Photo: Verbcatcher (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk around Ely, the clay island in the undrained Fens and its cathedral, the Ship of the Fens. It starts at the house where Oliver Cromwell lived from 1636 and collected tithes for the cathedral, and St Mary's, where five Littleport rioters of 1816 are buried. Inside the cathedral begun in 1083 come the Octagon, built after the central tower fell in 1322, the site of St Etheldreda's shrine and the Lady Chapel with its defaced carvings. Then the Old Gaol that now holds Ely Museum and the Market Place. The monastic precinct follows: Firmary Lane through the arcades of the monks' infirmary, Prior Crauden's Chapel, the Porta gatehouse and the King's School, and the castle mound on Cherry Hill. The walk ends by the Great Ouse, with the eel, Hereward's stand against William the Conqueror, and the seventeenth-century draining of the Fens.
15 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 · 37 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 11 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.
Oliver Cromwell's House, St Mary's Church, Palace Green and the Bishop's Palace, Ely Cathedral, The Octagon and the lantern, St Etheldreda's shrine.
Lady Chapel, Ely Museum, Market Place.
Firmary Lane and the monks' infirmary, Prior Crauden's Chapel, Ely Porta and the King's School, Cherry Hill, Jubilee Gardens: the Isle of Eels and Hereward, The Quayside and the draining of the Fens.
The Cromwell family home from 1636 to about 1647, with the Tithe Office where he managed payments due to the church.
Begun in 1083 on the highest ground of the Isle, its lopsided west front lost a transept in the fifteenth century and never rebuilt it.
The answer to the tower collapse of 1322: a crossing 74 feet across, with each angle of the timber lantern resting on a single oak post 63 feet long.
A ledger stone marks where the shrine of the East Anglian princess stood until 1539; her fair gave English the word tawdry.
The prior's private chapel of 1324–25, up seventeen spiral steps, with a medieval tile pavement of Adam and Eve.
The eel mosaic of excavated pottery runs down to the river, beside the story of Hereward and the Isle's last stand against William.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 15 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. 15 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 Ely — the Ship of the Fens, Cromwell's House and the Isle, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
15 narration points, including Oliver Cromwell's House, St Mary's Church, Palace Green and the Bishop's Palace, Ely Cathedral and The Octagon and the lantern. That is about 28 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 ~1¼ hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 15 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.