Photo: Steve Daniels (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk through Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon that keeps three things apart: what the documents record, what later tradition says, and what the town made of him afterwards. From the Henley Street house where he was born in 1564 and the corner house of his daughter Judith, past Harvard House and the Town Hall of Garrick's 1769 Jubilee, to New Place and Nash's House, the Guild Chapel, the Guildhall schoolroom and the Guild almshouses, Hall's Croft and Holy Trinity Church, where he was baptised and buried; then the Royal Shakespeare and Swan theatres, the Gower Memorial and Clopton Bridge. Anne Hathaway's Cottage at Shottery is about 1.5 km beyond the town centre, about 5 km on foot in all. Mary Arden's Farm at Wilmcote, his mother's family home, is about 5 km further, a ride or a long walk.
18 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 · 99 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 15 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.
Shakespeare's Birthplace, The Cage, Judith Shakespeare's house.
Harvard House, Stratford-upon-Avon Town Hall, New Place, Nash's House, Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross, Guildhall and Shakespeare's Schoolroom, Guild almshouses, Church Street, Hall's Croft, Holy Trinity Church.
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Swan Theatre, Gower Memorial, Bancroft Gardens, Clopton Bridge, Shakespeare Memorial Fountain, Rother Market, Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Mary Arden's Farm, Wilmcote.
The Henley Street house where Shakespeare was born in 1564 and where his father worked as a glover, bought after a public campaign in 1847.
Where Judith Shakespeare's husband, the vintner Thomas Quiney, moved his business in July 1616, months after their wedding.
The site of the great house Shakespeare bought in 1597 and died in in 1616, demolished in 1759.
The upper room of the King's New School, where Shakespeare is thought to have been taught, and where travelling players performed.
Where the parish register records Shakespeare's baptism on 26 April 1564 and his burial in 1616, in the chancel.
The home of Shakespeare's mother's family, and the neighbouring house that was shown as hers for more than two centuries.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 18 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. 18 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 Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon — from Henley Street to Holy Trinity, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
18 narration points, including Shakespeare's Birthplace, New Place, Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross, Guildhall and Shakespeare's Schoolroom and Hall's Croft. That is about 34 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 ~2½ hours, plus the trip to Wilmcote total, but you walk at your own pace. 18 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.