Against the flow: A Psychogeographic walk to Nine Wells

Join us for a guided psychogeographic art-walk from Cambridge city centre to Nine Wells, following Hobson’s Brook upstream, moving against the flow of water, against the flow of time, and into the layered depths of the earth.

This walk will use creative cartographies as alternative ways of mapping interstitial urban edges, exploring landscape as palimpsest: layered with hidden histories, contested ecologies, suburban weirdness, and sacred sites. Along the route we will pass Common Ground, allotments, manufactured meadows, lost communities, archaeological traces, the Cold War nuclear bunker, and the expanding infrastructures of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, reflecting on how development pressures are reshaping the land around Nine Wells and threatening its fragile spring ecology.

The walk will include moments of ecological sensory attunement, creative reflection, art-making, re-mapping, and mythic storytelling, culminating at Nine Wells.

Led by James Norton and Emma Linford.

This event is part of the Weirding Sustainability Festival 2026, co-ordinated by Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Cambridge. For more information see: LEAP Lab: Living Experiments in Arts-Science Practice to Re-imagine Sustainability - CRASSH

Meeting Point

Junction of Lensfield Road & Trumpington Street, CB2 1EL, beside the Octagonal Monument (Hobson’s Brook).

What to Bring

• Sensible walking shoes
• Suitable clothing (raincoat recommended)
• Water and snacks / packed lunch
• Bus fare for the return journey

Accessibility Notes

This is a walking event (approx. 1.5 hours walking time). Return travel is by public bus.

For more information, please contact: [email protected]

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