Photo: Tilman2007 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Hampton Court Palace and its gardens, a Tudor palace with a Baroque palace built into it. It starts at the Thames, where the royal barge once rowed into the Water Gallery, and crosses Henry VIII's moat bridge with its King's Beasts into Wolsey's Base Court, then Clock Court and the astronomical clock of 1540, which shows the time of high water at London Bridge. Inside: the Great Hall under its hammerbeam roof, the Haunted Gallery and the Chapel Royal, and the Tudor kitchens built to feed the court. Then William III and Mary II's palace by Christopher Wren: Fountain Court, the King's Apartments with Verrio's staircase, and the reconstructed Privy Garden of 1701 to 1702. Last, the gardens: the Great Vine planted in 1768, the Great Fountain Garden and the Long Water, the Real Tennis court built for Wolsey, the maze of about 1700, and, free to enter, Wren's Chestnut Avenue in Bushy Park to the Diana Fountain.
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 · 34 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 Thames landing, The West Front and the moat bridge, Base Court, Clock Court and the astronomical clock, The Great Hall, The Haunted Gallery and the Chapel Royal.
The Tudor kitchens, Fountain Court and Wren's palace, The King's Apartments, Privy Garden.
The Great Vine, The Great Fountain Garden and the Long Water, The Real Tennis court, The maze and the Wilderness, Bushy Park: the Chestnut Avenue and the Diana Fountain.
Henry VIII's bridge of 1536 over the moat, lined with ten carved King's Beasts, dug out again in 1910.
Henry VIII's clock of 1540, which shows the sun, the moon, the zodiac and the time of high water at London Bridge.
Henry VIII's hall, begun in 1532, under its hammerbeam roof, with the carved 'eavesdroppers' and the entwined H and A.
Kitchens enlarged by Henry VIII around 1529 to 1530 to feed the court, with six great roasting fireplaces.
A 1995 reconstruction of William III's garden of 1701 to 1702, closed at the river end by Jean Tijou's iron screens.
The hedge maze planted for William III around 1700, the surviving part of a formal Wilderness on Henry VIII's orchard.
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 Hampton Court Palace — Wolsey, Henry VIII, William III and the Gardens, 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 Base Court, The Great Hall, The Haunted Gallery and the Chapel Royal, The Tudor kitchens and The King's Apartments. That is about 31 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 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.