HistoryCity
What was it like to lead a protest in Exeter against Henry VIII’s Reformation? How did it feel to face plague in seventeenth-century Trento? What did it mean to choose sides in Valencia during the Spanish Civil War? Walk on historic maps, listen to guides from the past, and become immersed in the hidden histories of cities in the UK and Europe.
HistoryCity apps (formerly Hidden Cities) bring the streets to life with immersive trails on GPS-triggered historic maps. Our collection of free apps, developed at the University of Exeter, let you discover the hidden heritage of cities across the UK and Europe, guided by historical characters who link both major landmarks and sites off the beaten track to tales from their own lives and times.
Focusing on untold stories from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries, our research-led apps turn conventional tours on their head. Following in the footsteps of a historical guide, audiences get an insight into the experience of real people, their thoughts, concerns, hopes and fears as they navigated life in their cities. These carefully reconstructed first-person perspectives are combined with expert commentary on the worlds of the past.
Our team is led by Professor Fabrizio Nevola and Dr David Rosenthal, historians from the University of Exeter. Each app is developed in collaboration with museum and higher education partners, and our trails turn their expertise into mobile public history narratives. These narratives reveal hidden histories of place. They also virtually relocate museum artefacts to the places they were once associated with, linking them to the social and cultural worlds that gave them meaning.
