These works are based on Chester’s Wishing Steps, which are a long ‘flight’ of stairs arranged over six landings built in 1785 into the south east corner of city’s Roman defence walls (Latitude: 53.1873 / 53°11'14"N, Longitude: -2.8877 / 2°53'15"W). Local folklore claims that if an unmarried girl can run up these steps three times without drawing a new breath, then her beloved would propose to her within the year.

The overt physicality of this ritual is demanding and only feasible to the healthy and able-bodied, excluding those unfit or unable from performing this ritual. The metaphor of stairs as an allusion to ascension (to heaven or the 'other side') can also be stretched to embody the struggles of the female working class, to be upwardly mobile a ‘social climber’ given marriage would (potentially) keep them from a life within a ‘workhouse’.