The Local Mythstorian Podcast
Hosted by founder of The Local Mythstorian project, Eli Lewis-Lycett, each episode focuses on Eli's extensive research into a piece of folklore or curious local history from across Cheshire, Derbyshire or Staffordshire, revealing the hidden story within. Visit thelocalmythstorian.com for more.
Episodes
28 episodes
Christmas Special 2024 - The Hauntings of Cheshire
Bringing together a selection of unique curios and local tales concerning folklore and haunting from across the ancient county of Cheshire, join Eli by the fireside in this Christmas special from The Local Mythstorian Podcast.
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16:19
Halloween Special - The Ghost of Barton Blount Manor
In this historically themed Halloween special, it's a personal tale from Eli regarding a very uncanny experience that he and his father shared when he was just 10 years old way back in 1993! Not quite a ghost story, but something wonderfully od...
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15:35
The Extraordinary Local Histories of Vale Royal - Live from The Grange Theatre
Recorded live at The Grange Theatre, Hartford on May 16th 2024, the last regular episode in Season 2 of the podcast presents Eli's talk on the extraordinary local histories of Vale Royal. Topics covered include the Vale Royal Rebellion, the pro...
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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41:02
Prescription Poison - Who Killed Thomas Meakin?
The story of Thomas Meakin's eighteenth century murder is a well-known legend of the Staffordshire Moorlands, yet there has never before been a full consideration of the circumstances surrounding his death, nor an inquiry into who may have kill...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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16:45
Rites of the Spring - Derbyshire Well Dressing and the Cult of Arnemetia
A spring bonus episode of sorts, recorded for season one but never released, its seasonal theme sees it make it into Season 2...Well-dressing is much loved local custom which enjoys an almost exclusive patronage in the county o...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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17:21
The Last Day of August - Great Budworth's Civil War Secret
The village of Great Budworth possesses one of the most remarkable churches in all of Cheshire, not just loved by locals but genuinely appreciated by history fans and enthusiasts of late medieval architecture right across the UK. Something visi...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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33:06
The Hungry Prophet - The Legendary Sale of Robert Nixon
The story of Robert Nixon, the 'Cheshire Prophet’ starved to death by the king, was once the best known legend of the county, retold and republished dozens of times across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Precisely who the man was howev...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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33:22
The Local Crusader - Ranulf de Blondeville and the Saracens of Biddulph Moor (Live Special)
There are few more curious associations in local legend than that of Saracen prisoners being settled on the land that is now known as the Staffordshire Moorlands village of Biddulph Moor. Travelling back to the thirteenth century to discover th...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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40:26
Invisible Fortress - The Vanishing of Shipbrook Castle
The castle at Shipbrook near Davenham is long lost to us today, its last traces being cleared from the land in the 1790s. However, in balancing the brutal events of early Norman England together with the history of a key local family, not only ...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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33:40
Christmas Special - The Friar's Fool (Live Stream Event)
A mid-season bonus episode - a recording of The Local Mythstorian website Zoom live stream event from December 7th; The Friar's Fool - A Brief History of English Devil Lore and Its Place In Cheshire Legend.
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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21:55
A Ghost Story for Cheshire - The Bones of Marbury Park
The haunting of Marbury Park is one of Cheshire’s most enduring legends of the supernatural. Most retellings however, if not all, have simply sought to repeat the basics of the tale without looking deeper into the history of the protagonists wi...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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35:11
Scholar of Magic - Ranulf Higden and the Wands of Chester Cathedral
The Cheshire monk Ranulf Higden is remembered to historians today as the author of a distant world history from the fourteenth century. However, beyond his daily religious work in the abbey at Chester, he was an inquisitive and curious man of h...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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27:23
Blood In the Barley - The Hidden Story of the Vale Royal Rebellion
Welcome to Season 2!The Vale Royal Rebellion is a medieval tale of murder, manipulation and struggle set amidst one of the most turbulent periods in all of English history. Yet it is only when we bring the contributing political factors...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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38:19
Five Minute Mythstoria - Booth's Cheshire Uprising
The Battle of Winnington Bridge in Northwich, Cheshire is widely considered to be the last battle of the English Civil Wars, yet it is little known in comparison to many events in the conflict. It is a story which provides a crystallisation of ...
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6:16
Five Minute Mythstoria - The Slaughtered Lambs of Tideswell
Tideswell in Derbyshire is a gem of the Peak District and home to the 'Cathedral of the Peak' - a church of grandeur which acts as a signpost back toward the village's rich medieval history; one of its most curious tales being that of the thirt...
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5:25
Five Minute Mythstoria - The Bridestones Hidden Ritual Landcaspe
The Bridestones is the most well known totem of prehistory in Cheshire, and indeed the Staffordshire Moorlands, standing as it does on the border between the two - but could it be that the countryside around it contains a number of other, as ye...
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6:13
Five Minute Mythstoria - The Eagle Centre Poltergeist
The Poltergeist is a form of supernatural phenomena recorded throughout human history. Scary, fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, it can prove a genuine nuisance; no more so than when such goings-on were apparent on such a scale that ...
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6:42
Five Minute Mythstoria - The Ghost of Molly Leigh
Today, Molly Leigh is remembered to residents of Stoke-On-Trent as the Witch of Burslem, but the true story of her life and death suggest she was far from the malevolent force the label suggests. Famed locally for her 'cross-ways' grave in St. ...
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7:45
Five Minute Mythstoria - The Great Age of Mary Brookes
In a series of bite-sized episodes to bring season 1 of the podcast to an end, Five Minute Mythstoria looks to share snap-shot tales of curious history from across Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. This episode is a consider...
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4:42
The Meltdown Murders - Castor's Bridge and the Borderland Smelters
In the last regular episode of the season, we look at how throughout the three-shires border region, where East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands intertwine, tales of yore are peppered with dark legends of canni...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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29:19
Butterton Live Special - Mythstoric Origins in the Staffordshire Moorlands
A live recording from Eli's talk with Butterton History Group in September 2022, and touches on three topics from the Moorlands that haven't been covered in the regular podcast episodes; the Saracens of Biddulph Moor, the murder of Thomas Meaki...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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39:22
Death of the Jagger - John Turner and the Mysterious Birth of Jenkin Chapel
The manner of John Turner's death and the creation of Jenkin Chapel are two of the most curious bookmarks in the history of Cheshire's peak border region. But by considering both events together with the darker history of the area, we may disco...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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16:27
Changing Gods - Mercian Christianity and the Fallen Stones of Arbor Low
Arbor Low is regarded as one of the most important prehistoric sites in England and a bastion of our ancient cultural identity. It is most definitely a place of wonder, but its vision comes complete with the seemingly unanswerable conundrum as ...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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17:50
The Phantom Rebel - In Search of the Headless Horseman of the Staffordshire Moorlands
The story that originally inspired The Local Mythstorian project and a tale quite unlike anything else in the British Isles! The Headless Horseman of the Staffordshire Moorlands is one of the best known pieces of folklore in the region, but whe...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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37:37
Industrial Magic - The Real Wizards of Alderley Edge
The image of the wizard has become synonymous with the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge largely thanks to a nineteenth century legend. Yet the deeper history of the area suggests that this connection to such magical figures is far from fantasy...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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12:08