Make Your Way | Glassford What can you see? Where can you go?

A Periscope Walk around the village of Glassford.

- Mark Archibald, Archibald Photography, Make Your Way Project Photographer

Getting involved in the Make your way project is a brilliant way to really get to know and explore your own home environment. The project is being created to help encourage active travel and route finding in the towns of Glassford, Carluke, Larkhall, Lanark and Stonehouse.

If you get the opportunity to come along to one of the "What can you see? Where can you go?" Periscope walks, you should definitely jump at the chance. They are absolutely brilliant fun for any age group.

The periscope itself uses a series of angled mirrors to provide an alternative view of the world around us.

On this walk in Glassford, we set out from the town hall with a view to finding our route using an "algorithmic walk"...! Never heard of that? Neither had I. An algorithmic walk is where you follow a pre-determined set of route instructions from wherever you decide to start. In our case we followed; next right-next left-next left-second right and then stopped to view through the periscopes and take some photographs of what we found. What a unique way of exploring an area!

Exploring your local town through the periscope is a brilliant way of noticing things you may not have noticed before and framing views which you can then photograph or find out more about.

Take a look at some of the photographs with views through the periscope below. It allows you to see under or over objects and into places you would simply never think to look. On the Glassford walk, we experimented with looking into areas it was simply impossible to see without the periscope. This led us to make a bit of a spooky discovery!!! Underneath a table-top gravestone there was a carved skull and crossbones, completely invisible without using mirrors. Why had the stone-mason put it there? I imagine that nobody had laid eyes on this for close to one hundred years.

  On the walks so far, the kids have really enjoyed getting views over walls and hedges and into out of reach places...  The brilliant thing about the algorithmic walk concept is that it takes you to places out of your common path. Making you explore! And often taking you to some stunning views.    Some views through the periscope itself...    

The next periscope walk is taking place in Carluke on saturday 17th December at 11 am from the market square. All these walks are free...you can book a place or simply turn up on the day. Find out more about the Carluke walk by visiting the event page below.