Photo: Jörg Bittner Unna (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio walk through London's experience of the two world wars, above all the Blitz of September 1940 to May 1941. From Churchill's statue, the grave of the Unknown Warrior and the War Rooms under King Charles Street, up Whitehall past the Cenotaph, Downing Street and the Admiralty Citadel, along the river to the Battle of Britain and RAF memorials and the 1917 bomb scars on Cleopatra's Needle, through the Aldwych station shelter and the churches of the Strand and Fleet Street burned in 1940 and 1941, to St Paul's, the burned book trade of Paternoster Square, Guildhall, the Bank station bomb site, the merchant seamen of Tower Hill and the ruined garden of St Dunstan-in-the-East. Told factually and soberly. This is a long walk: 23 stops and about 7.5 km on foot, from Parliament Square to the Tower.
23 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 · 1256 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 372 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.
Churchill statue, Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey and the Unknown Warrior, Churchill War Rooms, The Cenotaph, Downing Street, Monument to the Women of World War II, Admiralty Citadel.
Battle of Britain Monument, Royal Air Force Memorial, Cleopatra's Needle, Aldwych station, St Clement Danes, Temple Church, St Bride's Church.
National Firefighters Memorial, St Paul's Cathedral, Paternoster Square, Christ Church Greyfriars, Guildhall, Bank Junction, Tower Hill Memorial, All Hallows-by-the-Tower, St Dunstan in the East.
The grave of one unidentified serviceman, buried among kings on 11 November 1920 in soil brought from France.
The underground headquarters under King Charles Street, operational from August 1939, whose Map Room was left as it was in August 1945.
Closed to trains in September 1940 to become a Blitz shelter, with the British Museum's Parthenon sculptures stored down its tunnel.
Defended night after night by the St Paul's Watch, and photographed above the smoke on 29 December 1940.
The City's medieval hall, burned in the Great Fire of 1666 and again on 29 December 1940, above the outline of a Roman arena.
The names of merchant seamen and fishermen of both wars who have no grave but the sea.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 23 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. 23 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 London at War — the Blitz, Whitehall and St Paul's, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
23 narration points, including Churchill statue, Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey and the Unknown Warrior, Churchill War Rooms, The Cenotaph and Downing Street. That is about 42 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. 23 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.