Loremen Podcast - Loremen S6Ep18 - The Legends of Lullingstone

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

A walk in the park turns out to be no walk in the park. Alasdair introduces James to Lullingstone Castle, home to both an aristocratic orchid hunter and the spectre of Colonel Meates - surely one of the meatiest ghosts in Kent. Straying from the path, we encounter Percy Pilcher (the unfortunate aeronaut), Thomas Becket (the spiteful saint), and a Roman beefcake by the name of Titus Manlius. This episode was edited by ⁠⁠⁠Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor⁠⁠⁠ Join the LoreFolk at ⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ko-fi.com/loremen⁠⁠⁠ Check the sweet, sweet merch here... ⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631⁠⁠⁠ @loremenpod ⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/loremenpodcast⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/loremenpod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Lorman, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore with me, Alistair Beckett King. And me, James Shake Shaft. And James, today you and I are going to go for a little stroll. Let's, let's go get lost in the Kent Downs. All right then. Accidentally, as I did a few days ago. Ooh, well I hope you found some stories. I did indeed.

I've got a tale of two Thomases for you. A tea of two teas. And this is how good the stories are. That's not even the title of the episode. What is it? As alliterative as it is, that's not the title. The title is The Legends of Lullingstone. James, I've got a little story for you today. In fact, I've got a few little stories for you. All lovely.

All from a place called Lullingstone. Oh, lovely name, isn't it? I hope these stories are as lovely as the name. No, some people know there's, okay, there's some dark bits in the stories. We're going to the Kent Downs. Okay, already we're in Kent. Yeah, we're in Kent. We're here in Kent. We're by the River Darrent. The River Darren? Well, amazingly, I think it used to be called Darrenth with a th at the end. Really? Like, Feveral Darrenth.

Hoity-toity. The River Darrenth. Is that what Darren is a nickname for? It's short for Darrenth. If you were a medieval knight called Darrenth, they'd probably just add a little th on the end. Yeah. Basically, I and my lover and confidant decided to have a little lovely little day out in

Lillingstone Country Park and I got very badly lost. Oh. Really lost and it was entirely my fault. But in doing that, I managed to run into several real life legends of Lullingstone. Wow. And when I got home, I looked up the background of all the places. So I'd like to share a sort of grab bag of what I did on my holidays with you.

Whilst lost. Whilst lost. Yeah. If I hadn't got lost, I never would have found out about some of the local odd balls in the region of Lillingstone. This is an amazing storytelling framing convention. Thank you. Thank you. Ripped from reality.

Torn from my own experiences, I got lost near the river Darenf. Darenf? Darenf! Darenf! Of course, furious. Absolutely furious with Darren. So I should say up top, there's not a huge amount of supernatural. Some of these local legends are real people. One of them is still alive.

But let's start with some people who are really not alive. The Romans. Yes. One of the things you'll find in Lullingstone is Lullingstone Roman Villa. Nice. Which I don't have a huge amount to say about because it is closed at the moment, so we couldn't go in. But it's a really amazing archaeological site.

Really, really important. It's been there for absolutely ages. It's got an amazing mosaic of Baleforon slaying the Chimera. Whoa. Yeah. Which one's the Chimera? Is that the one out of Dungeons and Dragons? Almost certainly, yes.

But aren't they all out of Dungeons and Dragons? Is that the one out of Dungeons and Dragons? Almost certainly, yes, but aren't they all out of Dungeons and Dragons? Is that the multi-headed dragon? I think it's confusing because Chimera these days means a combination of different animals of any kind. But I think it is a specific guy in ancient Greek slash Greaky Roman mythology. Let me have a quick check. Yeah, I think we're talking about your basic lion with a serpent for a tail and a goat's head. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm seeing that. It's got two heads. You're not mistaken, listener. It did have two heads. Oh, two heads. Well done, James. One lion's and one goat's.

A little spare goat head. That's mostly like the mouth. The lion will take you down physically and the goat will just like get you mentally. Yeah, it's like a sort of like a rap thing. Like the other ones, they're just like a hype goat on his shoulder. And I don't know if you can see, but on the mosaic, there's actually a clock, a massive clock around the neck of that guy. I don't even know what I'm referencing there, James. I'm just referencing things from hip hop history that you've told me about. It's Flavour Flav.

Yeah. So they've got a mosaic of Balefaron slaying Flavour Flav. That Roman villa was there for ages. So you can chart in that villa, the advancement of Christianity. So it was there before Britain was Christianized and you can see they changed it around and added Christian elements to the house. And according to the Gentleman's Magazine, 1820, which you have raised an eyebrow at before. Safe search. Oh.

Just a very ordinary magazine for gentlemen. And ordinarily found in a railway sighting. According to an 1820 edition of the Gentleman's Magazine, at Lillingstone were discovered 300 skulls. Whoa. That's too many skulls. I'm not quite sure if they were Viking skulls or if they were the work of Danes. So I don't know if it was just left behind by the Vikings.

Wow. I can't find any evidence anywhere else about 300 skulls being found there. It's a lot. That's too many. Especially just skulls. Yeah, that's also a very good point. Yeah, very weird. It seems too many.

Like the Chimera, which to be honest, only had one too many skulls. Any amount of too many. That's your basic two for one, but 300? Too many. Yeah, come on. Skulls? Everyone's got one. Yes, exactly. There's another way of putting that well-known phrase that explains why this is so unlikely. Skull me once. Normal me. Skull me 300. The police are getting involved.

