The Bishop’s Palace in Wells launches new multi-media guided tours

Image: The Bishop's Palace

After many months of research, audience consultation and content creation The Bishop’s Palace is now sharing the wonderful stories of the medieval Palace building and its people with visitors via new multi-media audio visual guides.   The tours are designed to provide 45 minutes of rich content, with the choice of an adult version or one tailored for a more family audience, including quizzes, treasure hunts and fun games.  Optional extras are also available for those who want more detail.   

Volunteers will be on hand to explain how to use the guides at the entrance to the Palace building where the guides can be picked up. 

The tours will then guide visitors to a seated area to watch a welcome video telling the story of Wells, the significance of the Palace and introducing the key themes of this historic site. 

From here a one-way route takes visitors around the Palace buildings through five narrative themes using stories, music, imagery, quizzes and more to bring the stories of the Palace and its people to life in an interactive and engaging way.   

This ambitious project has been developed in consultation with Imagineear, who are responsible for the same devices at Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour, Wimbledon, Wembley Stadium, and the Natural History Museum amongst many other prestigious attractions. 

Merryn Kidd, CEO of The Bishop’s Palace, said: “We’re delighted to make the guides available to our visitors, without an additional charge, as part of our commitment to developing Palace interpretation.   

"In 2025 our investment in bringing the stories of the Palace alive will continue with the development of our living history room – Bishop Wynne Wilson’s Study on the first floor of the Palace building -  by adding bespoke tabletop games and an exploratory armoire with objects to engage visitors in a more physical discovery of this period.  More plans are also in progress to develop an immersive visitor experience in the Palace’s Conference Room.” 

The audio visual guides are available at no additional charge to ticket holders including the 12 month Annual Pass, day ticket holders (including the new Bishop’s Palace Day Ticket and popular joint Cathedral/Palace day ticket) as well as via the new Friends scheme.