Photo: Dr. Thomas Liptak (CC BY 4.0)
A self-guided audio tour of the Royal Navy's dockyard at English Harbour, built and worked largely by enslaved Africans. It starts in the Dockyard Museum, in the old naval officer's house, where Horatio Nelson's years here from 1784 are told, along with his opinion of the place, and goes on through the Copper and Lumber Store of 1789, the old Pitch and Tar Store that is now Admiral's Inn, and the stone pillars of the 1797 boathouse and sail loft. A footpath leads out to Fort Berkeley at the harbour mouth, where a chain could be stretched across the entrance. Then, by road, Clarence House, built for the dockyard's Navy Commissioner, the Dow's Hill Interpretation Centre, and the ridge of Shirley Heights: the lookout and signal station, the ruined officers' quarters and the Blockhouse on its cliff above the Atlantic. Cruise ships berth at St John's, on the other side of the island.
10 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 26 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Dockyard Museum, Copper and Lumber Store, Admiral's Inn, Boathouse Pillars.
Fort Berkeley, Clarence House.
Dow's Hill Interpretation Centre, Shirley Heights Lookout, Officers' Quarters, Shirley Heights, The Blockhouse.
The old officers' quarters, now the museum, and the story of Nelson, who called English Harbour an infernal hole in a 1784 letter.
Finished in 1789 to hold copper sheet and timber for repairing warships, with sailors slung in hammocks on the floors above.
The surviving stone pillars of the 1797 boathouse, where boats sheltered below while sails were cut and mended in the loft above.
The fort at the harbour mouth, from which an iron chain could be stretched across the entrance, with a cannon of 1805 still in place.
Built about 1804 to 1806 for the Navy Commissioner and named for the future William IV; the story that he lived in it is a legend, since it was built after his time here.
The signal station on the ridge, which sent messages by flag by day and by gun at night towards St John's.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 10 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 10 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Nelson's Dockyard and English Harbour, Antigua, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
10 narration points, including Dockyard Museum, Copper and Lumber Store, Boathouse Pillars, Fort Berkeley and Clarence House. That is about 16 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~3 hours with the drive up to Shirley Heights total, but you walk at your own pace. 10 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.