Ipswich Audio Tour: Hands That Built the Port

Explore Ipswich at your own pace

Ipswich is one of England's oldest continuously-inhabited ports, settled from the Anglo-Saxon era as Gippeswic and shaped by centuries of trade. But behind every bale of wool exported from Fore Street quay, every ploughshare cast at Robert Ransome's foundry, every barrel rolled out of the Cobbold brewhouse, and every lock gate hauled shut on the Wet Dock stood a named worker whose story rarely made it onto a plaque. This tour moves through the market, the merchants' quarter, the waterfront and the factory yard, recovering the dyers, maltsters, dockbuilders, engineers, coopers and almshouse inmates who made the port run - from a wool-dyer's initials carved into a church ceiling to the single ironworker Robert Ransome employed when he arrived in town with two hundred pounds and a borrowed malting house.

Photo: BEN ELLIOTT, Unsplash

Tour details

• Duration: 1 hour 12 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 3.2 km (2.0 miles)
• Stops: 11 landmarks, including Corn Exchange, Cornhill, Ipswich, Cornhill, Ipswich, St Margaret's Church, Bolton Lane, Ipswich
• Audio: up to 28 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Corn Exchange, Cornhill, Ipswich

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

• Corn Exchange, Cornhill, Ipswich
• Cornhill, Ipswich
• St Margaret's Church, Bolton Lane, Ipswich
• Ancient House, Buttermarket, Ipswich
• Tooley's and Smart's Almshouses, Foundation Street, Ipswich
• St Peter's by the Waterfront, College Street, Ipswich
• Stoke Bridge, Ipswich
• Wolsey's Gate, College Street, Ipswich
• Old Custom House, New Cut West, Ipswich
• Isaacs on the Quay, Fore Street, Ipswich
• Ipswich Waterfront

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: Robert Bradbrook, BEN ELLIOTT (Unsplash).