Built to defend Chatham docks in the 1750s, the history of Fort Amherst has been brought into the 21st century with a new interactive app which takes visitors on an audio tour of the site.

The Napoleonic fort is rich in history with a wealth of stories to be told about its place in Medway’s heritage and the lives of its inhabitants. This new app, complete with images and audio, brings those stories to life.

As you walk around the fort, The Walls and Gardens trail guide produced by Something Labs Ltd automatically plays audio content at key places. Scroll down to see video.

It is triggered by using GPS location technology which knows when you have walked near the area. Tour content can be pre-loaded to run offline, so the app only needs to use GPS to work.

Trustee Martin Rogers was part of the development team who worked on the app.

He said: “We purchased a skeleton program and all we had to do was populate the program and that was the awkward bit – we have so much history it was a matter of trying to find out what to cull to make each stop last about a minute and a half.

“The app is a method for the visitors to walk around the fort using their own initiative following a map on their phone.

“At each stop they are given the opportunity to learn a little about the history of what they are looking at.

There is huge room for growth with the project, with plans to expand into the Great Lines themselves and develop CGI graphics.

The hope is that the app will attract a new audience to the fort, and also encourage people to come back to discover new things.

Nicola Moy, the Great Lines Heritage Park project officer, said: “We’re hoping it will bring more people to visit the park and the fort but also that they’ll have more of an understanding of some of the structures that are currently not accessible because they’re either not safe or we can’t have them open all the time.

“Its nice to be able to walk around and find out more about the buildings.

“Even for myself I found out something new – for example, there is part of the old washing line system, I hadn’t even seen it before.”

The script was written and narrated by volunteers at the fort, with audio production support from the University Of Kent’s department of music and fine art, which is based at Chatham’s Historic Dockyard.

The app is part of an EU Interreg-funded project with 22 foreign partners from Belgium, France and Holland. The project aims to promote fortifications as cultural places of interest but also park spaces so they stay well maintained and part of the community.

Download the app via the Apple or Google Play stores.