Sound artist for ‘Hidden in the Landscape’ - a binaural guided audio walk around Cromwell Bottom nature reserve
Overview
‘Hidden in the Landscape’ is a 50 minute wheel-chair accessible binaural audio walk (for headphone listening) exploring the history and ecology of one of Calderdale’s most important wildlife sites, Cromwell Bottom. It is a production by Northern Broadsides Theatre, Halifax, commissioned as part of Calderdale Year of Culture, 2025.
I was the sound artist and designer for the project, covering all elements of its creation.
We ran the walk as a guided event in March 2025:
To bring the site’s history and ecology to life and create a sense of really being there I worked with binaural sound, making many of the recordings using my DIY binaural head, and where this was not possible, using binaural software to create the sense things happening all around you, within a 3D space.
To I set this up for transmission to Silent Disco headphones via the Go Button phone app. The walk was delivered in March as a guided audio trail and we are currently adapting it so that public visiting the reserve can experience it independently, using their own mobile phones.
The walk was one element of Northern Broadsides ‘Iron People’ - a project inspired by the environmental message in Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man and The Iron Woman stories. ‘Iron People’ and has been nominated in the "Excellence in Sustainability" category at the 2025 UK Theatre Awards.
Audience feedback
Creating the walk
Walking through the old hay meadow where (once common but now disappeared) corncrakes can be heard, a Six Spot Burnet Moth tells her story, and the invasive New Zealand Pygmy weed slurps through the water.
This is what listeners said about the experience:
To make the audio walk I recorded poems and story scenes written and spoken by the local community, natural history narrative from a local expert, field recordings and found sounds. I also composed music. Each poem, story or pice of narrative was set within its own soundscape weaved from the above materials, By collaging all these elements together I created an immersive audio journey through the site. This is what listeners said about the experience:
Stopping to hear what’s going on at the pond: Frogs and water beetles are busy, a family is pond-dipping, but maybe also the mystical Iron Woman is lurking not too far away….
We have now reconfigured Hidden in the Landscape so individuals visiting Cromwell Bottom can experience it on their own, using their mobile phones and headphones:
Scroll through the comments below from walk participants:
Photos from the production phase including on-site recording with a binaural head, a hydrophone in a stream, and contact mics on a metal bridge.
Audio files were designed with long fades and loaded into the Go Button app to provide a way of managing different walking / wheeling speeds whilst still providing a seamless listening experience.