Any walk around Ramsgate reveals the town’s rich history, but now you can take a tour of Ramsgate’s High Street with your very own guide from the 19th century.
Walkie-Talkie Audio has produced “High Street Highlights”, a free audio guide that introduces the listener to several historical figures from Ramsgate’s High Street.
This is Walkie-Talkie Audio’s second audio guide and complements ‘Harbour Highlights; a trip round Ramsgate’s Royal Harbour.’ Both audio guides are accessed via the Useeum app, which is free to download to your smartphone.
Researched, written, narrated and produced professionally, High Street Highlights features actors’ voices, atmospheric sound effects, rich dialogue and a small helping of humour. The guide transports visitors back through time to the earliest beginnings of Ramsgate’s High Street, to its shops and houses, and to the people who lived and worked there. Finally, the guide brings the listener up to date and even asks questions about the High Street’s future.
Meet Mrs Benham, a real-life character who visited Ramsgate in 1829, and follow her on a time-travelling journey down Ramsgate High Street and through 300 years of social history. Stops include: Sanger’s Amphitheatre, home to a circus, opera, theatre, and later a cinema; the photography studio of JC Twyman who captured some of the finest and most fashionable portraits of Ramsgate residents in the late 1800s; The Bull and George destroyed in a Zeppelin raid of 1915; and the birthplace of Netta Syrett, Victorian writer and feminist.
Walkie-Talkie Audio was set up by actor and writer Clive Holland of Mischievous Theatre CIC, Tracy Russell, a voice actor, writer, and costumed historical interpreter, and Stephen Frost, a writer and audio engineer.
Clive said: “As Ramsgate’s tourism portfolio continues to grow we were keen to add to it by bringing our respective skills together to create an audio guide for the High Street.”
Tracy added: “We wanted to use drama and humour to create an appealing and captivating story, introducing real-life characters from the past, the present and even the future.”
Funded by the High Streets Heritage Action Zone programme, delivered by Historic England, Thanet District Council and Ramsgate Town Council, the “High Street Highlights” audio guide runs within the Useeum App, curated by Adrian Smith. The App is free to download, and the audio guide is free to listen to.
The App is available at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.useeum.useeum
