From Norman Conquest to D-Day: The Story of Lymington Audio Tour

The tour starts at the war memorial beside St Thomas' Church, where Norman overlords once used religion itself as an instrument of power. On this walking tour, you'll follow the medieval grid of burgage plots that still defines Lymington's street plan today, passing through School Lane where the original measurements of the 1250 town layout survive almost intact on the ground. You'll learn about the St Barbe family, wealthy bankers who helped to found one of the country's earliest National Society schools, and visit the courtyard of the Angel Inn where a respectable churchwarden ran one of the town's most lucrative smuggling operations.

Further down the High Street, you'll hear stories of butchers who washed the unwanted by-products of their trade into the town's gutters, Georgian theatregoers enjoying risque performances, and French Royalist troops billeted in a malt house during the years of the French Revolution.

The tour ends at Fishermen's Quay, where the river that gave Lymington its reason for existing still flows – and where the men of the Essex Regiment embarked for Normandy on 3rd June, 1944.

On this 60-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Discover how General James Wolfe spent his last night in England at a local merchant's home before winning Canada from the French
• Explore Angel Yard, where smuggling networks funnelled tea, brandy, and lace past maleable customs officers
• Learn how Lymington's salt industry – over 160 salterns at its peak – collapsed almost overnight when Cheshire rock salt was discovered
• Hear how the local yacht Alarm raced against American challengers in 1851 and stopped to rescue a rival crew
• Examine the medieval timber frame of 26–27 High Street, hidden inside its Georgian brick exterior since around 1480
• Uncover the story of Captain Arthur Phillip, who left from this quay to join the First Fleet in Portsmouth and found Australia's first colony

This is a town that wears its past lightly – come and discover what's hiding behind the Georgian brickwork.

Cover image courtesy: St Barbe Museum + Art Gallery, Lymington