Loremen Podcast - Loremen S7Ep6 - The Ghosts of Chilham Castle

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

James takes Alasdair round the manor house of Chilham Castle, in Kent. Featuring some vintage names, a panoply of ghosts and some classic Shakeshaft misunderstandings. You want skeletons? We got skeletons mate, don't you worry! In manacles? Of course in manacles. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠See Alasdair On Tour! ⁠ 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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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from Days of Yore, with me, James Shakeshaft. And me, Alistair, I know you're going on tour, and I'm trying to prep you for it. You know I love a prepper. Open your knapsack, because I've got some Kent-based facts to give you. In a knapsack format. I'm putting a spyglass in it now. Yes.

Spell casting. Let's go to the village and castle of Chillam. Hello there, Alistair. Ahoy, hoi, James. How are you? Fine. Great. Fine fettel.

Oh, that's good. I might even go as far as to say dandy. How are you? All right. I am wrestling, wrestling with the beginnings of a cold. Oh, grappling. Mm. grappling with a headache.

No, headache's not there, but you can maybe hear something. Are we in the snot zone? We're entering snot zun, yes. That's what the locals call it snotson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're out of town, you call it snot zone. Yes. They look at you askance.

No, you might want to pop your see-through very thin plastic cagool on just at the minute, just for safety's sake. Me and the listener, should the listener be wearing ear protectors to avoid getting your cold? Yeah, I suppose you can get a cold through the years. Really, I think you can scientifically. That is possible. If someone sneezed into your ears, it would be double annoying.

One, for loudness and two for germs. Yeah, so just be safe. Just be safe. So, Alistair, you are presumably, whilst I'm in the throes of fighting this cold, in the throes of getting ready to doing your tour still. Yes, I am in the throes of getting ready to do my tour. Do look for it. It is there. Yes.

Probably in the show notes, hopefully. Alistair, I've been using your tour as a sort of a jumping off point for finding out bits of law for some of the places that you're going to be touring near. I know. It's brilliant sort of cross-purposes marketing. Thank you. Quite handy because the UK is so thick with law. It's sometimes very difficult to sort of narrow it down. How do you winnow it?

That's what I'm always asking myself. how to winnow. Well, like that. Normally it's like, oh, where have I been recently? I'll do one of that. I haven't been anywhere for ages. But you are going to go to places,

so I'm going to warn you about the ghosts, etc., that are going to be in those places. And Alistair, a little bird slash website, tells me that you are going to be going near Canterbury. Indeed.

Right. Yeah, fine city, Canterbury. In Kent. Yeah. I think, I think, yeah, it is in Kent. It is. I would recommend you go to the Canterbury Tales experience. Oh, I haven't been to that.

I've been to the underground Roman floor bit where you go underneath and you see what Roman things looked like. And mainly, they looked lower down. I don't get that. I've seen it explained a number of times. You've been confused by that on this podcast before, James. I just don't get it. How are things getting taller? How's there more ground?

How is the more ground? Where's the ground going? Where's it coming from this new ground? Yeah, people don't know. We don't have answers to these questions. It's a mystery. I'm sorry, you can't go to the Canterbury Tales Experience because I think it shut down in minimum 2000.

Oh, it's just a little bit too late. Let me just check. Canterbury Tales Experience. Oh, no, it had a complete overhaul and is opening in February 2026. That's now. That's right now. I'm going to join the list to receive the news. This is not a sponsored bit.

Well, it's supposed to be plugging my door, but it really sounds like we're plugging the Canterbury Tales experience. Yeah, that looks like a real person, not a talking puppet. What? I'm genuinely popping myself down on that mailing this. Yeah, yeah, you've got to collect them all. Collect all the wife of Bath, the parson, all your favourite. Oh, it's thanked me for joining the adventure. Pilgray Mon's.

It is men of be opening this month. Wow. It's now very difficult to find out when it originally shut, but it did shut. honest. So in lieu of that, I've got a tale from a nearby place called Chillham, Chillham Castle, in fact. Not Chillingham Castle. No, no, no, no, Alistair. I thought for ages that we'd already done this tale, but looking at the details, they were different. But Chilham Castle, that rang a bell. And then I looked it up and yes, it was Chillingham Castle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From TV's Most Haunted. But this is from Ghosts. in the Southeast by Andrew Green, which was withdrawn for sale from Oxfordshire County Libraries on the 11th of October 1993.

