Birkenhead Audio Tour: Hammers, Hulls and the Means Test

Explore Birkenhead at your own pace

Birkenhead grew not from commerce or culture but from sheer industrial necessity: a medieval priory whose monks ran the river crossing on a royal ferry charter; a Scottish ironmaster who started building ships from boiler plates; a town grid meant to be Edinburgh-on-Mersey that ended up crammed with Irish famine migrants; the first street tramway in Europe, inaugurated by an American showman in six weeks; docks that became Europe's largest flour-milling centre; a road tunnel dug by thousands of men with pneumatic hammers and gelignite; and a late-twentieth-century shipyard occupation whose workers lost their jobs, their pensions and their liberty. This walk follows the arc from Birkenhead Priory round Hamilton Square's overcrowded terraces, through the market and the tramway route, to the Cammell Laird gate where the occupation ended, and back along the heritage tram line. The visible built environment still carries every one of these threads.

Photo: Alex Liivet, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Tour details

• Duration: 1 hour 41 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 5.3 km (3.3 miles)
• Stops: 11 landmarks, including Birkenhead Market, Grange Road, Birkenhead, Conway Street, Birkenhead, Cammell Laird Shipyard Gate, Campbeltown Road, Birkenhead
• Audio: up to 28 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Birkenhead Market, Grange Road, Birkenhead

Map data by Mapbox and OpenStreetMap contributors

How it works

• Book here and a redemption code arrives by email within minutes.
• Download the free AudaTours app on your phone and enter the code.
• Download the tour once and the whole thing works offline.
• Walk to the first stop and press play. The audio for each landmark starts automatically as you approach it, so your phone can stay in your pocket.

There is no fixed date and no start time. The date you pick at checkout does not matter, and the tour stays on your phone permanently, so you can use it whenever you next visit and walk it again as often as you like.

What is included

• Professionally narrated audio that plays automatically at each stop
• An interactive map showing the walking route between landmarks
• Full offline access once downloaded, so you need no data or signal
• Freedom to start, pause and resume whenever you like
• Lifetime access - your code never expires

Where you will stop

• Birkenhead Market, Grange Road, Birkenhead
• Conway Street, Birkenhead
• Cammell Laird Shipyard Gate, Campbeltown Road, Birkenhead
• Monument to the Mersey Tunnel, Chester Street, Birkenhead
• Birkenhead Priory, Priory Street, Birkenhead
• Woodside Ventilation Station, Pacific Road, Birkenhead
• Woodside Ferry Terminal, Birkenhead
• Birkenhead Town Hall, Hamilton Street, Birkenhead
• Price Street and Argyle Street corner, Birkenhead
• Hamilton Square
• Wirral Transport Museum, Shore Road, Birkenhead

Image: AudaTours

What is AudaTours?

AudaTours turns a walk through a city into a story. Our guides bring landmarks to life with the history, the scandals and the detail you would never get from a plaque.

• Immersive: real stories about the places in front of you, not a dry commentary
• Offline: download once and use it with no data, anywhere
• At your own pace: start, pause and resume whenever you want
• Accurate: every story is built from verified historical sources and checked before release

Good to know

• This is a self-guided audio tour on your own phone. There is no in-person guide.
• It does not include entry to any building or site along the route.
• The landmarks on the tour are not affiliated with AudaTours.
• You need a smartphone with Android 7.0 or later, or iOS 16 or later.
• Bring headphones and start with a charged phone.

Who it suits

Solo travellers, couples, families and small groups who would rather explore on their own schedule than follow a guide and a fixed departure time. It suits a first visit, and it suits anyone who has already seen the famous sights and wants to know what actually happened in them.

Image credits

Photos: Alex Liivet (Wikimedia Commons, public domain); AudaTours.