John Ruskin would have been intrigued by the discoveries made on the Clerkenwell Cobbles walk led by Martin Fidler, creator of the Ruskin Walk, for not only were the origins of granite setts revealed but also a digital code or two.  Andrew Stuck, from Rethinking Cities and Martin have devised a series of four Ruskin Geological Walks, as part of a development, funded by the Geologists’ Association Curry Fund in which future would-be geologists can uncover the secrets of building stone and street scene, using smartphones to read QR codes either embedded in the environment or in the visual journals that Martin and Andrew create for each of the walks.

Simply by downloading a free QR code reader application to your mobile smartphone you can unlock all sorts of online discoveries by using your phone to read QR codes.  These are rectangular bar codes in essence and you will find them now in newspapers, magazines, shop windows and along the walking routes of the Ruskin Walks.

Once your smartphone has read the code it will immediately take you to a website (or text message or picture) – this enables Ruskin Walk participants to find out further information about the stones they uncover on the geological walks.  Just launched is the Ruskin Walks blog and soon to follow will be a Twitter feed, so that people who can’t make it on a specfic walk and still contribute to what is taking place and find out more abut the geology around them – check out the blog here.

By booking your place on a Ruskin Walk, you can make some discoveries of your own – online registeration is a must, just follow the link below. The next Ruskin Walk, Camberwell Kerbs, starts from Denmark Hill station at 2.00pm on Saturday 10 December.

This article first appeared on the Rethinking Cities website.