Yep. Absolutely unreasonable. Now, while we're talking about Romans, quite unrelated to this journey, I stumbled over the work of a man called Hendrick Galtzius. Do you know this guy? No, but I like the name. He was an engraver and he published a piece called The Roman Heroes in 1586. Now, I have, I believe, sent you four envelopes with four of Hendrick, Hendrick Galtzius' drawings, which are various Roman heroes. The listener can't see them. So I don't, I don't know how to put this. They're real muscle boys. Ooh. Which, which envelope am I supposed to be?

Open the first envelope first. Is that the first one you sent me? The rear view? In WhatsApp. Yes, absolutely. Now that James, the first, if you're opening the first envelope there, you were looking at Titus Manlius. It is a Titus. Yes. And could you describe for the listener what you're seeing there? Well, it is at a very basic level.

It's a, it's a fella on a horse. Yeah. They're both got their back to the camera. I think it may be an ass, but that might just be because the donkeys behind or the horses behind is so prominent in the picture. Yeah. It's quite veiny as well, which you don't often see in a bum. I don't know if the listener or James, if you're familiar with the work of Tom of Finland, it's very like that guy was a 16th century engraver and had to do Roman

heroes instead of sort of leather bikers. Is, and the, and the fellow, I mean, okay. I just concentrated on the horse's bottom, cause that is what the artist clearly concentrated on. It's that's front and center. You can see the horse's, you can see that the horse is a boy horse, if you know what I mean. It's, he's, he's dragging some stones there. Yes. And the horse is looking around coquettishly.

Yes. The horse is making eye contact with the viewer. Whereas Titus Manlius is just looking off into the distance. And that's the guy on the horse. Wearing, I think chaps or hot pants. I can't work out what, cause it's all in black and white. I can't work out what, cause it's all in black and white, I can't work out what's clothing. It looks like he just has a, like a, basically it looks like he's sat on a towel and then

he's naked otherwise. And the muscles on this fella, the muscles on this guy's back. Yeah. They've got muscles on muscles. If you like that guy, check out the next image. This is, and I don't know about the pronunciation here. This is Publius Horatius. No! No.

Or Publius. I don't know. Oh, this is a mustachioed man. Good old mustache there. He's holding his sword aloft. Again, not here. I think it's maybe a 12 pack? Yeah. Yeah, his stomach looks like a neatly arranged load of big pebbles. He is strong. He's got knee muscles.

The people from the North East of England, don't be confused. Yeah, it's the opposite of what you're thinking. This guy has canny muscles. Yes. Allow me to translate. Canny muscles on his knees. And shall I open the third envelope? And the third image, this is the not so nicely named Mucius Scavola. You think he's

wearing shoes, but he's actually just wearing ankle bracelets and then bare feet. Yeah. He's got like little sort of neckerchiefs, but tied around his calves. So calferchiefs. Yeah, ankle, ankle chiefs. And a little dragon on his head. Yeah. And his mustache, he's got an elaborate facial hair that makes him look a little like a cat person. Yeah.

And again, muscles on muscles. And the final guy, and I admit this guy is mainly in it for the name, Horatius Cockles. Hey, whoa. Or Horatius cockleys. I don't know how that should be pronounced. What this again, again, he's got rib muscles. This one, they are, they're good. What's good is they're not skin.

They're not skinny waifs. No, no, they are. Are they beach body ready? They're sort of war body ready. Yeah. All in martial poses. You know, you sort of hear about like the gladiators from, from days of Roman were quite chunky.

From the nineties. Yes. Were quite chunky so that it kind of, that was sort of like a built in padding. Yeah. So if you got sliced up by a sword, it wouldn't get your muscles straight away. Oh no. If you hit these guys with a sword, it would just ping off, wouldn't it? Pong. They just deflect it.

Definitely. And this, I mean, you'll be able to see if we go to the YouTube channel and we'll put the pictures up at the appropriate point in the video. If they get passed. There's no way. There's no way we are going to be censoring the flip out of these. There is one that I haven't sent you of Hercules. Oh, really small winky. That's all I can say. Was it cold out Hercules? I assume it was that day. Yeah. So that's the one thing that makes it different from Tom of Finland's work. Right. But it does feel like, you know, this guy, Hendrik Godzius, he had his interests. Definitely. Definitely. He knew what he liked. He liked what looked to be

19 feet tall beefy guys. Yeah, he's certainly got a type. So we don't know of any of these guys. I mean, these are all historical figures, so we probably know for certain that they didn't live at Lillingstone Roman Villa, but I just wanted an excuse to say Titus Manlius. Yes, definitely. Thank you for sharing those with me. You're very welcome. And yeah, there's no way they're getting through the census. A short, short stroll from Lillingstone Roman Villa is Lillingstone Castle, which is a pretty, pretty big 15th century house. It's not really a castle. It's a manor house with its own private lake. It's usually closed to the public because it's a private residence, but it's open on a few bank holidays a year. And by chance, it was open when we went there. So we got to nose around

and I was a little bit sarcastic about some of the portraits. So take that. And it's been inhabited by the Hart-Dyke family. Were you having a go that they weren't muscly enough? I don't know. These people look like real weeds compared to Titus Manlius, but who doesn't? This house has been inhabited by the Hart Dyke family since the 1400s, since it was built, which I think is quite unusual really. Like normally at some point in that time, people with pitchforks would have had something to say about it and maybe it would have been sold to an American or something. Hard times might have. Yeah.

