Mike Higginbottom has lectured in social and architectural history for the Universities of Nottingham, Birmingham and Keele, the Workers’ Educational Association and the City of Stoke-on-Trent. He is an Arts Society (formerly NADFAS) lecturer and was tutor-guide for the Matlock Travel Society from 1986 to 2008.

His history learning programmes include Looking at Country Houses, The Derbyshire Derwent Valley, Fun Palaces: the history and architecture of the entertainment industry, Historic Towns & Cities, Survivals & Revivals: past views of English architecture, Victorian England and Waterways to Motorways: two centuries of travel.

He has conducted leisure-learning residential programmes on country houses, theatres, the seaside, cemeteries and sewerage, and the cities of Bath, Birmingham, Chester, Chicago, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, York and New York and in the Isle of Man.

In recent years the focus of Mike’s freelance history work has concentrated on Sheffield, and particularly the industrial East End where he grew up.

He runs an annual Heritage Open Days Walk Round Attercliffe and, in collaboration with South Yorkshire Transport Museum runs heritage bus tours in the city. He also acts as a guide and lecturer at the Abbeydale Picture House, which is being restored to use as an entertainment venue.