Guildford Audio Tour: Cloth, Keys and Waterways

Explore Guildford at your own pace

Guildford's High Street belongs to the merchants and the mayors. The streets and waterways between them belong to a different town - the fullers who racked Guildford Blue cloth to dry at Millmead, the castle constables who kept the King's prisoners in the keep, the chalk-quarry cutters whose spoil built the castle and named the street, the London clockmaker John Aylward who gave the Guildhall its projecting timepiece in exchange for trading rights, the lawyer John Childe who built the finest house on the High Street and served as mayor three times, the almshouse brethren in their blue caps who swept the chapel and tended the garden under Richard Abbot the first Master, the grammar-school boys chained to the library that grocer Robert Beckingham's will funded in 1509, the brewer Charles Hoskin Master whose copper vessels made Friary Meux ale for a century, and the barge builders Edwin Edwards and his four sons who hammered the hull of the Wey Navigation's last working barge at Dapdune Wharf. These are the working people whose names made it into the ledgers - and the ones who didn't.

Photo: Shea Lavington, Unsplash

Tour details

• Duration: 46 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 1.6 km (1.0 miles)
• Stops: 9 landmarks, including Friary Centre, Onslow Street, Guildford, Town Mills, Millmead, Guildford, St Mary's Church, Quarry Street, Guildford
• Audio: up to 23 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Friary Centre, Onslow Street, Guildford

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

• Friary Centre, Onslow Street, Guildford
• Town Mills, Millmead, Guildford
• St Mary's Church, Quarry Street, Guildford
• Guildford Castle, Castle Street, Guildford
• Guildford Guildhall, High Street, Guildford
• Guildford House Gallery, High Street, Guildford
• Royal Grammar School, High Street, Guildford
• Abbot's Hospital, High Street, Guildford
• Holy Trinity Church, High Street, Guildford

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: Shea Lavington, Martine Mussies (Unsplash); AudaTours.