Hard. Well, hard times have fallen upon the place that it's in a state of being repaired at the moment. They've got a, they've got a private chapel, which is quite nice. And it has, I don't know if you remember the ghost story, man size in marble. Yes. Is that Edith Nesbitt? I think it is oldie Nesbitt. Yeah, she's good.

She's good. She's like a good version of Enid Blyton. Yeah. That's five children in it, isn't it? Have I got my confusion? No, that's Rabsi Nesbitt. No. That's someone else again.

That's five children in gash. Well, they've got the marble carvings of the dead people on top of their tombs within this quite small chapel. And if you've read that story, it's a little bit sinister. Oh, yeah. But the incumbent aristot in the place right now is Tom Hart Dyke, who is, I think, Miranda Hart's cousin. Really?

Which I don't think I realized how posh Miranda Hart was. You've not heard her speak. Well, I knew she was quite posh, but people think I'm posh. And I don't have any relatives who live in a castle. You don't have any relatives with a church. And nobody has, everyone has their own chapel. So I don't think I quite realized how posh the Hart-Dyke family were. Now Tom is a famous orchid hunter. I know it's just hard to get your head around someone still being alive and is a famous orchid hunter.

I know, it's just hard to get your head around someone still being alive and being a famous orchid hunter. Yeah. I mean, he's not old. He's Gen X. Of the genre of hunter though, it is one of the least dangerous. Well, James, you have walked right into a trap there. As I'm afraid in real life did Tom Hart dyke, as you will soon discover, but it can be very

dangerous to be an orchid hunter. These days, Tom is back in the UK, Tom Hart Dyke, Tom HD, Tommy 1080p, if you will. He spends most of his time, thank you, trying to raise funds to repair the castle and trying to attract people to come and visit and pay to have a look at the grounds. Because he's your classic penniless aristocrat. Although maybe you would be a bit less penniless if your job wasn't hunting orchids. I don't know. He was inspired to start gardening and get into orchids and plants by his granny crack.

C-R-A-C. Now that's not a real name. That is a name he gave to her. So he refers to her. So he refers to her as his granny crack. And his goal as an orchid hunter was to name an orchid after granny crack, which he didn't quite do, but he did finally manage to name a plant after in 2005. Crackstilite. Sorry, James, are you disrespecting this guy's lifelong?

I thought I heard you scoffing there. This is a young man's lifelong dream to name a plant after his granny Crack. And in 2005, he finally named a plant. Crack's Delight. Do you find that amusing, James? Only because I'm so into 90s hip hop or 80s hip hop that I think it's, what they've done is they've taken the message of white lines, which is that Crack Gain is bad for you and fused it with the most famous rap

song of all, Rapper's Delight, in order to create Crack's Delight. Lillingstone Castle is haunted, I knew you would ask. It's haunted according to Tom's autobiography, An Englishman's Home, which is actually very clever when you think about it. Yes. Because it is a castle. Yes. Now, Granny Crack lived in the North Tower of the castle.

A crack den, you might say. But the South Tower is the haunted one, and it's haunted by the specter of Colonel Meats. Meats. Sorry. Did you say a platter of cold meats? No, I said the specter of Colonel Meats. M-E-A-T-E-S. A totally normal name that I've never heard before. Meats! Is he the inspiration?

Is he ever hook up with Colonel Mustard? That sounds like a fine brunch. Sounds like a picky tea. Yeah, like for Boxing Day. Nothing's hot. It's just all cold. But there's a... Yeah, like for Boxing Day, nothing's hot. It's just all cold. But yeah, lovely. He died in his chair in 1985. So fun time's over. But he hasn't left the castle. He appears and he appears according to Tom in stages. The first stage is the fried breakfast stage. Yeah.

It's a very meat based haunting. Yeah, that's where I think it's going. It's the second one in a sandwich. The scent, the scent of cooking bacon, the scent of a cooking meat, meats, meats. No. Will start to waft through the room, even though nobody is actually cooking breakfast. And the subsequent stages for some reason don't have names, but for some reason he names and capitalises the fried breakfast stage and then doesn't name the subsequent stages for some reason don't have names, but for some reason he names and capitalises the fried breakfast stage and doesn't name the subsequent stages.

But they appear to be the cigar smoking stage. Again, what killed him in 1985 remains a mystery. Okay, so there's breakfast meat, smoked meat. Smoky meat. Yes, I imagine the blue smoke. Did he die in a chair or did he just go a bit green and they chucked him away? Oh, sorry, as a vegan you won't get that joke. Actually, the correct way to eat kernel meats is raw. It's very good for your libido. That's not a callback. We haven't said that yet. That's a call forward. That's going at the end. That's a call forward. And the final stage, Eighth Colonel Meade's actually appearing to you, which has never happened to Tom,

but supposedly he has actually manifested there in the South Tower. Just leaving a greasy retidue. But the real attraction of the castle is not the Meadey Colonel, it's the World Garden. And I might suggest that you search for this Lullingstone World Garden so you can see what I'm talking about and maybe add a little bit of colour for the listener. Lullingstone World Garden. It is a garden laid out supposedly in the shape of the earth, like a map, but it's not, with plants from all over the world.

That's okay. Yeah, I can't really make out the shape of the world there. The world has become a little overgrown. And also, certain things have to be in certain places to get the sun, what little sun there is in Kent. And so you can't really put things where they're supposed to be. But they've done their best. And there's a little plaque explaining what the world garden is. And it just says something like, Tom Hart Dyke conceived of the idea of the world garden during his

kidnapping ordeal. What? And then no further information, because of course everybody involved is very, very aware of his kidnapping ordeal, but I didn't know anything about it. And there's no reception there. So I couldn't look, I was, you know, just tapping my phone. So I was like, what do you mean it's kidnapping ordeal? You James thought that it sounded easy being an orchid hunter.

