Walk the planks in Chelmsford, 2018
When you travel to the Essex Record Office for the first time, you have to make sense of all those rivers when coming from the city centre on foot.
I ended up on King’s Head Walk with a bridge ahead to get you across to the Record Office. What you notice is that when bicycles cross they make quite a racket as it’s planked and the planks seem to be quite loose. Of course when I got to the bridge there wasn’t a bike in sight or they were peeling off through a car park so, just had to wait.
You hear aircraft, first of all, loud, these are 2 single engine planes exactly the same in tandem followed by a third exactly the same, someone crosses on foot, building work goes on and finally 2 bikes cross close together.
Not a great recording, it’s not as “wide” as it actually sounded, I used my bag as a support and to try and make a wind shield, I also put it down on the floor to get it nearer to the sound but the planks are so mobile the bag jumps up and down and you get a bit of rustle.
The Record Office people are only a little way away, I don’t know if any of them travel by foot, bike or cross that bridge (which I don’t know the name of) but they might be able to find 10 minutes or so to pop out one lunchtime to do it properly.
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I couldn’t find a name for the bridge anywhere so that’s nice to know, I do think I’ve got the river names back to front though.
The bridge does carry traffic at the moment I suppose but I think I’d prefer to hear bicycles rattling across rather than the hum of cars.
Thank you! This is an especially nice recording, because these sounds might not be around for much longer. Apparently the bench is due to be replaced to allow cars to cross over, to give another point of access to Wharf Road for all the flats they are building.
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