The Local Mythstorian Podcast

Tales From Antiquaria - A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Tales From Antiquaria is Eli's new podcast series, with each episode presenting highlights from a nineteenth century regional folklore collection.

This is episode one that was released on 21st October 2025. If you enjoy the new podcast, you can subscribe directly here!

A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek

Spectacular natural phenomena, sundials made of ice and stories of a headless horseman! John Sleigh’s 1862 collection, A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek is the subject of our maiden episode!

‘An old witch of the Frith used to transform herself into the shape of a hare, and allow Mr. Wood’s dogs to course her, for the sake of a small gratuity usually given to her husband, who would discreetly hint at her whereabouts.’

Tales From Antiquaria is a podcast dedicated to exploring the legacy of work published regarding folklore and local history during the golden age of antiquarian writing in the nineteenth century.

For show notes and links, visit the episodes page at talesfromantiquaria.com.

Episode written, produced and presented by Eli Lewis-Lycett. All source material taken directly from the stated publication. Main theme music by Humanoid Media. Incidental music from Restum-Anoush.

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Village Horror Story - The Brutal Folklore of Civil War Bagnall (The Lost Episode)

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Although the previous episode - The History of Witchcraft In Cheshire - was the official end of the podcast, the recent discovery of a recording from back in 2023, long since assumed deleted, means there is one more 'lost' episode to release: Village Horror Story - The Brutal Folklore of Civil War Bagnall.

In a peaceful, rural corner of North Staffordshire, famed for its well-dressings and idyllic atmosphere, two distinct memories of true human horror have found themselves handed down through the years in local folklore. But far from being a product of gruesome embellishment, it could well prove to be the case that these stories of massacre and revenge are completely, horrifically true.

Eli's new podcast series Tales From Antiquaria is out now on all major platforms

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The History of Witchcraft In Cheshire - Live from The Grange Theatre

Fri, 30 May 2025 15:00:00 +0100

The final episode of The Local Mythstorian Podcast is a live recording from Eli's talk at The Grange Theatre on Thursday May 22nd 2025, tracing the story of European witchcraft from its Roman origins through to the English witch-craze and into the county of Cheshire itself!

Eli's new podcast series Tales From Antiquaria is out now on all major platforms

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The Long Grave - Little John and the Mystery of the Hathersage Giant

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 07:00:00 +0000

There are numerous legends regarding the subject of Robin Hood and his band of outlaws located throughout the UK. In the Derbyshire village of Hathersage however, there is a story concerning Robin’s chief lieutenant Little John that intrigues more than most, centred on a grave that during an excavation 250 years ago, revealed the bones of a man who was over eight feet tall. Could it really be our famous figure in green?

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Windstars and Cinder - H.G. Wells and the Inspiration of the Potteries

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Known as the father of science fiction, H.G. Wells is as famous today as he was in his heyday of the 1890s. What isn’t so well known however, is the time he spent as a younger man amidst the burgeoning industrial landscape of the Potteries; and how that experience helped inform the imagery of his best-known work, The War of the Worlds, and also change his own worldview forever.

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Christmas Special 2024 - The Hauntings of Cheshire

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 14:00:00 +0000

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.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Halloween Special - The Ghost of Barton Blount Manor

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0100

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 odd and beguiling, it was an experience that, thanks to the wonders of Google Earth, has since kicked up the strangest of possibilities thirty years on from the event itself.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany (Collection)

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 15:00:00 +0100

Originally released as a mini series of episodes regarding snippets of Cheshire lore and history.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The Extraordinary Local Histories of Vale Royal - Live from The Grange Theatre

Fri, 24 May 2024 07:00:00 +0100

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 prophet Robert Nixon and the Devil in Cheshire folklore.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Prescription Poison - Who Killed Thomas Meakin?

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 06:00:00 +0100

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 killed him.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Rites of the Spring - Derbyshire Well Dressing and the Cult of Arnemetia

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000

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 of Derbyshire. It’s origins are much debated and appear to be forever shrouded in the deep history of the region’s ancient past, yet when stripping away the layers of the tradition involved in the ceremony and pairing with the country’s Roman history, a startling possibility begins to emerge.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The Last Day of August - Great Budworth's Civil War Secret

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000

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 visitors may not be aware of however is the visit paid to the village by Parliamentarian forces on the last day of August in 1644, and its place at the centre of a genuinely hidden history of the English Civil War.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The Hungry Prophet - The Legendary Sale of Robert Nixon

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

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 however, has always been something of a mystery, with many assuming he was little more than a fairy tale. Yet research suggests that not only was Robert a real-life figure, but that his bizarre and tragic end might just have been a reality too.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The Local Crusader - Ranulf de Blondeville and the Saracens of Biddulph Moor (Live Special)

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0000

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 the untold story behind the legend, we reach a place where the adventures of the crusades meet with the dark realities of the medieval slave trade under the patronage of one of the most powerful figures in all of local history.