Yeah. Apparently it's not. And this is, so this is quite serious. It happened to a real person. He's okay now. Who is alive. He's alive. And if it happened in the 19th century, I would really take the mickey.

But since it happened to a guy who's currently alive. Okay. According to a Guardian article, December 22nd, 2000, Tom Hardyke and his orchid hunting companion were kidnapped by gorillas. Okay. Yep. Can I ask how that's spelled? You may.

It's spelled Gwerela. Yeah. Gwerela. Right. As in? Colombian gorillas. Right. Possibly we don't like Marxist, Leninist, FARC gorillas.

It's not, it's not, nobody really knows. He was kidnapped and held for nine months in Columbia. Nobody quite knows why the kidnappers never asked for a ransom. And eventually he was just released without any kind of warning into the, into the jungles whereupon that's good that he was released. He was released, he and his friend, they were both released. Obviously it's very distressing. And of course they, they got lost in the jungles and had to come back and ask for a map after six days.

Oh, to their kidnappers? To the kidnappers, yeah. It's like when you say goodbye to someone, you realize you go into the same tube station. Yeah, and then you both walk in the same direction after already saying goodbye. It's like that, but maybe even a bit worse. But one of them kidnapped the other. saying goodbye. It's like that, but maybe even a bit worse. But one of them kidnapped the other. Yeah, but they were Marxist-Leninist guerrillas and you were a British aristocrat. So one of the

ways that he sort of kept himself in check while he was undergoing that horrible ordeal was he conceived of the idea of the world garden. And when he came back to the UK, he built it and it's become a huge tourist attraction and it's changed the fortunes of the house and now they can afford to repair the roof and stuff. Will Barron Oh, nice one. Jason Vale And it's pretty cool. They've got really alien looking plants to me, a British person who's never seen these sorts of things. They've got moonstone succulents that really look like the plants in Forbidden Planet, really kind of alien

looking things. They've got the hot and juicy house and the hot and spiky house, which are not as saucy as you're thinking it is, mainly cactuses. Okay. It's cacti. Not them Romans again. It's not, it's not your saucy Romans. It's not Titus Manlius, but it's nice. It's basically, it's like Disneyland for reform voters, but it is, it's lovely. And there's a general level of toffery about the whole place that I found a little bit. Like there's a picture of Charles and Camilla and the caption is, how exciting. That doesn't sound that exciting. I've had been kidnapped by Marxist guerrillas.

I don't think that would move me at all. Obviously none of their Marxist guerrillaing. Yeah. No, fair, fair. I mean, fair enough. There's one of the local legends, Tom Hardyke himself, just trying to get by in a world that doesn't necessarily have space for Orchid Hunters. So after the house, I thought we set off along a path to circumnavigate Lillingstone Country Park. Right. And I followed the map for quite a while.

You had no signal. I downloaded the PDF. I was about to claim it was on paper. Of course it wasn't. It was a PDF on my phone. I was following the markers. They had markers and markers and markers. And eventually we started to lose the markers. And then I got a little bit of reception and I was able to check where we were on GPS. And we were at 10 miles away from where I thought we were. And we were nowhere near the country mark. And I couldn't believe... Because we'd only lost the markers for about 15, 30 minutes. So we walked like 10 miles in 15 minutes, but I couldn't retrace our steps and I couldn't understand it. And I thought, well, the GPS... This is where I made my mistake. I thought,

well, the GPS must be wrong. And we must be going the right way because there's no way that I'm wrong. And Rachel, my lover and confidant started talking about flight 19, the famous flight, the disaster where the pilots in Bermuda triangle thought they'd seen the Florida Keys, but hadn't and kept flying in the wrong direction. And 14 men and five airplanes died. They were, were they looking for Fort Lauderdale? I'm just looking at my notes. Fort Lauderdale.

Yeah. I think they were. Yeah. Very hard to say in an American accent. I'm sure I've said that in the podcast before. You have to say Fort Lauderdale. It's not Fart Lauderdale. It's not Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale. It's not Fart Lauderdale. It's not Fort Lauderdale.

Fort Lauderdale. It's a real Sean Bean situation, but longer. It's a Sean Bean situation over in Fort Lauderdale. So yeah, I kept walking in the wrong direction for a very long time. Basically what happened was we had never been on the right path. We'd been walking a completely different path the whole time. And I'd been sort of bending my imagination to make it fit. But hadn't we not wandered for, we'd never been in the country park.

We left it almost instantly and wandered in the opposite direction. Were you trespassing? No, no, we were all we were. Well, a little bit, a little bit once we lost the footpath. Yeah. By chance, we stumbled upon Percy Pilcher's memorial. Excuse me? And we never would have found it if we'd gone the right way. Now,

Percy Pilcher is a name that everyone would know, if only he hadn't died tragically. Percy Pilcher, along with his sister Ella, was an aeronautical pioneer who very nearly beat the Wright brothers in the race to be the first person to do powered flight in 1899. So if he had succeeded, we'd all be going like, oh yeah, Percy Pilcher, the aeroplane guy. At this time, there was a big race to be the first person to come up with a powered aeroplane, I suppose we'd call it. Pilcher's mentor was the German aeronaut Otto Lilienthal, or Lilienthal, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Would you like to guess, James, how Otto died?

