Ed, Tom, Xenia & Aaron

Milton Keynes..... The Concrete City

My chosen place is my home town of Milton Keynes, this is like no other town in Britain and has a very unique identity. It is a very modern place, man made area. It is has been known as The Concrete City to the extent that even the cows are made of concrete. These cows are famously known as a part of Milton Keynes and have even made it to the News when vandalised.


Keeping with the theme of the man made city the image below shows the structure of the road grid system which consists of vertical and horizontal roads connected by many roundabouts. This is a very efficient road method and unlike most major cities with the complex one way systems. Most Cities follow the structure of an inner and outer edge but MK has many small communities within the grids.


The Point got it name for obvious reasons and before Milton Keynes had started developing into how we know it today, this was one of the major structures in the city. Since then larger builds with more design to them have been built. The Point showed the beginnings of the modern direction but has now been left behind somewhat in the ever expanding and developing new city of Milton Keynes.

The Ranges, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire

The Ranges is a public recreation area on the edge of the town of Hucknall. It is a place which, although relatively large, you'll only find if you're looking for it. It is almost completely man-made, and represents the old and the new, being created from an old spoil heap of the Hucknall and Linby mines.

It was sculpted into its present form by Nottinghamshire County Council, using money raised from landfill tax. It is these facts that make the spot all the more attractive; whilst the Hucknall community was plunged into deprivation following the death of the mining industry, remnants of that past have served to give the locals a nice place to go, which is a complete contrast to the victorian terraces which flank the area.

The view from the top of the hill looks down over Hucknall from one perspective, and turning 180 degrees gives the impression that you are in the middle of the countryside, which is a nice option to have just 10 minutes walk from your house. The Jewel in the Crown was added a couple of years ago to symbolise the area's new use; a £13000 4m high sculpture of a man walking a dog. Shame about the litter that's been thrown into it.

Ed's House, Nacton, Suffolk

For this activity I chose my home in Suffolk because it is a place I know well, and a very pleasant place to be. It is on the bank of the Orwell River and is in the grounds of an old deer park. The surrounding area is quiet and green, with only a handfull of houses and no surfaced roads. The only current commercial activity is that the deer park is used for raising a herd of sheep, however in the past there was an extensive oyster farming industry and the remnants of this can be found a few hundred metres along the shore from my house. There aren't a lot of people about, just people on boats and the occassional walker on the shore.

Welcome to the module!

Welcome to all the students who have signed up for the Living Places module. We hope that all of you will find the issues explored during the year interesting and stimulating, and that your experience of the module will be a positive one.

In today's workshop we have been getting to grips with the dynamic nature of places by considering what type of place Shakespeare Street in Nottingham is, how it is shaped by the buildings/institutions on it, and the communities that use it.

Now it's your turn to contribute to the blog! We want each of you to choose a place and to post a comment on the blog with a few lines about this place and why you chose it. You also need to post up to three images which you think encapsulates the nature of the place that you have chosen.

James and Kevin