Hallowed Histories

Hallowed Histories is delighted to bring back one of our favourite traditions - ghost stories for Christmas. Each week leading up to our Christmas special (details to come), we will be hosting a story written and narrated by a local author. This episode is a reading of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by writer and academic Shane Brown, a terrifying tale of guilt, longing and the real nature of being 'ha...

Hallowed Histories is delighted to bring back one of our favourite traditions - ghost stories for Christmas. Each week leading up to our Christmas special (details to come), we will be hosting a story written and narrated by a local author. This episode is a reading of Fear Not by writer and academic Helena Bacon, a terrifying tale of car possession, gifts with strings and family ties. IMPORTANT -...

We're still continuing our strand of ghost stories for Christmas, but here's our regular episode for those who want a true-life story of haunting. Borley Rectory is now a vacant plot in the heart of Essex, but throughout the twentieth century it was a locus for hauntings, claims of fakery, psychical research and unprecedented public interest. We take a brief dip in the deep waters of the building...

Hallowed Histories is delighted to bring back one of our favourite traditions - ghost stories for Christmas. Each week leading up to our Christmas special (details to come), we will be hosting a story written and narrated by a local author. This episode is a reading of The Cathedral House Portrait by the regular host of Hallowed Histories, Richard Sheppard. It's an old-school ghost story about the...

Hallowed Histories is delighted to bring back one of our favourite traditions - ghost stories for Christmas. Each week leading up to our Christmas special (details to come), we will be hosting a story written and narrated by a local author. This episode is the return of writer Kathryn Leigh and their suitably gothic story Tapes. We're back at UEA's media suite now, with support from the Interdisci...

Hallowed Histories is delighted to bring back one of our favourite traditions - ghost stories for Christmas. Each week leading up to our Christmas special (details to come), we will be hosting a story written and narrated by a local author. This episode is the return of writer and scholar Johnny Raspin, and his story of madness, devils in the head and horror, The Numanist Experience. We're back at...

In this episode we take a look 1400 years back in time at Barking Abbey and the women who ran it. What was often seen as a form of imprisonment for women who had nowhere else to go, the history of Barking Abbey instead reveals freedom, miracles, writing and the secrets of the dead. We're back at UEA's media suite now, with support from the Interdisciplinary Institute of Humanities .   Th...

To finish off our look at Essex boy Dick Turpin in our last episode, a recictation of Alfred Noyes's classic poem, The Highwayman. Hopefully we'll be back at our recording studios at the UEA's media suite for the next episode, thanks for bearing with us over the past few months. We hope to have exciting news about our upcoming episodes as well as our annual film festival for you all very soon. Ple...

Dig out your domino mask and flintlock pistols this month, as we go in pursuit of the not so dandy highwayman Dick Turpin. From humble beginnings as a landlord's son, through to a straight life as a butcher, through to his eventual infamy as one of Britain's most feared criminal, Turpin had done it all. Why are we so fascinated by the highwaymen though? We dissect the PR campaign that turned a thi...

We're heading out of society's comfort zone in this episode, and meeting the wild head on. People have always been fascinated by the feral, the untamed and the uncivilised - we use it as a yardstick by which to measure ourselves. Today we look at two ways in which our fascination with the wild has manifested itself - the mythical woodwoses and the all too real case of Peter the Wild Boy. From fera...

Benjamin Britten was one of the best known names in classical music of the twentieth century. What is less known about him, was that he was born in the East Anglian seaside town of Lowestoft, and it was there that he began his prodigious musical output. We look at Britten's life, and the themes that run through his music, including a preoccupation with ghost stories, and the barriers that not only...

Continuing our look at East Anglia religious mystics, we take a look at the strange, incredible career of Julian of Norwich. A young woman who dedicated to her faith, Julian was rewarded with visions of Heaven and Hell, angels and demons and God and the Devil. What makes her so unusual is that she deliberately asked to receive these visions, and to be taken so close to the brink of death that the...

