Take an audio walk through a park in the sky above Manchester. We’ll walk a route that spans 130 years of history; where once there were trains now there are plants and pedestrians.

We perhaps associate the National Trust with stately homes, grand gardens and stretches of countryside but this episode may make you think again.

And how does the Castlefield viaduct link with an iconic structure in a famous British seaside town?

Kate Picker from the National Trust is our guide.

Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally Flatman

The music is Fade to Black by Howard Levy

Mentioned in this episode:

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“Despite the trams, despite being in the city centre, it does feel really calm and peaceful up here and it feels like you do come up out of the hustle and the hustle, hustle and bustle, sorry, of the city and you can actually have some kind of calm time up here.”

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We’ve got like a hedge that kind of creates a reveal for the viaduct as you come on and you'll see what we call the naked viaducts which is where we've left the sides of the viaducts. What's grown there is what grew naturally from after we'd done the work to construct the site so it would have been the natural kinds of seed and things that were in there so you can still get a feel for what was here before we put this garden on and it also lets you see a more open structure so it really lets you get the feel for it because it's actually a really beautiful structure with lots of overheads and it's very interesting to look at in and of itself, the viaduct.

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When I first came here, this is my second visit, I love it, I really love it, it was very obvious that this was not something where you kind of walked in and said right we're going to plant the whole thing. There were various signs that different community groups had been involved so how did, tell me how that worked? So one of our key community partners is Castlefield Forum and Castlefield Forum worked huge amounts in the local area and they've wanted something up here for a long time so they've been with us since the beginning, a member of the forum sits on our project board. So we've worked with them, I think, pretty much since this was kind of being thought about. And then the other community groups have kind of come along the way, so we started with a partner plot from Castlefield Forum and City of Trees who aim to plant I think it's three million trees, one for every person in Greater Manchester I believe and then they've been with us since we opened and then Sow the City's Garden that we're standing in with this lovely pond and Hulme Community Garden Centre's plot opposite, they've been here since December of 22 /January 23, they kind of came around then and then we do a lot of other partnership working as well but its and what our partners bring that’s really important so Sow the City for example, they run their social prescribing sessions from the viaduct from this plot. Some of them, they do stuff all over Manchester, but they've also worked with us off-site. So we have off-site partners too. We've done a lot of work in with partnership with 42nd Street, with MASH - Manchester Action for Sex Health Workers, with Guidance Hub, which is a multi-faith allotment in Cheetham Hill. So we're sort of working both on the viaduct with community partners, but also off-site as well, around some sort of supporting people to green their spaces across Manchester. And we have a new community workshop, which I must mention, which we put on, opened in February, and that's available for any community group to come and use for up to eight to 10 people. It's got a workshop bench space. It's got some equipment and things where people can bring equipment with them too. And they just need to get in touch with us if they want to hold a workshop there. And that could be for their group, or it could be if they want to have a workshop with the public, the visiting public. But we're keen to welcome people to use that space. So just go on the website and email us. If you would like to use our community space, if you're a community group, we can offer you for free.

09:26

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09:44

Do you have a favourite spot on the Viaduct? We're had it in it. I do really like the pond. It's just, I think, because it's a bit unexpected, even more so than everything else. It's like a pond, you've got a pond. And so the City's pond, definitely. And then I also, I always really like, the grasses in the centre as you come up, sort of designed to look a bit like steam. I always really like just running my hand through those as I walk past. Every time I might just give them a little brush. I always enjoy doing that. But I, you know, the whole thing's lovely. Shall we take a walk down it? Because it's stopped kind of raining. I know, which is amazing. That's because we had your umbrella. Yes. Wow. So we're looking up at skyscrapers really, aren't we, as well? Yeah. And you were saying when this started there was just one skyscraper and we're now looking at two. We're now looking at two, yes. Yeah, there was just the Hilton and now the apartment block behind it's gone in. So these are the grasses that you're pointing out. They are very tactile, aren't they? I like to do that as I go past. They're beautiful, aren't they? Just to wave your hand through. Yeah, well, I think anything that you can touch or you know, getting close to. And I mean, you've got silver birch trees. I'm slightly obsessed by having made a program about them and I'm now seeing them everywhere. But you really see bird life in them, don't you? Yes, yeah, we do. Yeah, we see quite a bit, yeah. In fact Ted who’s up here today has been doing quite a lot of work photographing all the different types of birds that we've got and things like that. So yeah, we are tracking what we've got up here. And we do, I mean we get a lot of what you'd expect, we do get the pigeons. But we also get a lot of smaller birds, songbirds as well. So we do get quite a bit of wildlife and we have ecology surveys which is sort of indicating that we've not, you know, we've only enhanced the kind of what's available for wildlife and what species are up here, which is great. And we have bats as well as underneath there's a roost. We don't get loads, we only get a few. It's not a full family roost, but we do get some bats up here in the evening as well. And we survey them. And this is your sound scape? Yes, this is our soundscape. Its very peaceful. Yes, it really is. And then I love this, this is the workshop area so you can come and garden with people, it's got everything you need to grow seeds. Yes, to grow some and do some sort of plant gardening based workshops, so if that's something that an organisation wants to do as a community offer, so it needs to be free community offer, they're very welcome to get in touch with us about using the space. That's wonderful, I love that. Yeah, holds about eight to ten people.

12:49

I was talking to someone the other day on an interview, someone who was just saying it doesn't matter how old you are, seeds, it's just planting seeds is just magic. Yeah, always. Whether you're three or whether you're 93, that kind of magic of when they emerge is just incredible. Yeah, and then nurturing it as it grows. And then we're now walking into the part where really it's as it was when you took it on.

