The recent Clerkenwell Design Week “celebrated London’s creative hub with more than 160 showrooms, 600 events, thousands of products, installations, brand activations, topical talks and more”.
It also provided a modest opportunity to promote two new maps that I helped to create with the Footways Project, which charts quiet and enjoyable routes for walking in London, showing points of interest along the way.
One map features Clerkenwell’s radical history, and was created with support from the Peel Institute, help from local organisations, and guides Rebecca Walker and Philip Nelkon.
The other is an Historic Clerkenwell trail, developed from one originally created by Mike Franks in 1977.
CDW is big on pavement markers showing directions to showrooms, and Mike negotiated additional ones for the history trail with QR codes linked to the Clerkenwell Commons website. That site has an earlier version of the trail and vision for the Commons.
I’m hoping that the Clerkenwell maps will join other self-guided walks promoted on the Footways site, and that we may interest guides in creating some TikTok videos linked to the places of interest in the map. See David Harrison’s snappy shorts here.
Thanks to Footways’ Emma Griffin for turning map production around so quickly, Penny Dampier for photos, Peel director Olu Alake for support – and Mike for his long-term vision and inspiration.
There’s scope to develop stories linked to some of the key points on the trail, and feature those on the Layers of London site which offers more opportunities for text, videos, and image galleries. I’ve started a collection on Radical Clerkenwell here.
There’s also potential for linking up with maps and media developed in Farringdon for the September Bartholomew Fair, as I outlined here, creating a cross-borough-boundary Museum of the Streets.
More later on those ideas, when I’ve explored further what may be possible in the City.
Direct links to Footways maps: