Walk Manchester

Discover Manchester on foot with our creative guide to Manchester walking tours.

If you want to get the most of your stay in this most historic of cities, a guided walk may be your best bet. There are hundreds of guided tours on offer (all with qualified Blue and Green Badge Guides), who know the city better than the backs of their own hands. And the thing about Manchester is that you really have no idea what lies behind its innocuous-looking doors, shopfronts and buildings until someone tells you – and when they do, you’ll begin to understand the depth and complexity of a city that has inspired the world for hundreds of years.

To get you started, here are our top three guided walks for this season:

Tour of the Radisson (the former Free Trade Hall)

Explore one of Manchester’s most historic sites, from the signed wall to the story of the Peterloo Massacre. Walk starts outside Manchester Central. 21 Feb & 25 Apr, £6/£5.

Show me Deansgate

Politics, filthy rich, filthier poor, death, war, sex, stunning architecture and cutting edge Manchester, all on one street. Walk starts at Chetham’s School of Music, Main Gate, Long Millgate. 11 Mar. £6/£5.

Town Hall Tour

No visit to Manchester is complete without a visit to this spectacular Victorian building, the focus of Mancunian public life over generations. Walk starts at the Town Hall. 14 & 28 Feb, 4, 28 & 31 Mar, 11, 25 & 28 Apr. £6/£5.

To book one of the tours listed above or find out about the many other guided walks on offer in Manchester (believe us, there’s a walk for everything in this city), contact the Visitor Information Centre on Lloyd Street (M60 2LA), call 0871 222 8223 or email touristinformation@visitmanchester.com.

Alternatively, you can download a series of free walking tours at Visit Manchester or Industrial Powerhouse.

Image: Castlefield, Susie Stubbs.