Alston Explorer — helping families discover the North Pennines AONB
Alston Market Cross, North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Cumbria.
What happens when you put the design of a heritage app in the hands of local schoolchildren? Something rather special.
The brief
Alston is a small market town in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty — one of two towns that claim to be the highest in England. Beautiful, historic and full of stories. But like many rural towns, it relies heavily on visitor income during the summer months.
The North Pennines AONB Partnership wanted a way to encourage families to stay longer, explore more widely and discover the rich history and natural environment of the area.
The result was Alston Explorer — a GPS-guided digital walking trail app designed for active families who like exploring together.
App screen shots introducing the story
What made this project different
From the very start, this project had an unusual and brilliant creative collaborator — a class of Year 6 pupils from Samuel King’s School in Alston.
The children were tasked with identifying points of interest, mapping the trails, suggesting stories and designing the rewards system. Their energy, local knowledge and ideas shaped the app from the ground up.
That community involvement gave Alston Explorer something no amount of desk research could produce — an authentic, locally rooted experience told through the eyes of people who genuinely love the place.
What we built
Alston Explorer is an iOS and Android app built around two GPS-guided walking trails through historic Alston. At the heart of the experience are Tassie and her trusty squirrel companion Fletcher — characters who guide families through the town, helping them discover more about its past.
Alston Explorer app overview
Key features include:
GPS-triggered content that unlocks stories, tasks and rewards as visitors reach each location
Audio stories, old photographs, images and films bring the history of Alston to life
A task and rewards system — visitors create their own avatar and collect points as they explore
Offline maps, so a poor mobile signal is never a barrier to exploring
Content available to browse before a visit — but tasks and rewards only unlock on site, encouraging families to get out and explore
The two photos in the reveal the past rub-aways
5G rural testbed project
The app was part of 5GRIT — a DCMS-funded partnership of SMEs and universities building a 5G rural testbed — making it one of the first heritage engagement apps to test cloud-based content streaming and large AR-ready film files in a rural environment.
The outcome
Alston Explorer was designed to use digital engagement to help grow the tourism economy in the Alston area, encouraging more visits, longer stays and return trips. By giving families a rich, rewarding reason to explore every corner of the town, the app made Alston itself the attraction.
Interested in creating a digital walking trail for your landscape, town or nature reserve? All projects start with a conversation.