Photo: JThomas (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk that tells York's ghost stories as stories, and keeps them apart from the record underneath. It starts at the Bar Convent, the oldest surviving Catholic convent in England, with a chapel built so that its dome cannot be seen from the street, and at Micklegate Bar, where the heads of Richard, Duke of York, and the Earl of Northumberland were set up. Then Clifford's Tower, where York's Jewish community died in March 1190; the Golden Fleece on Pavement; the Shambles, where Margaret Clitherow hid priests before she was pressed to death in 1586; and the printer's devil on Stonegate. Behind the Minster come Treasurer's House, where an apprentice plumber said he saw Roman soldiers cross the cellar in 1953, St William's College, Holy Trinity Goodramgate, the vicars choral's hall at Bedern and the Black Swan, ending at the Theatre Royal, built over the medieval hospital of St Leonard, and its Grey Lady. About 4 km on foot.
12 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 · 269 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 115 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 Bar Convent, Micklegate Bar, Clifford's Tower.
The Golden Fleece, The Shambles and Margaret Clitherow's Shrine, The Stonegate Devil.
Treasurer's House, St William's College, Holy Trinity Goodramgate, Bedern, The Black Swan, The Theatre Royal and the Grey Lady.
Bought in 1686 for Catholic sisters when such houses were illegal, with a hidden chapel, eight escape exits and a priest's hiding hole.
York's southern gate, where the heads of Richard, Duke of York, in 1460 and of the Earl of Northumberland in 1572 were displayed.
Henry III's stone keep, on the mound where York's Jewish community died in the wooden tower that stood here in March 1190.
The butchers' street, meat hooks still under its overhanging upper floors, and the shrine to Margaret Clitherow, executed in 1586 for sheltering priests.
On the line of a Roman road out of the fortress, where in 1953 Harry Martindale said Roman soldiers walked through the cellar wall.
A theatre of 1744 built over St Leonard's Hospital, whose undercroft is still inside, and the legend of the nun said to haunt it.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 12 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. 12 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 York's Ghosts — the Stories and the History Underneath, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
12 narration points, including The Bar Convent, Micklegate Bar, Clifford's Tower, The Golden Fleece and The Shambles and Margaret Clitherow's Shrine. That is about 21 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 ~1½ hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 12 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.