Programme of tours for 2012 Heritage of Industry is delighted to announce details of our tours for the coming year. For more details on the trips click on the links below or visit the website http://www.heritageofindustry.co.uk
Our first City Safari of the year on 19th – 22nd April starts us off with an appropriate topic for those interested in walking tours obviously the boot and shoe industry! Shoemaking in Northampton was recorded as early as 1200 and grew into a major industry. Until 19th century shoe making was carried out in small workshops by hand but the introduction of machinery led to larger scale production. Sue Constable will help us explore the landscape of the shoe industry looking at current and former factories, the development of the town, and ancillary industries such as tanning and engineering.
	On the 10th – 13th May our next Safari will explore Mainz & Wiesbaden. Mainz the fortress and garrison town with a medieval centre but a 19th Century industrial aspect at Mombach where Waggonfabrik Gebrüder Gastell was making railway carriages from 1845 and Wiesbaden with the flamboyant neo-baroque railway station which once welcomed Kaiser Wilhelm II at his own platform make a fascinating grouping. Add enormous portions of good German pub food washed down with a metre of beer and you have a winning combination.
At the end of May the AIA Spring Tour this year is to the mid-West of the United States to join members of the Society for Industrial Archaeology at their annual conference in Cincinnati and explore some of the industrial history of the region. Before the conference we will be undertaking site visits in Indiana. During the conference we will take part in the SIA tours in and around Cincinnati and afterwards make our way north through Ohio to Detroit. There we will be led on a tour of the city by a local academic, writer and authority on the automotive industry so that might learn more of the once mighty industrial town.
		Our Safari in June takes us to the Fylde peninsula. Peter Forsyth will lead us in an exploration of Fleetwood, the first planned community of the Victorian era. Designed to be both a port and a bespoke seaside resort, which could cater to the trade and leisure needs of Lancashire’s rapidly developing industrial towns it became much better known as a deep-sea fishing port. After an examination of the rise and fall of the fishing industry we will take the tram to Blackpool to see how that town developed its tourist capabilities much more succesfully than Fleetwood.
In September we plan to Roam Round the Ruhr, the home of North Germany’s iron and steel industry, with Sue Constable. Based on local coal the whole valley from Duisberg to Dortmund became a conurbation of coal mines, coking plants, blast furnaces and steel works. To support this there was an extensive transport network including railways and canals and our trip will include aspects of all these features. On the list are the Zollverein Colliery (a World Heritage Site), the boat lifts at Henrichenburg on the old Dortmund-Ems-Kanal, the Hendrichs forge, with its 33 drop-hammers, which once produced millions of scissors, knives and weapons; and the Villa Hügel, the former residence of the Krupp family.
A fascinating mix of tours which will be fascinating, educational and fun!
For further information about any of the above please visit our website : http://www.heritageofindustry.co.uk or email on info@heritageofindustry.co.uk