28 November 13:30-16:30, including refreshment stops. Walking Tour, Meeting point New Adelphi Lobby (bring your coat and your brolly) with Dr Fadi Shayya
On the anniversary of Engel’s birth, join us for “Walking with Engels & Burns”, an urban walk through Salford and Manchester, taking in the cities industrial pasts and its present-day transformations. Following Friedrich Engels’s words and Mary Burns’s footsteps, participants will explore a landscape of streets, mills, railways, bridges, and high-rises that tell a story of working-class life, industrial innovation, and redevelopment.
Beginning at the University of Salford and moving through Ordsall, Deansgate, Castlefield, NOMA, Angel Meadow, and Ancoats, we highlight places where Engels and Marx once studied, and where Mary Burns introduced Engels to Manchester’s working-class quarters. With quotes from The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) we reflect on how Engels’s descriptions of poverty, housing, and urban life resonate today.
Participants will notice textures and materials, connect architecture with politics, and discuss how histories of labour, migration, and protest echo in the present city. Whether new to Engels or curious about Greater Manchester’s layered urban landscape, the walk offers a chance to see familiar streets with fresh eyes and join a broader conversation about cities, society, and change.
Finding the New Adelphi Building