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There’s a Blackbird, yep, lovely. Yes, yeah, most of this, it's interesting we think because we turned the seeds, you can see its different between what's here and then what's in the bit of the viaduct beyond, we've got a bit more going on here possibly because we turned the soil, but yeah everything in here came up from what was already, we didn't add planting in this area. That blackbirds having a nice little time. It's lovely isn't it, completely unbothered by the trams or anything else, or us. And then you've got the kind of buddleias that you always associate with train tracks, don't you? Yes. You always think of those, you see them from trains. Yeah, not surprising. Yeah, they get blown, don't they, the seeds? Yeah, we do get those.

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It's amazing how the girders really are quite beautiful aren't they? Yeah they are and we believe that it's probably got more than it needs as well so as well as some of them are structural there's also maybe a bit of aesthetic. This is one of the entrances into Manchester, you know you want it to look good and the crisscross might look a bit familiar because it was made by the same company that built Blackpool Tower. Oh amazing! Wow! So they didn't actually need this number of girders, it was more about kind of slightly... Apparently not, yeah, apparently it is probably a slightly higher number than you would need, so yeah, we do believe there might have been some aesthetic in it as well, as practical structural. Are there challenges with planting up here this high? Yes, yeah, my gardener could tell you more than I can, but one we did find was, we we're in our first year here and we planted some bulbs for spring and we discovered that the bulbs that we'd planted, the rats really enjoyed them so they got eaten by the rats. So we planted different bulbs this year and it's all been fine and so there've been little surprises like that and there have been our gardener's been kind of monitoring what's done well and what hasn't but we've got a little bit of a microclimate I believe up here. Apparently our air quality is a little bit better and she's been tracking some of that and where things are cooler than you might expect or warmer than you might expect. And we weren't sure how much the wind was going to impact us and things like that. So it's definitely been a learning experience for our garden team. How big is your garden team? So we have one gardener, Nancy, our senior gardener. Our team help out, our on-site team. And we have some really, really brilliant volunteers as well who come up and they've really, really worked hard and done a lot. And then our partners also come up and look after their plots and keep their plots looking nice too.

15:42

What surprised you most about the viaduct? How peaceful it is. Despite the trams, despite being in the city centre, it does feel really calm and peaceful up here. And it feels like you do come up out of the bustle and the hustle, hustle bustle, sorry, of the city. And you can actually have some kind of calm time up here. The extent of how that feels always surprises me. And how much you tune the trams out and actually just it feels quite, it does feel restorative I think. That's really interesting because I came here last year, end of last year and if you were to ask me about it I was like, oh yeah, let's think about the trams when we're recording because there's quite a lot of trams but I hadn't thought about it in my head, I don't hear them. No. And they're quite, they're not loud engine based, they're electric, you know, they kind of whoosh past rather than doing anything too noisy. So I think, yeah, you do, we have offices just in the city centre and when you're walking across the city and it's great, it's a lot of energy to Manchester, it's a lot going on but sometimes it's good to get a little breather from that and I think this really really offers that opportunity. Do you see that in people's behaviour up here? Yeah people do seem pretty calm up here, everyone's very, you know, having a nice stroll, they like looking at the plants. Yeah, I think we do and we certainly see it. We have a board in the building that you can write on the wall and say what you think and a lot of people will say calm, quiet, peaceful, restored. That's when we ask them how they feel, that's generally the response that we get. And where do they come from to visit? I mean, are they mainly people in Manchester? Are they coming from further afield? What do you think? They're both. So we do see most of about 60 percent, 70 percent, so 60 percent of our visitors come from Manchester or Greater Manchester because we do track all of this and then we get about 11, 12 percent of international visitors as well and then the rest from the rest of the UK so we do see tourists visiting Manchester seeing us as one of the spaces to come and see while you're here which is great as well but yeah the majority of our visitors have come from Manchester and Greater Manchester which is great because that was the voice that we wanted but it's lovely that people are coming from further afield and I hope that continues.

18:05

Have you been to any other Viaducts? I haven't. I would love to go to the High Line, love to go to the High Line in New York. But yeah, I haven't. And the one in Paris as well sounds really interesting, so I would very much like to. I think it's a specialism, isn't it? You really need to go and visit all the other High Lines just to kind of, you know, really, really embed that. I definitely would love to go to New York. The process of bringing all these planters up here must have been incredible, building here. It was quite a process, yeah. We were very well supported by Manchester Central, because that's their car park out there, and Transport for Greater Manchester, who own the car park, Manchester Central, who lease it from them, were both really, really supportive in helping us. The planters are actually quite light, they're core 10, because we do have to be careful of weight up here. So they look heavy, because they're metal, but they're not as heavy as they look. I think the really interesting one was when, and I wasn't here when they did this, but they craned the building in from the bowl down underneath us. They had to get a crane, crane it over the viaduct between the girders and sections and then put the sections together. So I believe that was that was quite a feat.

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You can check the opening hours of the Viaduct on the National Trust website. A planning application for Phase 2 has been submitted. I'll put some links on our plantstories.com, but this would extend the walk from 150 metres to over 350 metres. Under the plans, the gold medal-winning WaterAid Garden from this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show would also be relocated to this new section. One thing that strikes me about gardens like this, or the proposed Camden Highline, is the tenacity and determination of those who make them happen. I've written several times on the blog about the Camden Highline and recently I got to walk the route with the CEO of the Highline, Simon Pitkeathley. That episode will be coming soon. And I'm currently starting to record series three of the podcast, so if you have a plant story that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me, sally at ourplantstories.com.

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This is an independent podcast presented and produced by me, Sally Flatman.