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.
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.
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.
TripAdvisor August 2022: The audio guides handed at the entrance give a really good guide to the interior of the castle. Each room is described as you enter it, in enough detail to enjoy the room and understand its history and purpose, but not overwhelming you with minutiae. Interesting titbits are thrown into the description. If you want more detail, there is extra available on the guide by pressing extra buttons.
