You Are Here

Fears | Boring | Chip (Nutsford Vale Soundscape)

Sound design by Oscillate

A soundscape created using field recordings gathered in Nutsford Vale

Nutsford Vale sits in a quiet dip between roads and houses - once a clay pit, later a landfill, now a park. It’s a place shaped by layers, histories and reinvention.

This soundscape gathers sounds and textures from the park, creating a layered, atmospheric reflection of the space as it is and was.

Part of You Are Here, a podcast from Levenshulme Old Library featuring five original short stories, soundscapes, and audio portraits inspired by Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces.

Produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space and supported by Arts Council England.

Explore the full project here: levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here

We’d love to hear what you think — share your feedback here.

Nutsford Vale – Portrait of the Park

Produced by Levenshulme Old Library

Sound design by Oscilloscope

Nutsford Vale was once a clay pit, then a landfill - now it’s a green space shaped by care, campaigning, and community vision.

In this portrait, we hear from the people who helped make that transformation possible. Their reflections reveal the long, determined effort behind the park’s existence, and the quiet pride in seeing it grow into a space for future generations.

Part of You Are Here, a podcast from Levenshulme Old Library featuring five original short stories, soundscapes, and portraits inspired by Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces.

Produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space and supported by Arts Council England

Explore the full project: levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here

We’d love to hear what you think — share your feedback here.

Tripe

Written and performed by Verity Platt

Set in Nutsford Vale

Marta walks through Nutsford Vale, her thoughts drifting between motherhood, inheritance and the body - the weight of care and the strange rituals that shape our days.

Set in a park that was once a clay pit, then a tip, Tripe is a lyrical, layered meditation on usefulness, repetition and the uncanny that quietly lurks on the edges of ordinary life.

Verity Platt is a writer from Manchester whose work explores the intersections of place, and memory. Her fiction draws on folklore, domestic life, and the body.

You Are Here is a podcast from Levenshulme Old Library featuring five original short stories inspired by Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces.

Levenshulme Old Library is a community-led arts and culture space in South Manchester. Based in a former Carnegie library, it supports local creativity through workshops, performances and place-based storytelling projects that reflect the neighbourhood’s unique character and voices.

The podcast is produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space, and supported by Arts Council England.

Series editor: Richard V. Hirst

Production and sound design: Oscillate.

Explore the full project at: levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here

We’d love to hear what you think — share your feedback here.

Truck | Intelligible | Gains (Fallowfield Loop Soundscape)

Sound design by Oscillate

A soundscape created using field recordings gathered on the Fallowfield Loop

The Fallowfield Loop curves through South Manchester - a former railway line turned walking and cycling route, lined with overgrown platforms, graffiti, birdsong and nature.

This soundscape captures the fragments of life that echo along the Loop. Built from field recordings made on location, it offers a different way of listening to the park: not a story, but a space - shifting, layered, and full of atmosphere.

Part of You Are Here, a podcast from Levenshulme Old Library featuring five original short stories, soundscapes, and audio portraits inspired by Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces.

Produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space and supported by Arts Council England

Explore the full project: levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here

We’d love to hear what you think — share your feedback here.

Fallowfield Loop – Portrait of the Park

Produced by Levenshulme Old Library

Sound design by Oscilloscope

The Fallowfield Loop follows the path of an old railway line - now a walking and cycling route lined with trees, graffiti, and fragments of the city’s past and present.

In this portrait, we hear from the people who helped shape the Loop as a public space, a local resident passing through, and writer Valerie O’Riordan, who reflects on the space as the setting and inspiration for her story Litter.

Part of You Are Here, a podcast from Levenshulme Old Library featuring five original short stories, soundscapes, and portraits inspired by Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces.

Produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space and supported by Arts Council England

Explore the full project: levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here

We’d love to hear what you think — share your feedback here.

Litter

Written and performed by Valerie O’Riordan

Set on the Fallowfield Loop

A man follows his ex-wife along a local litter-picking route, trying to make sense of the past, the future and what it means to let go.

Set against the backdrop of the Fallowfield Loop, Litter is a story of disconnection, stubbornness and longing - and the way even the most familiar spaces can become sites of confrontation and reckoning.

Valerie O’Riordan is a writer and lecturer in Creative Writing at Greater Manchester University. Her short fiction has appeared in Litro, The Lonely Crowd, The Manchester Review, among others.

You Are Here is a podcast from Levenshulme Old Library featuring five original short stories inspired by Levenshulme’s parks and green spaces.

Levenshulme Old Library is a community-led arts and culture space in South Manchester. Based in a former Carnegie library, it supports local creativity through workshops, performances and place-based storytelling projects that reflect the neighbourhood’s unique character and voices.

The podcast is produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space, and supported by Arts Council England.

Series editor: Richard V. Hirst

Production and sound design: Oscillate.

Explore the full project at: levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here

We’d love to hear what you think — share your feedback here.

You Are Here: Five Short Stories About Parks in Levenshulme

You Are Here is a podcast of five original short stories, each inspired by one of Levenshulme’s green spaces. Written by some of Manchester's finest authors, these stories blend fiction with place, shaped by the histories, landscapes and lives that pass through them.

Alongside these stories, the series also features portraits of the parks -episodes capturing the voices of people who use these spaces - and immersive soundscapes that bring the locations to life through audio.

The full series launches on 24th April 2025. Until then, head to levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/you-are-here to find out more, and follow @levyoldlibrary on Instagram.

Levenshulme Old Library is a community arts and culture space, supporting creative projects, performances, and events for the local area.

Music by Oscilloscope.

You Are Here is produced by Levenshulme Old Library, commissioned by The Space, and made possible by Arts Council England.