Extraordinary Stories of Britain

Hear the story of the extraordinary life of Samuel Johnson.  The sicky, part blind, provincial boy, a failure at Oxford University he went on to create the first great dictionary of the English language.

Christopher Marlowe was the star writer of the 1580s.   The Elizabethans flocked to his plays.   But Kitt's life was shrouded in mystery. Was he a secret agent? A Catholic spy? A double agent for Queen Elizabeth's government.  There is evidence that he was heretical atheist.  And he may have been England's first gay poet   Hear how this ended with a murder mystery on May 30, 1593.

Amazing stories of animals in Britain.  From performing pigs, to medal-winning pigeons.  From war elephants to bears who appeared in Shakespeare plays.  From a runaway goose to the famous ravens in the Tower of London. 

Hear the history of Christmas traditions.  Who invented the Christmas card?  Why do we say Merry Christmas? Who put up the first Christmas tree in England?  How old is Father Christmas? And why did Canterbury riot over Christmas?   Find out in this podcast

From September 1940 to May 1941 London was the target of a brutal bombing campaign.  We tell the story of the eight months of misery and resistance.    From the spirit of London's East End,  to a special team that saved St Pauls Cathedral. From the evacuated children, to the families sleeping on the underground.  Hear about the firefighters, bomb squads, the home guard and the unique role of London's women.  

This podcast tells the dramatic story of the life of Charles Dickens.  When his father was imprisoned for debt,  he had to work as a child labourer.   The excitement of his first publication,   his troubled early romance, eventual marriage, success and secret affair – and relentless campaigning to improve the life of the poor and needy

St Mary's Bethlem was England's first psychiatric hospital.  This podcast tells the story of the hospital, from its medieval origins to its home in a grand 17th century palace.  We follow the lives of its famous inmates: the woman who tried to kill King George III, the first documented case of paranoid schizophrenia and a brilliant Victorian artist who murdered his father.  

In 1665 plague devastated England.  The remote Derbyshire village of Eyam was spared the horror - until a tailor bought a roll of cloth from London.   To stop the pestilence spreading, the local vicar closed down Eyam -  and the villagers were locked in.  Hear the dramatic story of the plague village in this podcast.

Our history of London pubs pubcast visits the oldest tavern in London, including a pub haunted by phantasmal spirits.  Hear about Parliamentary boozers, the smallest bar in the world, the Pilgrim Fathers Mayflower pub,  and Gandalf's riverside alehouse.

What is the oldest pub name in Britain? And the most popular pub name in the country? Where is our oldest pub?   What are the boozy origins of the nursery rhyme “Pop Goes the Weasel”? What caused the London beer flood?  And where is Britain's most haunted pub? Find out in our latest History of Beer podcast

The story of Beer.  From Britain's first brewer,  to ancient  ales made with psychedelic plants.     From rules on Viking drinking horns to the English king who drank himself to death.   From the rise of female brewers,   to a drunk Queen Elizabeth I.  From the legend of the ale-conner, to pubs forced to change names.  

The story of sewage:  from the Romans taxing urine,  to York's Bog on the Bridge; from Henry VIII's Groom of the Stool, to pure finders selling dog faeces.  Hear about the life of a Gong Farmer,  and how a lav affair with toilets lead to the Great Stink, which brought London's mighty Thames to a standstill.  

This special history podcast brings to life the stories of beloved pets and their owners during the dark days of WW2.   From a cat who lost his tail, to a pussy who warned its family about an impending air raid.  From a heroic church cat, to felines in the trenches.   All brought together using personal stories, newsreel, dramatised events and music. 

We investigate the history of cats:  from mummified felines in the British Museum to George the Lion who lived in the Tower of London;  from the world's favourite pantomime cat, to the pussy who helped write an English dictionary. Hear about only cat to win the prestigious wartime Dickin Medal, and political cats  - from Churchill's mouser to the famous Downing Street Larry.  

In 1666, a stray ember turned London into a blazing inferno.  Our podcast brings to life the Great Fire of London:  dramatising the lives of the people caught up in the worst disaster the capital has ever witnessed.  

400 years ago,  in 1623,  Shakespeare's plays were brought together in one book:  The First Folio  -  the most important work in English literature.   This podcast tells the story of the Bard's life in London: how the writer left the tiny village of Stratford-Upon-Avon in search of success in the capital,  how he became an actor, writer and theatre owner; how his company dismantled an entire theatre building and moved it across the River Thames -  and how his beloved Globe burned down.   And why we,  very nearly,   lost half his plays forever.

For a thousand years, British kings and queens have been crowned at Westminster Abbey.  This podcast tells the story of the coronation:   from babbling bishops to falling dukes,  spurned queens to monarch murders,  stolen stones to dazzling diamonds and belly-busting banquets to mighty majesty.   

Thee hundred years ago, Jack Sheppard was the most famous man in the country.    Britain's first celebrity was not a royal,  an actor,  or aristocrat -  but a petty thief.    This podcast tells the story of how an East End chancer became so famous, that a third of London's population took to the streets to see if he could cheat the noose. 

For 700 years Newgate Jail was the darkest, dirtiest and most miserable dungeon in London.  We uncover some of its terrible and terrifying prison stories:  from cannibals to the fearsome ghost of a black dog;    from a boy chimney sweep sent to hang at Tyburn, to a world-famous novelist imprisoned for his ideas.   Hear about London's Georgian Mafia boss,  and the man who inspired Dickens' Fagin.  Songs, stories and strange tales in this prison podcast.