Well, I'm guessing this time it wasn't orchid related. It was unrelated to orchids, you're right. Okay. Unless perhaps his unlucky orchid was with him on his final... I'm guessing it was, yeah, it was a problem with flying by the fact that he wasn't the first person to successfully fly. It is the natural cause.

It's natural causes really with aeronautical pioneers for them to fall out of the sky and die and that is what happened to Otto. Ah, I'm sorry. And also to Percy Pilcher shortly afterwards. But before he died, Pilcher designed various gliders, the bat, the beetle, and then the hawk. And the hawk is on display in the National Museum of Scotland, because Pilcher was half Scottish. And they'll take anything really, I think. It's not that it got that far. Yeah, it didn't happen in Scotland. He wasn't born in Scotland. But his workshop was based

in Lohlingstall, and that's why there's a memorial for him there. He was inspired by Octave Chanute, mainly in the story for names. Yes. He didn't die. No. Wait, he did. Well, yeah, wait a minute. He did die.

And he's here now. No, he did die, but not of falling out of the sky. Right. And Chanute, he was the guy who came up with lots of little wings on top of each other, like a biplane or a triplane. To increase the lift. So Pilcher built a motorized triplane inspired by Chanute and it was a triplane. So it had three sets of wings and he really needed money to, if you will excuse me, James,

get it off the ground. Oh no. Thank you. Yeah. But on the day that the investors came to see him show it off, the engine broke. So he didn't want them to go home having seen nothing. And so he went up in the Hawk, the glider, and it was a very blustery day. And tragically, the tail snapped off in midair and he came down and very badly injured and

died a few days later. And that's pilchered. That's, that's Percy Pilcher. Pilcher. Not everyone is food. Okay. We just, we did have a meat. Yeah.

It's a supposed to kind of meat. Yeah. And his triplane was never tested. It was just left to rot and fall apart until 2003 when a team of engineers rebuilt it. Yeah. And it didn't fly, but it only took a few very small tweaks that they think Pilcher would have been able to make to get it to fly. So had tragedy not struck, he would have been the first person

to, um, to achieve powered flight. Oh, what a lucky Pilcher. So that's very, very frustrating. I mean, he's probably annoyed about being dead as well. Yeah. I'd say, yeah, more so. My, uh, my source there is a BBC news article from the 30th of September, 2024, but that is the tragic tale of Percy Pilcher, who nearly, nearly reached the

stars, not the stars, the clouds, I suppose. The higher clouds, the mid-height clouds. It was around about this time. It was as we passed Percy Pilcher's memorial that I realized something was up, long after it memorial that I realized something was up. Long after it was very obvious that something was up. And you'd been told something was up. And we walked past a sign saying that where we were going was behind us. Okay, there were a few clues, James. But if we carried on walking in the direction I was walking, we would have reached Otford.

Otford? Otford. It's like a hot Oxford. Yeah. Said by Cockney. Otford. Otford? Otford. It's like a hot Oxford. Yeah. Said by Cockney. Otford. Otford. Yeah.

Where my semi namesake. Excuse me. Thomas Becket lived. Thomas Becket. I, I, interestingly you gave him an A there. Thomas the Becket. Thomas. Is that a two, am I talking two different people?

Are we in a Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon situation? We are not in the Francis, Francis, Francis Bacon, Bacon. No, Thomas Beckett, Thomas Abbecket are the same person. But why, why? Cause when we were kids, he was Thomas Abbecket all the time. Yeah, it was Thomas, uh, Beckett. And these days. Has he just got less passive aggressive?

Now it's Thomas Beckett. Where did the A come from? Academics call him Thomas Becket. And the reason for that is that his name was Thomas Becket. Well, go on then. There's no A. And the A appears for some reason. I looked it up and John Jenkins of York University wrote a whole essay about it called, Who Put the A in Thomas A.

Becket? Oh, nice. I thought that was a song. It turns out just, I think people did cause Thomas A. Becket just sounds good. It does sound good. It just sounds like that's his song. It turns out, just, I think people did because Thomas Abecate just sounds good. It does sound good. It just sounds like that's his name. But it's odd that it came out and that it just spontaneously.

Yeah. Well, I think, I do think it was someone who'd forgotten and it was- Thomas Abecate. And they're like, you're, hey, you proud professor. Have you forgotten the guy's name? It's like, no, I'm a proud professor. And his middle name is actually a. Well, I think it's the opposite. I think it was ordinary people started calling him Thomas Abekit.

And then academics and writers started writing it down like that. So the earliest example in writing comes from Thomas Nash was around in the late 16th century, died in 1601. And he wrote a pamph called this this guy is good at tycles. Yeah. It's called have with you to Saffron Walden. Nice. Really gives you a sense of what it's about.

Sounds a bit like a song as well though, doesn't it? It does sound like a folk song. Yeah. So he's the first person, but he, it's not about Thomas Beckett. He just references Thomas Beckett and says Thomas Beckett. So it's probably the case that people were just calling him Thomas of Beckett by then. It was kind of an insult to even call him Beckett rather than St. Thomas. Protestants called him Beckett because they didn't like him.

Oliver Cromwell insisted that he be called Bishop Beckett because Beckett wasn't really a name. It was his dad's nickname. And I know this because my surname is Beckett. The source of the name could mean small river like Beck, or it could mean the Beck region of Normandy, or it could mean having a beaky bird-like nose like what I have. Now, according to this essay, Thomas Beckett's father may well have lived near a stream and was a beaky nose man from the Beck region of Normandy. So we just don't know how that became his nickname. But it was his nickname.

