Photo: Michael Hanselmann - Quaoar10 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Bamburgh, Bebbanburg, the royal fortress of the kings of Bernicia, from which King Oswald called Aidan from Iona in the 630s. It starts on the village green by the Lord Crewe Arms and the Grove, the old quarry that supplied stone for the castle, then follows Grace Darling: the RNLI museum with her coble, St Aidan's Church, where Bede says Aidan died in 651 leaning against a buttress, and her canopied memorial in the churchyard. After the walls of the Dominican friary comes the castle itself, from Castle Green to the Norman keep and Lord Armstrong's restoration of 1894 to 1904. Then down to the beach: St Oswald's Gate, the Bowl Hole cemetery whose people were reburied under St Aidan's in 2016, the Farne Islands where Cuthbert lived as a hermit, and the small lighthouse on Harkess Rocks.
12 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 · 9 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 4 cross-referenced entries (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.
The Village Green and the Lord Crewe Arms, The Grove.
RNLI Grace Darling Museum, St Aidan's Church, Grace Darling Memorial, The friary remains, Bamburgh Castle Green and the gate, The Keep and the Armstrong restoration.
St Oswald's Gate and the beach, The Bowl Hole, The Farne Islands from the beach, Harkess Rocks and Bamburgh Lighthouse.
Grace Darling's own coble, the boat she and her father rowed to the Forfarshire survivors in September 1838.
The church on the site of Aidan's, with the forked beam traditionally said to be the one he died against in 651.
The canopied Gothic monument raised to be seen by passing ships; she lies in the family grave a few steps away.
The Norman keep, complete by 1164, with walls up to eleven feet thick, restored for Lord Armstrong from 1894.
The early medieval cemetery in the dunes, whose people were reburied in the crypt of St Aidan's in 2016.
Inner Farne, where Cuthbert lived as a hermit and died in 687, in sight of the royal rock.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 12 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. 12 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 Bamburgh — the Castle, Bebbanburg and Grace Darling, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
12 narration points, including The Village Green and the Lord Crewe Arms, The Grove, RNLI Grace Darling Museum, St Aidan's Church and Grace Darling Memorial. That is about 17 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 ~2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 12 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.