Brighton Audio Tour: Below the Promenade

Explore Brighton at your own pace

Brighton's seafront looks like a holiday but is a working town in disguise. This self-guided audio tour walks the engine-shed, the kitchen, the service stair and the shingle beach that built Britain's pleasure resort - from Brighton Station, where two thousand men once built the locomotives that brought the visitors in, through the Pavilion kitchen where Carême cooked thirty courses while servants moved invisibly through Dutch-tiled corridors, past the Hippodrome where Charlie Chaplin and Sarah Bernhardt did two shows a night, the Town Hall basement where the first English chief constable was murdered at his own desk, the Grand Hotel where a 1984 night porter dug himself out of rubble, the Birch piers where one-legged divers ate breakfast on the water, and finally the shingle where Brighton's eighty-boat fishing fleet once landed mackerel by capstan and sold it by Dutch auction. Walk slowly. The Brighton you came to see was built by people you never saw.

Photo: Martin Förster, Unsplash

Tour details

Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes, entirely at your own paceDistance: around 5.7 km (3.5 miles)Stops: 15 landmarks, including Brighton railway station, Brighton Dome, Royal PavilionAudio: up to 38 minutes of narrationStarts at: Brighton railway station

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 stopAn interactive map showing the walking route between landmarksFull offline access once downloaded, so you need no data or signalFreedom to start, pause and resume whenever you likeLifetime access - your code never expires

Where you will stop

Brighton railway stationBrighton DomeRoyal PavilionOld Steine, BrightonThe Lanes, Brighton PlaceBrighton Fishing MuseumBrighton Town Hall, EnglandBrighton Palace PierVolk's Electric RailwaySea Life BrightonOld Ship HotelThe Grand BrightonBrighton Bandstand, King's RoadWest PierBrighton Hippodrome

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 commentaryOffline: download once and use it with no data, anywhereAt your own pace: start, pause and resume whenever you wantAccurate: 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: Yiming Ma, Martin Förster, Young Jeffrey (Unsplash).