Photo: Jonas Magnus Lystad (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio tour of the Oxford of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Charles Dodgson. It starts at 20 Northmoor Road, where Tolkien began The Hobbit on a blank page of an exam script, then St Giles', where the Inklings met on Tuesdays at the Eagle and Child and later the Lamb and Flag. Then Exeter College, where the undergraduate Tolkien found a Finnish grammar, Magdalen and Addison's Walk, where a night's talk in September 1931 brought Lewis back to Christianity, and Merton, where the two first met in 1926. For Alice it visits Christ Church, where Dodgson met the Dean's daughters, the shop across St Aldate's that became the Sheep's shop in Through the Looking-Glass, and Folly Bridge, where the boat trip of 4 July 1862 began; Pembroke is where Tolkien wrote his Beowulf lecture. It ends with the Oxford dodo, the Tolkien Archive at the Weston Library, and the Eastgate Hotel, where Lewis met Joy Davidman in 1952.
13 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 · 459 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 155 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.
20 Northmoor Road, The Eagle and Child, Lamb and Flag.
Exeter College, Magdalen College and Addison's Walk, Merton College, Christ Church and the Deanery Garden, Alice's Shop, Pembroke College, Folly Bridge.
The Museum of Natural History and the Oxford Dodo, The Weston Library and the Tolkien Archive, The Eastgate Hotel.
Tolkien's home from 1930 to 1947, where he wrote the first line of The Hobbit and much of The Lord of the Rings.
The pub where the Inklings met before lunch on Tuesdays in the Rabbit Room, and Lewis passed round the proofs of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Lewis's college from 1925 to 1954, and the riverside walk where he, Tolkien and Hugo Dyson talked on 19 September 1931.
Where Dodgson met the young Alice Liddell in 1856, with the small door often linked to Wonderland.
The start of the boat trip of 4 July 1862, on which Dodgson first told the story of Alice's adventures.
The surviving remains of a dodo from the Tradescant collection, which Dodgson saw.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 13 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. 13 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 Tolkien, Lewis and Alice's Oxford — the Inklings and Wonderland, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
13 narration points, including The Eagle and Child, Lamb and Flag, Exeter College, Merton College and Christ Church and the Deanery Garden. That is about 22 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. 13 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.