On Saturday Miles and I were at the awesome Manchester Histories Festival held in the impressive neo-gothic Manchester Town Hall.

We were invited by Manchester Archives Plus who have been pinning photos from the Greater Manchester County Records and films from the North West Film Archive.

We really enjoyed introducing people to Historypin and showing off the Tours and Collections put together by Alison from Manchester Archives (who you may remember interned with us last year).

But the best bit was seeing and hearing about all the different project’s going on to find, capture and explore Manchester’s histories. A few of our favourites:

52 Manchesters – Did you know that there are 52 Manchesters around the world?!  Towns, dams, mines, from Nova Scotia to Boliviar to Australia. And Chris and Liz are going to visit them all to create a photographic record of them. We’re really inspired by their feat and hope they will do some pinning along the way too. Find out more about their plans here.

Histonauts – A digital treasure hunt game that sent participants (Histonauts) running round the city with their smartphones on missions to discover Manchester’s secret histories through online clues. Brilliant way to take the Manchester Histories Festival onto the streets and into online cultural collections. Created by the Institute for Cultural Practices  and the UniverCityCulture at Manchester University. Find out more and see the leaderboard and read more here.

Streets Museum  - A fascinating project working with locals to collect photos, objects, films and oral histories from lost streets in Salford which have been demolished over the past 50years. They are working to create an online Streets Museum were Salfordians can search for and commemorate their districts and streets.

Thanks to Alison and Dave for inviting us and involving Historypin in all sorts of games and Tours during the week.

PS. A modern replica of the room we were in: