Lost Places: History Near You

Stone circles, dolmens, hillforts, Roman forts, abbeys, burial mounds, lost villages and drowned towns: England and the Republic of Ireland are full of history you walk past every day. Lost Places shows you what lies under your feet, wherever you stand, and it works offline.

LOOK DOWN
Tap once and the screen sinks through the centuries: medieval, Roman, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Neolithic. It lands on something real near you, such as a stone circle you're standing in or a 5,600-year-old tomb you can walk inside. Every place within 3 km becomes a layer in your own column of time, from today down to bedrock.

LOST VILLAGES, DROWNED TOWNS AND LEGENDS
Hundreds of deserted medieval villages. Dunwich and Ravenser Odd, swallowed by the sea. King John's baggage, lost in the Wash in 1216. The Ninth Legion. Hy-Brasil, the island that never was. Each comes with an evidence line: Verified, Approximate, Disputed, Lost or Legend. We always say which is which.

STORIES WITH A HOOK
Every place opens on a hook, not a title, then the longer version with every source listed. Narration if you want it, the words always on screen.

VISIT A COLUMN FROM HOME
Not near anything? Read the ground under Avebury, Stonehenge, Newgrange, Hadrian's Wall, Castlerigg or the Burren, or search any site offline.

ALERTS ON YOUR WALK, NO SIGNAL NEEDED
Start a walk and put the phone in your pocket. Lost Places taps you on the shoulder when you're 200 m from a place worth seeing, using GPS alone, even in airplane mode. One alert per place, quiet hours at night, nothing while you drive.

BUILD YOUR COLUMN
Stand at a real site and add its layer to your column. Reach all eight eras, from the Neolithic to today. Layers can only be added on site.

TODAY'S LINE
One 20-second question a day: is the tomb near you older or younger than the Great Pyramid? Answer and lay down a line of sediment. An optional morning reminder, never at night.

TIME ATLAS AND HORIZON
See the map as it was, era by era, with protected ground hatched. Turn on the spot and Horizon shows what's on your skyline, with no camera needed.

OFFLINE FOR WALKERS AND HIKERS
Download a country's sites and stories once (England is about 16 MB, the Republic of Ireland about 56 MB; the detailed map is an optional extra). The column, stories and alerts then work with no signal: on the Ridgeway, in the Burren, on Dartmoor, in Connemara. Downloads resume if they're cut off.

VISITING ENGLAND OR IRELAND?
Download a country at home on your own Wi-Fi before you fly. The column, stories and alerts then work from the day you land, with no local SIM or roaming data.

RESPECT THE PAST
Lost Places never marks a spot to dig or search. Legends and lost treasure are shown only as soft areas of several kilometres, never as points. Protected monuments are clearly marked: look, don't climb or take anything. Many places are on private land, so we tell you when to stay on public paths.

FREE, OR EXPLORER ONCE
Free: the column wherever you stand, famous columns to visit, offline search, arrivals, Today's line, your column, one country offline, three walks with alerts, and today's Time Atlas plus one older era.
Explorer, a one-time purchase: both countries, unlimited walks with alerts, every era of the Time Atlas, the Horizon camera view without limits and every legend and lost town. No subscription, no ads, no account.

Your location never leaves your phone.

Works in England and the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and other countries aren't included yet. From anywhere else, you can still read the famous columns and plan your trip.

Built from open data: Historic England, Ireland's National Monuments Service (SMR), Wikidata, Pleiades and OpenStreetMap. Not affiliated with English Heritage, the National Trust or the OPW.