Mason writing a piece called the science of names, someone claimed that it was just the best form of name and that people with such names reap all the fame because of their phonic value. So just Thomas Beckett just sounds great, which is annoying because I would quite like to reap some fame and Alastair Beckett has the exact same rhythm. But Alastair Beckett King doesn't. That's annoying, isn't it? Yeah. I might call myself Jimmy a Shake Shaft.

Jimmy the Shakes. Jimmy a Shake shake shaft. Jimmy the shakes. Jimmy a shake shaft. Jimmy the shake shaft. Sounds like maybe you have Italian pretensions though. Well, St. Thomas medieval saints born 1811. No, no, 1118. Much, much earlier.

Yes. Got my numbers wrong there. Yes. He had a palace down at Otford, which is gone apart from the gatehouse, but there's still a manor house there. I'm not sure if it's a house or a castle. Its name is Castle House. Ah, okay. Fair enough. Yeah. And it is also home to Beckett's Well, as in Water Well. Yeah, because he's dead. Definitely. He's definitely dead. He's not. He's very, he's famously very unwell because he was murdered by several knights.

That's the only thing we know about him. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of his main things is that he came to a sticky end. Hmm. Probably because he was correcting them about his name. According to friend of the show, Law of the Land by Westwood and Simpson, old Saint Tommy was unhappy with the quality of the water in Otford, and he struck the ground with his staff and oof, fresh water came forth. Boom.

And that wasn't the end of the miracles done by the well. The same edition of the Gentleman's Magazine that I mentioned earlier describes the well. A spring clear as the brightest crystal, and which discovers through its pervious medium – spring means water – the moss-growngrown stones with which the bottom of its chamber is paved as this lucid fountain has been formed into a bath about twenty feet long. An old man was completely renovated by this bath to health and action, a circumstance witnessed by the late Lord Stanup and several of the neighbouring gentry. I don't like the idea of an old man being renovated, I'm sorry.

You know, you're just going to knock right through. It feels like... Just make it a double-sized space. It feels like they just gutted him and then he's got a new person, which they just kept the frontage. Oh, but you'd prefer that to a new build, wouldn't you? Yeah, a new build man. A new build old man. These generic, characterless old men out of town estates. All old men.

Has this renovated old man now got a feature wall? The listeners can hop over to Rural Concerns to find out about a feature ceiling, I think. Yeah. In Chris's house. Yes. The feature wall taken to the next level. And also one of his other rooms, there's a feature damp patch. That's brilliant.

Those aren't the only miracles that Thomas Becket did, but the remaining miracles are known as the spiteful miracles of Thomas Becket. Oh, no. Did they devalue a young man? Did they renovate a young man without planning permission? Yeah. I had to strip, I had to demolish him. Did they build their own gymnasium on the back of a young man that they didn't

have planning permission for? No, what they did was they stacked, they stacked up hay bales. So you couldn't see that they were building an old man. That happened, didn't it? Yes, someone built... I saw of a mansion behind hay bales without planning permission because, you know, after a certain amount of time, people just let it go. But it turns out that if you put it behind hay bales on purpose and then pull them down

to much fanfare, they don't let you off with it. They make you tear it down. Was he done by the three little pigs in that case? One of the little pigs. Mid-sized one, I think. This is from the Elizabethan historian William Lambard, which I'm reading in Law of the Land. They say also that as he walked, we're talking about Beckett here, on a time in the old park, busy at his prayers, he was much hindered in devotion by the sweet

note and melody of a nightingale that sang in a bush beside him. And therefore, in the might of his holiness, he enjoined that henceforth no bird of that kind should be so bold as to sing thereabouts. Which I think, I think it's been a little bit sarcastic there from what I've read. And various people point out that since then, birds have, nightingales have been heard to sing in the park. So they assume that curse has been lifted. Nice.

Good. One more spiteful miracle from Thomas Becket. Another Otford tale illustrating Becket's intolerance is that after a blacksmith accidentally drove a nail into his horse's hoof while shooing it, he had a curse that henceforth no blacksmith would ever prosper in the parish. Lombard or his printer disapprovingly captions these two tales in the margin as St. Thomas Beckett's spiteful miracles.

Yeah, more curses I'd say. Yeah, kind of curses. So that's the second legendary Thomas of Lillingstone and the surrounding areas, and a completely different place that I would have got to because I was lost. And that James is what I did on my holiday. That's brilliant. So Alistair, I'm afraid to say I'm really happy that you got lost. Oh, me too in the end.

And I learned an important lesson about never trust myself. Do not believe in yourself when at least when there's loads of overwhelming evidence against you. A sign saying it was behind us, James. Maybe it fell over in a thunderstorm when someone put it back up wrong. Exactly, yeah. It could have spun around on its thing because of wind. Yes. Easily.

Here's how I rationalized it. I thought, well, the walk is a loop. It's a circular walk. So of course it's in that direction, if you've been coming from the other direction. Well, the earth is a loop in a way. Yeah, not in the world garden though, it is just a rectangle. A flat earth garden. He's probably not a flat earther. He seems, by the standards of British aristocrats, he seems fine.

All right, James, are you ready to score the legends of Lullingstone for me? I'm going to judge you like you were being judged by your partner and confident. Yeah. And I'm probably a listener for that. I can't believe everyone seems I've got really brilliant directional navigational skills. Everyone sees me as a sort of outdoorsman. A sort of a rugged Mountie type. If I was on a quest, I'd ask you where like the magic cave was.