We begin our look at East Anglian mystics with the blessed and cursed like of William Cowper (pronounced like copper). Cowper was born into riches and comfort, and was bright and talented, yet from an early age he was made aware of how precarious his own life and sanity was. He believed that angels and demons fought for his soul, and after an evening in which he tried to kill himself no less than...

As an epilogue to our two-part special on poison murders, we present an exclusive interview with local historian and author Frank Meeres. We talk a load of arsenic, acid, murderers and East Anglian crime and punishment.  Frank Meeres's bibliography: - https://www.waterstones.com/author/frank-meeres/63819 Please leave a review, subscribe and recommend this podcast to anyone you know with an in...

Our look at murders by poison in East Anglia focuses on the more obscure, convoluted and downright weird cases. We meet the cow that got a family killed, villages torn apart by rumour and adultery and all manners of wrongdoers and their varied eventual fates. Please leave a review, subscribe and recommend this podcast to anyone you know with an interest in East Anglia, history, folklore and the ma...

The Hallowed Histories podcast is back from hiatus with the first part of a two part look at a subject that gets people frothing at the mouth - poison. In this episode we'll take a brief look at how and why poison became the murder weapon of choice for so many people in the 19th century. Then we'll take a look at the criminal careers of three men who chose poison as the way to solve their problems...

In this episode we travel north to Norfolk's beautiful coast. Picturesque villages hide their secrets well though, and we take a look down the dark tunnels that connect people and places, and maybe give a home to something a little more sinister. Please take the time to rate and review the podcast on iTunes, stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts from.

In the second part of our look at the bubonic plague in Norwich, we look at Queen Elizabeth I's visit in 1548. Heralded as the grandest, most extravagant event in Norwich's history up to that point, the aftermath would see the city torn apart with disease. How did this end up in a scene of horror in Augustine Steward House in Tombland, and what was visited on the family therein? Find out now. Spon...

In this episode we start our two part look at the gruesome stories behind Norfolk's brush with almost total annihilation in 1349. The country was ravaged by bubonic plague, and the people of Norwich rushed to finish the city walls that may not have only made them safe from disease, but given them strength to rival London as England's capital city. What went wrong?  This episode was sponsored...

Hallowed Histories is glad to welcome back Tony Buckingham from the East Anglian UFO group for another discussion of all things extraterrestrial. This time we're not straying too far, and heading for an airbase in Suffolk, where the legendary 'Rendlesham Incident' occurred in 1980. One of the most witnessed and discussed UFO encounters in history, the details will amaze you. We also discuss the 'B...

In this episode we take a look at the life and strange times of two children who crawled out of a pit in 12th century Suffolk. Where they came from remains a mystery that no-one has been able to explain. The most curious factor was the colour of the their skin - bright green. Were they aliens? Fairies? Refugees? Or something altogether different? Please take the time to rate and review the podcast...

Hallowed Histories is delighted to have Tony Buckingham from the East Anglian UFO Group back to guide us through the alien hierarchy. We all know the greys, their influence on pop culture is pervasive. However, what is their connection with the Nordics? Or the Lizards? And what is their interest in us?  This episode was sponsored by Liberty Restaurant, the top-rated American-inspired restaura...

In this episode we look into one of the most famous parties of all time, as we go to the Villa Diodati to see Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Dr John Polidori. But why is Polidori almost forgotten? We look at the troubled life and career of the angry young man, and investigate the role a thriving intellectual scene in Norwich became a safe haven for him.  This episode was sponsored by Liberty Re...

Recently we sat down with Tony Buckingham from the EAUFOG (East Anglian UFO Group) to discuss all manner of unexplained ariel phenomena, the aliens who are visiting us, and the truths that are concealed from us everyday. It's what's been did, and what's been hid, in this fascinating interview with an absolutely charming guest.  Sponsored by Kemono Dojo. Email laszlo.zupan@yahoo.com to learn t...

In 1848, a stranger entered a beautiful Norfolk mansion called Stanfield Hall. Within a few minutes he had converted this stately family home into a bloodbath. We give you the life and death of James Blomfield Rush, whose desperate desires turned to plotting and murder.  Our facebook page, please like and follow for updates:- https://www.facebook.com/hallowedhistoriesproject  A film abou...