Photo: Immanuel Giel (Public domain)
A self-guided audio walk through Scarborough, the spa town that by the 1730s was bathing in the sea as well as drinking the waters, and claims to be Britain's first seaside resort. It starts at the Spa below the South Cliff, where the mineral spring found in the 1620s still stains the wall by the steps, crosses the 1827 Spa Bridge, and passes the Crescent, the Sitwells' Woodend and the round Rotunda Museum built to show William Smith's geology to Cuthbert Brodrick's Grand Hotel, built on the cliff where Anne Brontë died in 1849. Down at the harbour come the piers, the lighthouse holed by German shells on 16 December 1914, and King Richard III House. Then up to St Mary's, scarred by the Civil War, Anne Brontë's grave, the castle headland where Piers Gaveston held out in 1312, and the Roman signal station of about AD 370, before Marine Drive carries you round to North Bay and the pagoda and lake of Peasholm Park. About 6 km on foot.
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 · 105 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 32 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 Spa, Spa Bridge and the Esplanade, The Crescent, the Art Gallery and Woodend, Rotunda Museum, The Grand Hotel.
The harbour and the piers, The lighthouse and the 1914 bombardment, King Richard III House.
St Mary's Church, Anne Brontë's grave, Scarborough Castle, Roman Signal Station, Marine Drive, North Bay, Peasholm Park.
The mineral spring found in the 1620s that made Scarborough a resort; look for the reddish stain and small well beside the beach steps.
Cuthbert Brodrick's hotel of 1863 to 1867, said to follow the calendar, on the cliff-top site where Anne Brontë died.
The tower on Vincent's Pier, holed so badly by German shells on 16 December 1914 that it had to be taken down and rebuilt.
Anne Brontë was buried here in 1849, and her eroded headstone still gives her age as 28; the plaque in front corrects it to 29.
Henry II's great tower on the headland, where Piers Gaveston held out in 1312 and Sir Hugh Cholmley endured a long siege until 1645.
The oriental-themed park of 1912, with its island pagoda, where model ships have staged naval battles on the lake since 1927.
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 Scarborough — the Castle, the Spa and Britain's First Seaside Resort, 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 Spa Bridge and the Esplanade, Rotunda Museum, The Grand Hotel, The harbour and the piers and St Mary's Church. 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 ~2 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.