Lancaster Audio Tour: Wages, Warrants and Warehouses

Explore Lancaster at your own pace

Lancaster's Georgian prosperity is written in stone - the Custom House, the Priory, the grand merchant houses on Castle Hill. But the story of who actually built, guarded, clerked, stocked and served this town belongs to a different set of names: the gaoler who managed the Pendle witch hangings, the housekeeper who outlived her judges, the cabinet apprentices who hand-cut mahogany legs in a Castle Hill workshop, the dock workers who loaded cargoes whose profits built the churches, the Quaker merchants who funded both chapels and slave ships, and the women who kept the linoleum looms running when the men went to war. Heritage Open Days 2026 theme is Everyday Histories - this tour names the unnamed.

Photo: Jamie Edwards, Unsplash

Tour details

• Duration: 1 hour 1 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 2.4 km (1.5 miles)
• Stops: 11 landmarks, including Lancaster Castle, Castle Parade, Lancaster, The Storey Institute, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster, Friends Meeting House, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster
• Audio: up to 28 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Lancaster Castle, Castle Parade, Lancaster

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

• Lancaster Castle, Castle Parade, Lancaster
• The Storey Institute, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster
• Friends Meeting House, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster
• Lancaster City Museum, Market Square, Lancaster
• St John the Evangelist's Church, North Road, Lancaster
• Captured Africans Memorial, Damside Street, Lancaster
• St George's Quay Warehouses, Lancaster
• Custom House Lancaster Maritime Museum, St George's Quay, Lancaster
• Lancaster Priory Church, Lancaster
• 1 Castle Hill, Lancaster
• Judges' Lodgings Museum, Church Street, Lancaster

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: Jamie Edwards, Tom Morbey (Unsplash); AudaTours.