In touch with the past

Westminster Abbey’s new touch-tour is a good idea, says Sunil Peck, but it needs a lot more work

A new touch-tour of Westminster Abbey guides visually-impaired visitors through 1,000 years of history.

It includes monuments to military leaders, a bronze gate depicting episodes from the reign of Henry VII and a 17th-century font made from marble and wood.

Once inside, visitors can pick up a guide available in either large print or Braille. The idea is to enable visually-impaired people to complete the tour without having to rely on sighted people.

The guide contains an introduction, tactile images of Westminster Abbey, navigational directions and historic and biographical information relating to the monuments.

There are also detailed and clear Braille diagrams of items that cannot be touched but have interesting stories attached to them.

Westminster Abbey developed the tour in conjunction with RNIB. The aim is to attract more visually-impaired visitors.

A lot of thought has gone into developing the tour but the choice of Braille for the guide is baffling. Braille books are awkward to read unless they are placed on a flat surface and the reader can use both hands.

Visitors with guide dogs or white sticks will find it difficult to hold and read the guide while also flicking between maps and directions.

In the end, I tucked the booklet under my free arm and asked a helpful verger to point out the things he thought I’d find fascinating.

So I missed the memorial to a peer who was blinded during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. I only learned about him because I had some time to sit down and browse through the guide afterwards.

The idea of a self-guided tour for visually-impaired people is a good one, because it means you can just turn up and enjoy the abbey spontaneously. But it would be more effective if the amount of Braille was kept to a minimum. The historical and biographical material would also be easier to absorb if it were in an audio guide.

In short, a good concept but one that perhaps needs some development.

• Westminster Abbey is usually open to visitors from Monday to Saturday. On Sundays and religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas, it is open only for worship. Opening times are 9.30am to 5.45am, with last admission at 4.45pm.