“What is a concert hall without its audience?” The urban sketcher Len Grant poses this question. Reminding us that places are nothing without people. And people are everything.
Over coffee at Fuel Café in Withington, I met with artist and photographer Len Grant to talk about his latest project, The Chorlton Sketchbook. The sketchbook captures everyday life as it is today — from its red-brick terraces and elegant Edwardian villas to the quirky shopfronts that give the suburb its distinctive charm.
He is set to release The Chorlton Sketchbook on the 23rd October at The Lead Station in Manchester.
“These buildings have soul, they have heritage… and that’s what people connect with” says James Heather, development director for U+I, from Len Grant’s project Mayfield Stories (2019).
Len Grant can be found wearing his signature yellow raincoat, pedalling down Manchester’s curry mile with a stool strapped on his back. In a sort of funny way, his work carries us around Manchester, pointing out overlooked mundane scenes like a Bee Network bus. If he’s not there, then there’s a good chance you’ll catch him sitting in a local café window, silently entertained by the bed-head’s morning debriefs or the lycra-clad regulars ordering their usual with puffed chests.
Amidst Manchester’s constantly evolving streets, Grant’s sketches draw our eyes to the people behind the gears, with all their awkward limbs and gap teeth.
As an ex-photographer, Len has spent years documenting the regeneration of Manchester, tracking the transformation of Ancoats, the rise of New Islington, and the construction of The Bridgewater Hall. However, Len does not look back in anger, so to speak, but looks to capture what we are doing now.
In Grant’s funding proposal to document the construction of The Bridgewater Hall (1993-6), the city’s new civic building, he received the support of Ted Kitchen. Kitchen highlighted to the Central Manchester Development Corporation (CMDC):
“We constantly lose opportunities to record what we are doing now that is changing the face of the city; and once gone, these opportunities are gone forever”.
Grant’s work attempts to capture the story through a series of images rather than a ‘killer shot’. In his book Regeneration Manchester: 30 Years of Storytelling (2020) he wrote:
“Regeneration Manchester is my story. My story of each of the more significant projects; my story of the changes I’ve made to the storytelling process; my story of the failures as well as the successes”.
His sketches serve as a natural extension to his story of Manchester’s revival. From the very beginning, Len’s emphasis has always been on “the people who made it happen”.
In an early project, City Shapers (1991-2), Grant documented the movers and shakers of Manchester, recording the impact of the CMDC investments in the south and east city centre. Graham Marsden wrote that Len Grant’s work was founded on “a positive liking for people and a genuine interest in their lives”.
In 2015, after 25 years of photography, Len turned to drawing. His hobby became all-consuming after being inspired by Michael Morrell’s loose sketches of the demolition of the former BBC Studios. He has since released The Rusholme Sketcher (2017/8), Mayfield Stories (2019), The Burton Road Sketchbook (2022), Bars and Barbers (2024), and his most recent Chorlton Sketchbook (2025).
The ultra-local presence of his work has attracted many to buy his prints, known for drawing a mural for Withington walls and creating ‘Off the Walls’, a zine about Withington. He received huge support at Smoak Café during Chorlton Art Festival, where he held a fundraiser for the print of his Chorlton Sketchbook.
In his early sketches he recorded: “After the first lockdown I drew Edge Street when it was first closed to traffic and all the café tables were out on the street. What an atmosphere. We were all so desperate to socialise, to see each other again”.
His work embeds quotes of weekly encounters and serendipitous moments to record unheard voices and uncensored perspectives. Here’s an insert from his project aimed at re-energising Ancoat’s community spirit:
“Fifteen years ago, they said there’d be rich people and poor people living side by side, it’d be like salt and pepper they said. But we don’t mix, we rarely see our neighbours on that side, nobody stops for a conversation” – Lillian.
Many urban sketchers try to avoid people altogether: “People are really hard to draw, especially women”. Grant laughs, “I like bald people because they’re easier to get right”. Any resemblance to people, he retorts, is “purely coincidental”.
For Grant, these people are not supposed to be wholly realistic, nor are they caricatures or direct portraits. But they occupy space, slouch, sip, smirk, and occasionally we recognise ourselves. In fact, Grant has been guilty of unintentionally sneaking himself into his work, wearing a yellow raincoat crossing a road just off the Northern Quarter with his bike leaning against the wall.
Grant’s recognisable look means he is often caught out by those he is drawing. In one sketch, whilst scribbling away at a group of women, one peered over his shoulder to ask for a copy for their birthday, asking him not to omit his cheeky observations in the margins. People can’t help having a nosey, leaning in to see what he’s up to, while passing cyclists holler, “Alright, Len!” as he’s camped out on a street corner. Whilst many people see Manchester as a very grey and rainy city, Grant paints with bold yellows and azure skies (partly because winter months are spent seeking refuge in pubs, painting their interiors). He half-jokes that he feared becoming an alcoholic, but in all fairness, that is where the people are.
In summers he is obsessed with street furniture, lampposts, bollards and wonky signs to add dimension to his sketches. He embeds snatches of conversation, snippets of the suited Hugo’s or the Sarah’s willing their glasses, and the energy of the Batala samba-reggae band.
Len’s work comes from his viewpoint, his camera, and his story of Manchester. When asked about what makes his work different, he responded:
“Someone else might be sketching Chorlton too, but it’ll never be the same. Nothing is original until you do it”.
Find out more about Len Grant @ https://www.lengrant.co.uk/
or watch Fuse TV News interview in 2024 @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGvk0_gdZ1g