Recorded live at the Victoria Centre, Biddulph on January 15th 2024.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Invisible Fortress - The Vanishing of Shipbrook Castle

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 08:00:00 +0000

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 can we better appreciate this often overlooked corner of medieval Cheshire, but perhaps for the first time, look to understand the story of Shipbrook Castle and its ties to a bloody revolt against King Henry IV.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Christmas Special - The Friar's Fool (Live Stream Event)

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 08:00:00 +0000

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.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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A Ghost Story for Cheshire - The Bones of Marbury Park

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 07:00:00 +0000

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 within. When we do, and look to consider the legend within the context of its earliest form, we find a very different tale to tell, and one that is all the more fascinating for it.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Scholar of Magic - Ranulf Higden and the Wands of Chester Cathedral

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

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 his age; traits that can help us understand better why such a figure of Christian piety would come to be buried with a notorious totem of the magical arts.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Blood In the Barley - The Hidden Story of the Vale Royal Rebellion

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 21:00:00 +0100

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, key players and major events of the story together as one, that we can really appreciate just what a remarkable piece of Cheshire history the story truly is.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Five Minute Mythstoria - Collection of Six Mini Episodes

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Originally 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.

Includes;

The Great Age of Mary Brookes

The Ghost of Molly Leigh

The Eagle Centre Poltergeist

The Bridestones Hidden Ritual Landscape

The Slaughtered Lambs of Tideswell

Booth's Cheshire Uprising

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The Meltdown Murders - Castor's Bridge and the Borderland Smelters

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000

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 cannibalism and murder, and ask if there could there be more to the historical rumours than mere fear mongering and folk warnings of the wild?

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Butterton Live Special - Mythstoric Origins in the Staffordshire Moorlands

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 18:00:00 +0000

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 Meakin and the brutal Civil War folklore of the village of Bagnall.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Death of the Jagger - John Turner and the Mysterious Birth of Jenkin Chapel

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:00:00 +0000

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 discover that old country superstitions still had remarkably strong ties to local belief structure during the early part of the eighteenth century.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Changing Gods - Mercian Christianity and the Fallen Stones of Arbor Low

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 11:00:00 +0000

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 to how its once magnificent stone circle came to be pulled down and laid flat. Could the mystery become a little clearer when placed against the location’s direct and intimate connections to the religious wars of Dark Age Britain?

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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The Phantom Rebel - In Search of the Headless Horseman of the Staffordshire Moorlands

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0100

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 where did it come from? Tracing the story of the horseman back through 650 years of local history, via Victorian ghost sightings and Arthurian literature, we uncover the shocking true story of medieval murder that lies at the heart of the spectre’s inspiration.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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Industrial Magic - The Real Wizards of Alderley Edge

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 11:00:00 +0100

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, and in fact may be the result of a very real, if extraordinary, historical legacy.

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The Magic Hatters - Understanding the Story of the Bakewell Witches

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 19:00:00 +0100

The story of the Bakewell witches is unique within the annals of English witchcraft and a tale thought by some to be so fantastical that it may not even be true. Yet research cannot only place the event firmly in the context of the times, but it can also help create a picture of the events that originally brought the story into being.

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The Talbot Curse - Lady Gwendoline and the Legend of the Chained Oak

Sun, 17 Jul 2022 13:00:00 +0100

The Chained Oak of Alton may be a unique piece of British folklore, but its creation story suffers from such a swathe of supposition that many have come to assume there is no genuine historical basis for the legend at all. Yet in the tragic history of the family who sit at the heart of the piece we may well find that the tale is indeed rooted in reality, as we look to uncover why an ancient oak tree has been wrapped in iron chains for the better part of the past 200 years.

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King of Chaos - The Strange Lives of Samuel Johnson

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0100

The figure of Samuel Johnson serves to both intrigue and fascinate, but so little of his story has been properly examined that ultimately he is little understood beyond triviality. Seeking to address that balance by casting a light across the life of one of the most remarkable and bizarre characters in all of Cheshire history, we discover that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.

Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!

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