Recordings of background atmospheres and incidental noises from all over London. Many form part of a sound grid series recorded at evenly-spaced points across the city, each marking the centre of a square on the map below.
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Above: graphic based on a daytime satellite image courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Each red grid square is 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers across.
File name: Teddington weir
Grid square: Twickenham, Teddington, Strawberry Hill
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 30 April 2010
Time of day: 4pm
Location: On the Thames path near Teddington weir, south-west London.
Description: Constant rushing of water from the weir, a siren is heard briefly, honking of a Canada goose.
Technical guff: Stereo. Audio Technica BP4025 mic and Fostex FR-2LE digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: TQ 1647 7309
Grid square: Twickenham. Teddington, Strawberry Hill
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 18 February 2009
Time of day: 12.30pm
Location: OS reference TQ 1647 7309. By the footbridge leading onto Eel Pie Island.
Description: People feed ducks, geese and pigeons at the Eel Pie Island footbridge on the Thames side. A feeding frenzy is under way among the birds. A van pulls away and a crow caws loudly from its pulpit on the footbridge's handrail.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics. Olympus LS-10 digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Sound map recordings fall into two kinds, shown by the filenames they're given.
A sound grid recording has a filename beginning with the letters 'TQ', followed by eight digits. These are the Ordnance Survey co-ordinates for where the recording ought to be made. Each is part of a regularly-spaced series of recordings covering London. More about them, including graphics showing the resulting city-wide patterns of sounds, can be found on this page.
Other recordings have more descriptive filenames and these are simply of curious or distinctive sounds heard in different places.