  For our December episode, we are at Stonehenge for the winter solstice.   We investigate the mystery of  Stonehenge's little-known  neighbouring sister  Woodhenge -  was it once home to the largest “city” in the world?  We hear about the strange legend of the Cuckoo stone.     We find out how – 4,500 years ago -  the first stones at the henge were dragged 180 miles from Wales.    We tell the story of how the first metalworker in Britain came to be buried near the henge,   and find out how to dowse the mysterious lay lines that run under the great monument.  Are the initials of Britain's most famous architect inscribed into the monument?    We wait with the druids, wiccans and witches for the winter solstice.   

This podcast tells the story of witchcraft.   From the ancient witches of Wales to the medieval sorceress known as the Witch of Eye.   From the brutal torture of the pilliwinks, to the British king who wrote a book on witches.  From the gruesome story of the Pendle Witches, to a “witch” imprisoned during WW2 by the British government.

Our Halloween special tells the story of the Pendle witches  - the most famous witch trials in British history.    This chilling court case saw dozens of Lancashire women imprisoned for witchcraft, with accusations of stolen babies,  teeth taken from corpse skulls,  talking dogs and crippling curses.

We dig up some stories of death and dying.  How much did it cost to get to heaven in medieval times?    What is a corpse road?  And a sin eater?   Hear about the "outcast dead" and find out why Victorian Londoners were literally dancing on a giant graveyard.  What was the necropolis railway?  Who were funeral mutes?  Which graveyard hosts a tomb time machine  And which internationally famous cemetery was invaded by vampire hunters in the 1970s.   Another half an hour of extraordinary stories.

The first in our walks podcasts features the River Lea in East London.    Marc  Z and Mr Londoner walk the lower section of the Lea to uncover the origins of India Pale Ale;  a tale of stranded Vikings;   how four Eton schoolboys ran an East End sporting empire;   the terrifying story of the St Paul's bomb exploded on Hackney Marshes;   and the day when Lionel Messi played at the marshes.   Hear about WW2 bunkers on the Olympic Park,  the largest bell in the world,   the oldest tidal mill in history,  and how East End gas once lit up West End theatres.  Find out if there are any poplars left in Poplar, and hear about a 1960s American diner and floating lighthouse turned recording studio.   

Six true crime stories featuring notorious women criminals.   From a celebrity pickpocket who performed on the London stage, to an aristocrat turned highwaywoman.  From a cross-dressing pirate to the first documented girl gang,   and the last woman to be hanged in Britain.  Hear about these bad girls in this podcast.

Eight stories of women who fought for liberty,  justice and human rights.     From a 17th  century campaigner left to rot in prison for running an underground press,  to the women of Peterloo murdered by a Manchester militia army,  from a rural vicar's wife who became the mother of India,  to the first person to raise the anarchist flag.

The second part of our history of British fashion.  Find out how you could get sent to prison for wearing the wrong trousers,   why Piccadilly was known for ruff trade,  how the bowler got its name,  and who were the original mad hatters.     We uncover the secrets of the oldest shoe in Britain, hear about the top hat riots of 1797 and reveal how a famous prime minister invented the onesie.   Hear how The Mods and hippies of swinging 1960s London and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's 1970's punk stylings changed fashion for ever.  

Seven women who changed English literature.   An anchorite who spent 30 years in one room, and became the “mother of English prose”.   A passionate pilgrim known as the first female autobiographer,  two women who can both claim to have written the first-ever science fiction novel, an enslaved woman who was sold four times, and the only female journalist on the WW1 trenches.

Hear the story of British fashion,  eight hundred years of menswear -  from medieval to today.  Why did priests try to ban the button?  Why did King Edward IV outlaw pointy shoes?  Hear the saucy story of King Henry VIII's codpiece.  Discover the origins of the word “bigwig”.  Hear about the rise and fall of the man who invented the suit.   And find out about the most famous menswear street in Britain:   Savile Row  - which has tailored David Beckham, the Beatles and Elton John,  and stitched Michael Jackson's famous military jacket.  All this,  in part one of our men's fashion podcast.

Women in Science.   Seven stories of women determined to bring their discoveries to the world.    Hear about a pioneering fossil hunter who left us with a famous tongue twister, and the creator of the world's first computer programme.    Find out about a nurse who stopped hospitals from killing their patients,  and the inventor who saved thousands of soldiers from gas poisoning.   Hear how a brilliant chemist was robbed of a Nobel prize by her colleagues, and listen to the story of Britain's first,  and only,  female Nobel winner. 

Why are hundreds of skeletons hidden under a London market?   Which disease was cured by frogs? Where can you find the skeleton of an “Irish Giant”?  Why did the Queen's doctor prescribe rooster testicles?   Was there a 17th century inoculation for smallpox?  What was the Soho plague?

Which British warrior queen decapitated Nero?    Why did Elizabeth I meet an Irish piratess?   How did England's 17th century female spy escape from Holland?    Why did Margaret Bulky become a man?  Did a Hindu queen defeat the British army?    Who were the suffragitsus?   Hear the tragic story of the special-ops agent who won the George Cross.

Discover the gruesome truth about Anglo-Saxon border markers  Find out who was sewn back together after their execution  What happened when a York gladiator was bitten by a lion?   Which Elizabethan courtier's body part ended up in a cupboard? What terrible sight greeted people entering the City of London?      What horror washed up in the River Thames in Barnes?    Half an hour of extraordinary stories about heads without bodies.