional summer fruits - blackberries, raspberries and some nearly ripe apples as well as the common wayside greens - dock, balsam, fireweed, nettles, etc.

The westward return route traced the River Don, back into the City Centre along a signposted civic route - The 5 Weirs Walk. The Five Weirs Walk is an 8km path from Sheffield City Centre to Meadowhall along the banks of the River Don. It connects to the Sheffield and Tinsley canal towpath, the Upper Don Walk, the riverside path to Rotherham and the Trans Pennine Trail. As with the Blue Loop,the 5 Weirs walk has an associated "friends of" group set up to manage and maintain the route - The Five Weirs Walk Trust Ltd is a registered charity set up in 1986, with a primary aim of opening up the 7.5km of River Don to public access through Sheffield's East End. 

This route was significantly different to the pastoral/post-industrial feel of the canal section. The easternmost start of the walk takes you through the faded 1980's leisure/retail-utopia of the Meadowhall Shopping Centre and from there, the route consistently ebbed and flowed, back and forth - away from the waterside into the urban hinterlands of Sheffield's outer city centre ( where there was no riverside access) - and then back to the civic-constructed waterside paths. Ultimately, we were stopped in our tracks by a gated, closed section - due to the time of the evening. 

No way forward in hours of darkness.

 

no way forward in hours of darkness

end

Of the Day - #2 - Book - Camping with a Purpose

As part of the There Are No Firm Rules residency at Site Gallery, we are constructing a resource library of over 200 books and magazines covering all of our project aspects.

No 1 in an ongoing Series

Book of the Day

Camping with a Purpose

by S.C. Warren-Wren

1954

130pp

"Camping with a Purpose will prove of the greatest interest to all youth leaders, organisations and individuals who are campers or who intend someday to become campers.

Among the subjects dealt with are: Good Camps. Dangerous Camps. The Law and Camping. Effects of Changing Social System. The Nomadic Camp. On Walking. The Standing Camp. Locality. Siting. Finance. Equipment. Transport. Organisation. Personnel. Duties. Timetables. Sea Bathing. Religious Observances. Mixed Sexes. Striking Camp.

Of the Day - #1 - Plant - Chamomile

Chamomile

Chamomile can be found in both rural and urban locations - often growing in cracks in the tarmac of roads and pavement but also seeming to thrive in areas of cultivated grain crops such as wheat and barley.

Amongst its many health benefits, including treating hay fever, inflammation, muscle spasms, menstrual disorders, insomnia, ulcers, gastrointestinal disorders, and hemorrhoids, Chamomile extract has demonstrated anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycemic and anticancer properties in tests.

This versatile plant is also often used in cosmetics products where its anti-inflammatory properties are key, and is also often used to enhance the color of blonde hair.

There Are No Firm Rules - Platform Residency - Friends Of The Blue Loop - A Visit

Today, we went along to meet and do some volunteer activity with the Friends of The Blue Loop.

The Blue Loop is a continuous loop of waterways and riverside walkways in the heart of Sheffield, made up of The River Don and Tinsley Canal. It travels for 8 miles from the city centre and flows close by the communities of Burngreave, Attercliffe, Darnall and Tinsley.

The “Friends of the Blue Loop” is a voluntary
group made up of members of the local community. Their volunteer sessions support people in gaining valuable work experience and developing new skills, which enable them to look after the wildlife and habitats of the Blue Loop. The group works with the RSC and Canal & River Trust to run volunteer sessions on a Wednesday from 10.30am-1.30pm. The location of these varies as the group covers the whole of the Blue Loop.

For more info visit their website

Dredge, Clean, Talk, Pick, Collect, Bash

For more than 5 years there's been a group of volunteers working to maintain, clean and conserve these adjacent waterways in Sheffield's mid and east city. It was clear from the beginning that, individually, the group came from differing backgrounds - and came together each wednesday for differing reasons - some interested in conservation of site, others for exercise and to get out - and for social contact.

The section of the Don's riverbank being worked on today was lined with the group's main concern - Himalayan Balsam - an increasingly common invasive waterside presence. And the associated activity, which we've since realised is a "thing" in natural conservation, is to "Bash the Balsam" - or to pull of much of it up by its shallow roots, without exploding its seed heads (which can number 200 for each head, and shoot new seeds upto 7 metres away).

In truth it seemed a touch counter-intuitive for us, as only a few days previously, the same plant had helped sustain us on our walk over the Peaks.

One person's invasion is another's opportunity?

We're back this week to do some more volunteering, to find out more from the group's members about their individual motivations, and to do the 8-mile circular walk.

dredge

bash

clean, collect

talk

balsam

talk

collect

There Are No Firm Rules - Platform Residency - The Walk - Report

Walk Report

Stoke-on-Trent to Sheffield

We wanted to put some survival and identification skills into practice.

 

Found edibles

 

Can we allow ourselves this?

  

The challenge was to sustain ourselves as much as possible with found food, we collected over 30 varieties to eat. However it was difficult to accomplish this when we were walking 20+ miles per day on a tight timescale. It was a valuable test, we only had rudimentary tin can stoves to cook on so preparing a meal took considerably more time and energy than it would with a well equipped hike. Mesolithic tribes covered about 4 miles per day which leaves plenty of time for collecting and preparing food and setting up camp.

Noticing the difference in food availability in different parts of the landscape.

And where would we compromise or fail.
Images from found food event at Site gallery where we discussed the journey: 

Themes of land, contemplation, nomadism are present in the current exhibition of work by Ruth Levene and Ian Nesbitt at Bloc projects, an artist-led space also in Sheffield. Their project is centered around the activity of walking a boundary line around Sheffield. Lots of shared concerns with these artists.

http://www.blocprojects.co.uk/ruth-levene-and-ian-nesbitt-the-boundary/