Oh, would you? All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I'd worry you'd be a trickster. You'd be a trickster. Oh, I quite like that. Bit dangerous. My first category for you, James, because it's not necessarily a high scoring one, is supernatural.

I don't think anything particularly spooky. Well, I think you might be forgetting about Colonel Meats. Oh, I did totally forget about Colonel Meats, and that noise was me remembering about Colonel Meats. I think that's our most delicious ghost, yeah. Well, I don't know, do you want to smell cigar smoke and meat at the same time? If it's smoked meats. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

It could be smoked meats. That's more delicious than the frozen chicken of Hanover square or whatever it is. Absolutely. We know that meat's smoked. So who can say that he didn't smoke meat? I'm going to, I'm going to give it a three, which is one ghost, but had three different manifestations. Exactly.

The three stages of meat. Breakfast, smoking and smear. Yeah. Or actual appearance. Being there. Yeah. We don't know if it was a, if it was a smear or just a blob. Oh, three is pretty good actually. I'm going to back out while I'm ahead. Yeah.

My next category for you is names. Yes. Wonderful names. Who's that tight ass right at the beginning? Titus Manlius. Well, the arse in question was his donkey or horse. It's got, you know, wow. A wagon is being a dragon in that picture. You need to see it, listen. I can't describe it to you. Yes. Publius Horatius. I don't know. Mucius. Scavola, Horatius cockles. Horatius cockles.

Publius Horatius. The River Darren. The River Darren. Come on Darren. Yes. This is great. Lollingstone. Even Lollingstone is a beautiful name.

Granny Crack. Crack's Delight. Crack's Delight. Oh dear. Flavour Flav. The goat. Yeah, the goat. Yeah, the goat part of the chimera, chimera. Flavour Flav.

Yes, I like that. Octave Chanute. Octave Chanute? No, I barely know it. My newt. I don't understand that at all. I'm laughing, but it's a laugh of confusion. Because I've just octaved my newt. Octave Chanute. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, actually.

Bat, Beetle, Hawk. BBH, yes, definitely. Oh, five. And of course the names, the many names of Thomas Becket. Yeah. Thomas Becket? Makes him sound like he's a friend's character or something. Yeah. But I like it. Could he be any more irritated by 19 girls? Could he have been any more murdered?

He was murdered in the cathedral. I think he was murdered. Yeah. Yeah. Five. Fantastic. My next category for you, James. Yes. Hot meat.

Oh, yes. And you know there's been wagonloads. There has. There was Roman. Yeah you know, there's been wagonloads. There has. There was Roman. Yeah. Four Roman beefcakes. Four Roman beefcakes. And Colonel Meats.

Colonel Meats himself. And his meats of choice. His choice cuts. And his sizzling, his hot sizzling meat. His hot sizzling breakfast meats. The hot and juicy house. Probably didn't have any actual meat meat, but sizzling, hot sizzling breakfast meats. The hot and juicy house. Probably didn't have any actual meat meat, but you know, you can call the green part of a cactus, the meat of a cactus.

I think. Yes. And yeah, a lot of plants are used as meat in, as an alternative to meat. Yes. So those would be there in the meats of the world. I mean, the plants of the world. Wait a minute. That is another brilliant business idea, James.

Even as a vegan, that is a license to print money. So it's a meat platter on a big circular or oval disc. Yes, with all the different meats from different parts of the world laid out in the shape of a world map. I mean, yeah, I can't believe that's not been done. It must have been. If Americans had heard of other countries, it would have happened there. There's definitely a meat map of America.

Yeah, a meat map of the American world. Yeah. Yeah. And Alaska is just like, I don't know, frozen sausages or something. Hmm. Maybe a good palate cleanser. Like a sausage sorbet. You don't want to be eating frozen.

I know you're a vegan, so you wouldn't know this Alistair. So a word of advice, you don't want to be eating frozen meat. Why is that James? I'm not going to get into it now. Have you eaten frozen meat? No, never purposefully. I've been to some bad barbecues. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Hmm. But you should cook it first. Yeah. Or unless it's a meat that's designed to be raw in there, but either way, frozen is not the option to go with. Like oysters or kernel meats. Stop calling forward. I'm going to call forward all I want.

Listen to stay listening after the end credits for- Stay listening to understand why I keep mentioning oysters. Yes. And that old man who was renovated was, he would have been in a terrible way or wizened and crooked and weak. Oh, I'm an old man. It's too late for me. But then yeah, a couple of weeks of scuff up the front. Yeah.

Yeah. And he came out like a, you know, all buff, like a bodybuilder. Yeah. Okay. It's again, it's five out of five. This was such hot meat. Thank you. Had such a hot, hot and meaty episode. Yeah. It's probably the hottest yet. My final category for you is crack pots. Okay. Now there's a few, a few angles. I've got a few angles. I'm working a few angles here, James. Okay.

I think any, you can't be a professional orchid hunter without being a bit of a crack pot. No. So he's in there straight away. We've got granny crack. Yes. She's got cracking her name. There you've got a crack pot right there.

You've got all of the, the early aeronauts. Yes. You've got Otto. You've got a crackpot right there. You've got all of the early aeronauts. Yes, they are. You've got Otto. You've got Octave. You've got Percy Pilch. And his sister Ella, there's photographs of her up there in the glider. Percy Pilcher. You'd have to be crackpots to try and do something so daring. Yes, definitely. And of course, some of those plants are in pots.

And yes, over to between granny crack and the pods. And you're telling me that this place is a little bit, you know, it's a little bit of a ruined castle. Some of those pots might've been cracked. Exactly. Exactly. I can't help but give you another five out of five. Yes.

