The App

Kneehigh Rambles began as an adventure by poet Anna Maria Murphy, who rambled throughout Cornwall gathering tales, folklore and local rumours. Murphy then spun these stories into wild and exaggerated poems and prose, and toured the Village Halls of Cornwall to perform these newly crafted legends.

Kneehigh was looking for a way to take the magic of hearing these retellings first-hand, and let the project live on beyond the original tour.

Together, we created a soundwalk for the town of Perranporth in Cornwall, inviting anyone to download the app, plug in their headphones, and take a walk with Anna Maria Murphy through the town. As you walk, you’re introduced to stories from the surrounding area; including Saint Piran’s arrival in Cornwall, 80 year old surfers, and cliff-top ghosts.

Once the app has started, you can slip your phone in your pocket and wander freely, discovering stories and music that pop up when you walk in certain areas marked on the map. The stories even continue on the local rambling trail up around the cliffs, so you can get a taste of Murphy’s rambling adventures as you listen to her recount the tales.

The app can also be enjoyed when users aren’t in Perranporth, with the addition of an “Armchair Mode”, giving users access to the stories from afar.

During the project, we worked with members of the Kneehigh team to produce the app, as well as delivering a day-long workshop in Perranporth. We encouraged the team to play with the locations of different stories, trying out their ideas by running the app on their own phones and experimenting on location to get their app just how they wanted it.

We worked with Kneehigh’s graphic design team to give the app extra depth, including a beautiful custom-made map to show users where to find the stories.

You can download the app and take a ramble yourself via iTunes or Google Play.

Read how Charlotte Bond found the experience (General Manager, Kneehigh), making the app with us, via an article on The Guardian.

If you’d like to know more about our AppTrails service, just get in touch withjo@calvium.com