Preston Audio Tour: Ten Per Cent and No Surrender

Explore Preston at your own pace

Preston's story is written in cotton. The water frame that changed the world was tested in an arch off Church Street. The first total-abstinence pledge was signed at the Cockpit on Stoneygate by seven named working men - a weaver, a tailor, a joiner. The seven-month lockout of workers was led by Mortimer Grimshaw, the Thunderer of Lancashire, and George Cowell, the weaver's son from Mellor - the same dispute that drew Charles Dickens north and gave him Hard Times. The park on the valley slope was dug by cotton workers thrown out of their mills by the American Civil War. The church spire visible across three counties is said to have been raised with the pennies of Irish loom-workers' Sunday collections. The bus station its builder said should give ordinary people the luxury of air travel. These are the spinners, weavers, pledgers, strikers, navvies, dockers and overlookers whose names rarely made it onto the plaques.

Photo: Michael Starkie, Unsplash

Tour details

• Duration: 1 hour 14 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 3.5 km (2.2 miles)
• Stops: 10 landmarks, including Corn Exchange, Preston, Preston Flag Market, Preston Market Hall, Earl Street, Preston
• Audio: up to 25 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Corn Exchange, Preston

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, Preston
• Preston Flag Market
• Preston Market Hall, Earl Street, Preston
• Harris Museum
• Preston Minster, Church Street, Preston
• Preston bus station
• Cotton Court Business Centre, Preston
• Arkwright House, Stoneygate, Preston
• Avenham Park
• Preston railway station - Preston Pals memorial

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: Michael Starkie, Niggle (Unsplash).