Cawdor Castle

How the power of Audio re-created his Lordship’s Tour

This historic castle – lovingly filled with furniture, paintings, intriguing objects and amazing tapestries – is still home to the Cawdor family. The late Lord Cawdor left behind a written guide to the castle, which has been used as the main interpretive device for visitors for several years.  

Challenge – ATS was commissioned to help turn these notes, for which they and visitors have a great deal of affection, into an audio guide for visitors during the summer months. Although highly personal, and often rather witty, it wouldn’t have been suitable for an actor to simply record them verbatim. The notes are a personal reflection and do not necessarily provide the visitor with the historical context of the site that they could do with knowing before they start their visit.  

We hoped to move away from an informative, yet rather didactic, tone of voice, to create a guide that is engaging and relevant to visitors and their prior knowledge and expectations. Part of the challenge was to maintain some of Lord Cawdor’s personality and sense of humour in the script, without having him able to record it.   

Solution – The resulting guide is a balance between the two – a neutral narrator voice who can provide context and directions and a voice quoting directly from Lord Cawdor, allowing a sense of his warmth and personality to continue to welcome visitors. 

Graham Griffith, General Manager Cawdor Castle said, “For over 40 years Cawdor Castle has welcomed members of the public to explore the Castle and Grounds. Although we have extremely knowledgeable English-speaking guides situated throughout the Castle, a large percentage of our visitors come from overseas, we felt it was necessary to enhance their experience by providing information in additional languages. ATS provided a premium quality service, from content creation, hardware and delivery. 

Although limited Room notes are available in each room presented in A4 size. Now our visitors experience begins from the moment they enter the grounds and the Late Lord Cawdor’s incredibly informative and witty room notes have been conveyed faultlessly from paper to audio. 

The ATS Team were professional, efficient and delivered a high-quality product”.