Cultural Traces from Ordinary Places

Place explored through a personal selection of the lives, novels, art, architecture, poetry and history inspired by England's industrial era.

Welcome to my blog. I’m the editor and new to this sort of writing, off the cuff, in the moment. I’m going to enjoy writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it.

placesandculturaltraces.com is at heart a desire to link our past to our present. The dominance of the industrial era, for this country at least, appears to be over – for now. As industries disappear their cultural legacy remains. placesandculturaltraces.com is a gentle reminder of the origins of some of our culture – culture in its popular sense. Current contributors are white, retired men, previously employed in the service sector, surrounded by coal mines, steel works, factories, forges, and mills. These influences have shaped our personal cultural geographies. But we are trying to engage with more female and BAME literature, art, music, architecture, poetry, crafts, working class history… If you know of unsung cultural traces from ordinary places, let us know. And by the way, a lot (if not currently all) the references to date might be loosely called ‘northern English’. That is just because of where we live. But we hope that this site will not remain exclusively northern for long. That said, we really only want to have fun.