Whoa. You have absolutely knocked this out of the park, out of the park that you got lost in. Oh, I've even forgotten what, what famously do you dig up in Roman villas? From the looks of it, semi-pornographic images? Yeah, yeah, in this case, yeah, but often, cracked amphorae. Cracked parts, yes! Or cracked parts, to put that another way.

Yes. 300 Viking skulls. We don't know. Yes. You could use that as a cracked pot. And if you did, people would probably call you a bit of a crack pot. Yeah. I can't argue with it. Five out of five. This is thank you very much. And fantastic for an episode with one ghost in it to score an 18. It's 18 out of 20. I was shocked by the lack of legends and folklore in this area.

If anybody knows anything related to Lollingstone, please send it in, you know, send it to us on postcards and telegrams and emails and that sort of thing. Yes. Because there's a shocking lack of supernatural stuff, apart from Thomas Beckett's miracles and one ghost, but a lot of interesting characters. Mmm, definitely. That was lovely stuff, Alistair. I am genuinely quite hungry now. And while we're here, thank you very much to Joe for editing this episode. Cheers, Joe Thank you very much to all the people who support us on patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod if you were to join that

and to become a supporter of us on patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod you would get access to bonus episodes bits and bobs you would get Discord I can't promise fried breakfasts or cigars. Well, thanks to all the people who already do that. And thanks to you for listening. Stay on after the music finishes for why we kept mentioning oysters. James, you look like you're itching to tell me something. What is it? We've had quite a lot of feedback. Re turtles in slash on a half shell. I've been looking into it and nobody seems to agree with my, with my theory. A lot of people are direct messaging me to say, I thought it was on a half shell. And

some people are like, I thought it was like oysters. Yeah. I've heard a lot of people saying it's like oysters, but that would be disgusting. Would you eat a Ninja Turtle? Raw? Are they an Aphrodisiac? Straight down your throat with butter? Disgusting.

Oof. Yeah. I mean, would you eat an oyster like that? No, in my opinion, you shouldn't. No, I don't think you should butter an oyster. I'm pretty sure. They don't put butter in them. No, in my opinion, you shouldn't. No, I don't think you should butter an oyster, I'm pretty sure. They don't even put butter in them. No, it's raw. So you can either have a pickle. They're raw? Well, the best ones, sure. You can grill them.

This is disgusting. They were in the sea. Leave them where they were. And you make a horrible noise when you do it. And it's one of those foods that's like, we just need to tell people that it raises their sex drive. Otherwise we are not going to be able to sell them because it's frankly abhorrent. What we're asking people to do. Yeah. Yeah. All of that.

I don't know if the turtles would also be an aphrodisiac if served on a half shell. I think Michelangelo would be. It would be party time. Maybe Raphael. Leonardo Donatello. I don't think so. You know, we had an actual someone who worked on the Ninja Turtles magazine or comic strip, or maybe even cartoon got in contact with us. Wow.

I feel like I should have done them in respect of actually paying attention to which one it was. Still, I'm very impressed by that vague CV. They said, do you want to know what they said? I do. Because they're kind of a, I'd say an authority on it. Yeah. In a way.

Some Americans saying that it's basically just an American thing. Where is it? Is it gone? I don't think saying on a half shell is an American thing. I think, well, I'd never heard it before, to be honest. A lot of people also claiming to have been eating oysters when they were seven. What? Unless they were way older than me and then therefore too old to be watching turtles.

Yeah, no. Especially since, as you said, the only reason to eat them is to raise your libido. That's outrageous. Put them back in the sea. Leave them in the sea. Let them enjoy their own libidos. Yes. That libido is for the oysters enjoyment. Actually, when they raise your libido, it's

because they're in distress. What the breaking news is to me is that quite a lot of people do actually agree with you. I don't know. Oh, really? None of this has come to me. Nobody has gone in contact with me to say they agree with me. I'm trying to hide it from you because I think I'm just double checking the facts. I'm like that Russian guy that evaded World War Three. You remember that? Yes, because a flock of seagulls have flown into your DMs and you're just waiting to make sure it is seagulls and not, I don't know, an American submarine. A preemptive teenageage Mutant Ninja Turtle attack. Right.

But yeah, a surprising amount, as in surprising to me is more than one. Yeah. People agree with that take. Well, well, I'm well done to you for comparing yourself to perhaps one of the most heroic people in the history of the 20th century as well. Well, look, I was just saying what they're all thinking. You know who James reminds me of in this episode? It's probably that guy who averted World War III. Well, I apologize. So some people agree with me. That's the gist of it. I thought you were going to read the

message from the person who worked on the turtles. I can't find that man. You can't find it. I don't know if he... So we'll never know. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He replied. He was one of our YouTuber people followers because we're also available on YouTube. Let me see. Let me see.

Is the Russian guy available on YouTube? I don't think so. Good point actually. Thanks. Stanislav Petrov. I did have to look that up. We can't just keep calling him that Russian guy. Thanks Stanislav for not doing the bombs.

Yeah, good work. What do you think it was seen in or on a turtle, by the way? I think it's heroes on a half shell. Turtle power. You know what? I can't find that message. Maybe I dreamt it. That Michael Wolfe came to you in a dream and said, Alistair's right.

Laird, Eastman and or Laird. Hmm. Darn it. Yeah. So yeah, it turns out it was a dream. Oh, it was a dream. All along. Great.

I'm glad we started with that bit. Yes. Once again, you have, you are having the last laugh. Good. Good.