It's ex-libris this book you've got, is it? Big time. It was for sale for a cool pound. It was written in 1976, and I believe this is a first edition. There's also ghosts in the southwest, which I think we have read from before. That was the one where the house happened to be for sale at the same time, so you could kind of follow along at home. Oh, we went round it on right move. Yes, that was it. It was quite intrusive, but fun. Yes. Yes. Well, this one... I think we crossed a line, but I enjoyed it. This is Chillam Castle, and I don't know, I can't remember if it's the same author, but they've definitely got a vibe,

because it opens up with this wonderful passage. An unexpected arrival in Chillam Village can be a little bewildering, for one gets the feeling of having been transported into another century. No modern encumbrances such as parking meters or street lamps dispel the atmosphere of a medieval age. The only symbols at first glance of the 20th century are a discreet sign directing motorists to the free car park and hardly discernible white lines in the village square. So it's pretty remote. But to be fair, an unexpected appearance anywhere would be surprising if you were the person unexpectedly appearing there, as the writer appears. to be in that passage. So yeah, if I was suddenly there, unexpectedly, I would be surprised.

Yeah. Because normally I'm here. Has he been bundled into the back of a van? Have you been kidnapped and taken to a spooky village? Has he been unpersoned? And this is the black site. It may be, we will find actually later, it kind of was at one point. So this is a 15th century village.

I did look up to see if it's on right move. It appears now to be... I'm going to say Buddhist retreat. It seems to reference more crystals that, but I don't know that much about Buddhism. I don't know how many crystals they use, to be honest. But you're in classic, whodunit territory there. If a country house or castle has been converted to a sort of new agey contemporary religious site or health spa, that's exactly the kind of place where a murder mystery would be committed in Die L. and Pascow.

Specifically one episode of Diel and Pascoe where that happens. Is it a Midsomer murder? It could easily be a Midsoma murder. I don't know why I said that in a Joddy accent. Because I'm Sergeant Troy. I guess midsummer, midsummer, the scary film. Yeah. That's all like Sweden and kind of, is it Sweden?

I can't remember. Is it Norway or something? I think it's, yeah, yes. It's that neck of the wood, which is a little bit where the geordy accent comes from, presumably. It is a little bit. It is, yeah. That's neck of the wood. So midsomar Marda.

I mean, surely it's been done, right. Someone's done a mash-up of Midsummer murders in the film Mid-Somber. If it hasn't happened, it should happen. If not internet editors, do that, first of all, do that. Second of all, get a time machine so you can post it when it's relevant. Yes, that's crucial. It's got to be relevant. That's the one thing we're always saying on this podcast.

Your cultural references have got to be relevant. But we're very much pointing to figure. One thing is pointing to. way. And there's... How many fingers are pointing a me? There's three. I've got to do my special patented five finger point.

Very good for accusing five guys at the same time, not the restaurant. Good point. So, presume... He says that they arrived there a pleasant sunny day, so I'm guessing he's not being kidnapped. Okay, we're ruling out kidnapping. Yes, yes. So he's arrived there a pleasant sunny day to learn about the phantoms of the castle. And he really likes this village.

He says it's one of the 12... loveliest villages in England, which is very precise. Makes me think it's 12. Presumably, yeah, it must be the 12th. Otherwise, you would have, if it were in the top 10, you would have said one of the 10. But it's nicely vintage to use 12 as the number. It's like a base 12 counting system. Yeah, is it a pre-decimal?

I don't, yeah. Maybe that was, yeah, that's why, you know, one of the reasons they don't show that old episodes of Top of the Pops anymore, because it was. the top 12 and it just confused people. And there are no other reasons why. That's the reason. Don't check. That is the reason. Please don't. You'll make yourself sad. It says it must have gained a top position in the league yet it's only minutes away from the M20 motorway, but thankfully out of earshot. Again, this is sort of implying more than we knew that there was some sort of league of prettiest village. Yeah, I think this is the writer's own league, isn't it?

Yeah. And there's a lovely, there's the Church of St. Mary, which, oh, by the way, connection to the wider lawman universe, the Church of St. Mary has a sarcophagus which purports to have the remains of St. Augustine or Augustine or... Oh. Hmm. The, not the Pope one, not the hippo guy. No. It was the, I think the patron saint of printers. Not hungry, hungry, St. Augustine. No, the St. Augustine that went to Longcompton and got the guy out of the grave by accident that time.

Yes, yeah. Yeah, he demanded testimony from a dead man, is that right? He, yeah, he said... Do I have a call? It was in essence like, anyone who's not paid their tithes get out of this church talking to an alive farmer. I see. And a dead man went, oh, I'm in trouble. I'm in drawn now.

I thought it would never happen. I didn't think it would come up again. You really think once you're dead. you've got away with it. But not always. No, no, no, no. See also old episodes of Top of the Pops. Don't.

Sorry, don't see them. Their next door to that church is the White Horse Inn. And as Andrew recommends, besides the normal liquid refreshment, there's an additional attraction. You can meet the former owner and vicar of Chillam as a ghost, because he's dead, he's the Reverend Sampson Huron. Wow, great name. Was this guy the Reverend and owner of the pub?

No, I think the pub used to be the vicarage. I see. Otherwise, that's a real conflict of interest for a churchman to also be a pub landlord. Definitely. Yeah, because you're doing the ceremony and you're doing the party. Right, right.

Exactly, exactly. Although you could offer a discount. Yeah, get it all. That's actually a really good idea. What, like a church pub? Yeah, a fully integrated church pub situation. Yeah. Vertically integrated, that's the phrase.

You could put punching the font, making it sort of a fun little punch bowl. As long as it's not a christening, yes. Well, maybe, you know, be a fun christening. Well, getting the baby drunk? No, you just drop a little bit of booze on the head and then everyone toasts the baby straight out of the font. Everyone toasts the baby?

Yeah, yes. Great, yeah, great. Yeah. So, yes, it had been a vicarage in the 17th century when the Reverend Sampson-Heron was there, but he was difficult. And so it's H-I-E-R-O-N. It's H-I-E-R-O-N. Oh, nice. Some guests in H-I-N. I'm mostly focusing on the Sampson bit, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, great name, great name. But, yeah, they were difficult. They were non-conformists, and they were evicted because of their bad attitude.

Oh. But I believe nonconformists at the time were kind of like, yeah, we shouldn't sort of just kill animals and stuff. Like animals are kind of have a vibe about them. I hate the sound of these guys, these nonconformists. I don't know specifically this person. I just did a vague glance at what 17th century nonconformism might have involved. Why? I sound awful.

So this ghost, the grey-haired old ghost wearing a gown and gaiters, A grey-haired old ghost wearing a gown and gaiters. A grey-haired old ghost with a gown and gaiters is said to have been seen mostly in the mornings standing in a typical pose warming himself in front of the Inglook fire. Is that just like rubbing his hands together and stuff? Yeah, yeah.

I think you could have explained that to me without saying typical pose. They've put it in here and they have... I'm not blaming you, James. They've quoted it. Andrew has quoted it. Maybe he's just assuming we would know. what the typical pose.

A typical hand-warming pose. Well, yeah, I do. But if you just said he was warming his hands, I would have imagined that pose without you saying, typical pose. Typical pose, standard. That's his ghost. But there are other incidents.

They discovered underneath the kitchen floor two male skeletons. They don't know why. Could it be something to do with a nearby churchyard or could it be something to do with what happens at the castle? Oh. Remember I said about the unpersonation? thing earlier.

Yes. You were talking about people being extracted. Yes, and disappeared. Lost. Very nasty. If you will. So just around the corner

from that, down a side road, there's the old timbered wheeled houses and a half-timbered house, which is another former vicarage of a fella called Ezekius Fogg. Ezekius Fogg?

Yes. Wow. I'm just resisting singing the entirety of the 80 Days Around the World theme tune. Why? Fog, I'm the one who made the bed. Because it's just, it's a absolute banger,

but it's one of the most translated into English songs I've ever heard. The lyrics are so awkwardly rhymed to fit the meter. The assistant characters are introduced with the words, Here I am, I'm rigadon.

It's like the arrogance of introducing yourself with Here I Am. Like, you're not even in the book. Is that the little mouse in the reds? That's Tico. Oh, he's annoyed. Yeah, so it seems to have split Paspartout into two characters.

Ah. Anyway. Is the Adventures of Willie Fogg or the original one, is that English or is it French? The original book. Oh, the book is, oh, I thought it was English, but is it Jules Verne? I would have, is he French? He's French. I could have guessed that.

Wait a minute. Are all Jules Verne books originally in French? Well, I think he wrote them in French because he was French. What? Yeah. Litté du Monde en en Cautreventureenny's! What the hell is this? What?

An adventure novel by French, writer Jules Verne. Of course it's French. Because it's a Jules Verne novel. It's just never occurred to me that it was French. Van, Van, 1,000 Leagues, Don, Sue Le Maire. What the, what is that?

That doesn't mean anything. I'm hurting my ears to hear that. Earth. Ugh. What? Did you say Journey to the centre of the earth earlier, is that what you'd said? I said around the world in 80 days. Oh, well, Journey Donsler, Sontra, Le Monde.

He keeps coming back to Le Monde. Yeah, it's all he knew. Because he'd weirdly only done GCSE French 20 years ago. And then there was his other great books. Do you know the way to the swimming baths? And I like to read books. Please fill the car up with petrol. Can I borrow your pencil case?

Next to the discotheque. But anyway, I don't know. Yes, Ezekiel's Fogg. Great name. Ezekieless Fogg. Different guy. Out of the side of his house appears a phantom, which would, which, I'm imagining it just popping out through the brickwork.

Yeah, but it's on a horse. Comes out the house, silently gallops from the churchyard. Wait a minute. This is confusing, actually. Andrew's throwing me here. He seems to be saying that the ghost emerges from the side of the house and goes to the churchyard and returns to its, quote, home among the graves.

Oh, right. but where does the horse go? But it starts. I guess it just... Essentially he gets off and gets into the grave, but the... You wouldn't bury a horse in a churchyard. No, you wouldn't steal a handbag. Yeah, I don't know where the horse goes.

Again, it's that idea of a human ghost gets their ghost horse. When do they get it? When do they get it? You know, the Egyptians, they had worked that out. Yeah, they had it all tied up really... Notted up nice and tight there. Exactly. Kill them all at the same time.

Then bum, they're going to be all at the same time. Easy, simple. But yeah, there's no further explanation. And Andrew goes on to say that the town is Roman, but may even be older than that, and possibly Neolithic man walked nearby. For there's an ancient path that runs through the parish to the top of the downs,

which is known locally as Pilgrim, way, but it is nothing to do with Chaucers. Thank you very much. No. Oh, okay. It's an offshoot of that, because it's not actually on the same route. It's just near it. Right. Okay. All right. But, and presumably on the hill, is the castle, which was actually built on Roman and Saxon foundations, and it was constructed by Bishop Odo. Bishop Odo? Bishop Odo. Oh, I love this guy already, who was a shape shifter. He's in the new Star Wars is. But not only the good ones.

Bishop Odo. Is it spelled like Odo from DS9, just either ODO? I never read D.S9. You've never read D.S9. What? Bishop Odo. Well, he hated quark! He was really annoyed by quark.

Quack? Quack. He can't really say quark in an English accent. It sounds rubbish. Quark. The yogurt? No. It got with the ears. He's a Ferengi.

Yeah, no, it sounds like you're a posh person trying to do an impression of a duck. Quark. Quark. Quack, quack. Give me some bread. No, he's the half-brother of Billy the Conk, William the Conquer, friend of the show,

fiend of the show, probably. I don't know what our status is on Billy the Conk. But yeah, Bishop Odo. Yeah, played by René Obisenois. Was he French? Canadian, I think. I assume. Was he?

Come on. Armand Sherman. Anyone know where Armand shimmerman's from? You'll be telling me, William, the conqueror's French

in a minute. So yeah, it was made by Bishop Odo, rebuilt in 1616 by Sir Dudley Diggs, which is a lovely name. Beautiful name. Beautiful name.

It had been given to Sir Thomas Cheney by Henry 8 in 1542, but then he moved and he wanted to move to the Isle of Sheppey, so he took all the bricks from the castle.

I was like, yeah, I'm going to have that. Well, moving house is always stressful, isn't it? Especially in those days when you had to literally move all of the bricks of your current house to a new location. Just so that we don't get letters, René Obis-Jonois is Swiss-American. Swiss-M-I just looked it up. Yeah, not Canadian.

So is René... Obergen-ois? Obegin-ois. I'm guessing that means black eggplant. Yeah, pretty certain that's what it means. Cool. And now, not now, because as discussed, now it's featuring in a regional detective show,

but in 1976 it was the private home of the Viscount Mazarin and Farad. Oh. He opens the grounds and in 1976 had one of the oldest heronries in Britain. Do you think that heronery has got younger since the 70s? I'm guessing it's not there anymore. Oh, no. Or maybe it's just reopened this month. Maybe.

You never know. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. Email down. There were displays of free flying eagles and falcons as well as presumably herons. But the original part.

Oh, no. We don't have herons. The original part of the Norman Castle is the octagonal keep, which had eight foot thick walls. And so they're brought in to the castle by the 21-year-old son, Charles Jardine. A Nepo baby, obviously. Yeah. Oh, did you get a job at your dad's castle? Oh, well done.

Charlie Garden. Tough interview, was it? Jeez. We're just throwing them into that. That's like coming around to, if you came around here, Alistair. Yeah. And my kids opened the door and said, oh, come in. Oh, only because you'd love your parents live here.

Would you like a cup of tea? Oh, your parents' tea, though. Yeah, I would be really snotty about it, yeah. Okay. That's why I was really rude to your children that time, James. No, Charles Jardine, Charlie Garden. Charlie Gardens led us in complete darkness down old worn stone steps and into one of the dungeons.

One of the dungeons? Yeah. Wow. In the flickering candlelight, Andrew saw skin-covered benches around the walls, chain mail, rusting chains, and in the middle of the room, a bar, as in a pub. A little pub. So they turned it into a sort of snug, into a sort of lad's clubhouse. Yeah.

When they say skin covered, I mean, I was going to say I hope we're talking about animals, but as a vegan, I'm torn, but presumably leather. It's got to be not human. But it is an odd turn of phrase, I think. It is an odd turn of phrase. And he said, Charlie said, that in this reasonably small room, like 20 foot across. Chuck Eard, what did he say? He said that 800 prisoners were kept in worse conditions than the black hole of Calcutta.

Oh, that's a lot. A lot of eights here. It's an eight-sided building with eight-foot thick walls with 800 prisoners. Oh, yeah. Ooh. Hmm. Yeah, just noticed. I've got nothing further.

I don't know if there are any more eights. But there was a window up at the top, and he pointed that that led to a well. And what they would do when they had all the prisoners in there, they would divert the water from the well to go all on them and drown them. Gallons of water would cascade onto them. In the floor, there's a hole, and underneath it is another dungeon. which was even deeper. And they drowned the people in there.

Oh dear. Can I say I regret using the phrase sub next to the word dungeon? Some people at home are going to be making their own jokes. Oh. It wasn't my intention. And it says here the water would then seep eventually into the chalk subsoil and back into the well for reuse. No, but after drowning all the corpses,

or drowning all the people and thereby producing corpses. Yeah, but they said the bodies would be thrown to the wolves. Oh, fine. I don't think that's a good enough filtration system. It's terrible. I wouldn't trust that water. But some workmen digging in one of the dungeons, presumably to like install the bar equipment, found six male skeletons, one of which was still bound to the walls by a rusty chain.

Really? In like, in modern history that happened. Yeah. That's really good. A skeleton with its hands still in manacles. You just don't get that quality of find. That is too good. That's excellent. Well, Charlie says that him and his father were probably the first enter this part of the castle for about 200 years.

Very lazy family. This is lazy. It says when they came in five years ago, they found a skeleton of a row deer on the floor. And deer have been extinct in this region since the 17th century. What? Yeah. Wow. I don't know if that 100% proves that no one's been there because the person that had been a mite just been a bit mucky.

Like I don't bother cleaning it, a bit of a bit of a little. hoarder. Mainly hoarding skeletons. Yes. At this time in the 70s, there were medieval banquets

on Friday and Saturday evenings, but again, don't look for them. They're not there anymore. But there was also a ghost,

and that is of a medieval lady, which I think, I think I know what might have happened here. At the medieval banquet,

someone thinks they saw a medieval lady ghost. Right. Okay. Hmm. Yeah. Right.

And it was one of the waitresses But to be fair, this gives a little more credence to it. One of the waitresses saw the figure of a woman in medieval clothing near the old wall, and she greeted her, and the woman just melted into the wall. Very nice. I love a vanishing ghost. In my experience, is not what people do.

No, out-of-work actors taking a side job almost never vanish into a wall. No, they're pretty sort of solid. as in they continue to exist. Not in the sense of being reliable in any way. Oh, no, no, no, no. Sorry, can I get off earlier? I've got to audition to be a regional basil. Yeah, all right.

And the waitress was so frightened. She ran into the bar, demanded a brandy, and she said that she'd never drunk anything before, but she was scared out of her wits. She'd never drunk anything before, and she ran into the bar and demanded a brandy because she'd read enough Edwardian stories that she knew that that's what you have to do if you're scared.

I didn't ask one of them once. Oh, I never tried kids. Kit Kat. Can I have a bit? Can I ever have a bit of your kick? Can I ever try a kick cut before? Also, in 1974, an actress in a television film was pushed by unseen hands down the stairway, and her leg was hurt. Hmm. Yeah. I tried to look up what that could have been. I would love to know what that television film shot at, uh, chilling. Chillam Castle. Chillham Castle.

Not not Ham that is currently chilling. Ham that is chill. Yes. The ham is fine. In 1965, the amorous adventures of Mul Flanders with Angela Lansbury, amongst other people, was filmed there. And then the next thing it's got is 1985 that Dempsey and Makepeace was because it was Makepeace's family home. Right. Yeah. Hmm. They filmed some Poirros, though.

Of course they filmed a Poirot there. Simeon Lees Manor House, Gawston Hall. It was also in a marble. Married with children. Well, the sitcom married with children. Yeah. Yeah. Which is American, but evidently they went over for a UK edition.

I bet the British episode of Married with Children is just a classy affair all round. And an episode of a TV show, which if you know, then fair play, called Moon and Sun, which is a British television astrological crime drama. Oh. I don't know this. This sounds right up my street. I've never heard of this. genre of before. Astrological crime.

Astrological crime. The premise is a Melisant Martin was a clairvoyant and astrologer Gladys Moon and her psychic son Trevor travel between Fokston and France, getting involved in various police investigations along the way. So there you go.

That sounds great. Yeah. I don't know. I couldn't work out what was filmed in 1974, unfortunately, so I couldn't work out who this actress might have been. But anyway, they continue their tour. They go back to the ground level into the main banqueting area, through to the kitchen where there's mysterious tapping has been heard. And looking at the design of the walls and the layout, it looks like there might have been a sealed room there or a very, very thick wall. Well, we do know they had thick

walls. Well, there were outlines of an old archway and a doorway just visible and a sealed fireplace. And there is rumours that one of the owners in the 14th century had bricked up a lady friend somewhere in the tower. No, now you shouldn't do that. No. Keep your friends close. Don't keep your lady friends, bricked up in your tower.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I always say. And then they go to the Lucius room, which is sort of a reasonably standard room, and in there someone sort of an earthenware vase, move from the window sill to the centre of the room and then just drop it and obviously smashed. Great, a great bit of supernatural activity.

Yeah, and Charles Jardin, who was there who saw it, said, we just didn't know what to think or do. It was pretty fair play. Yeah, yeah, he's clearly a man of action. I can see why he got the job. There was a big window that was locked and bolted, blew open one day. The most haunted room, though, is, as Andrew says, perhaps surprisingly in view of the appalling mass murders committed in the dungeons, is the ladies' powder room.

And Charles frequently heard a woman humming and the sounds from above of furniture being moved around, but they're at the top of the house. There's nothing above. But it is not unusual that ghosts tend to be posh, don't they? It's like, it's easier to get into haunting. It's like comedy if you're from a posh background. There's just not as many working class ghosts. No, that's true. Do you think it's because they've got the ability to have more free time? Yeah, maybe it's that. Posh ghosts. Contacts. My, you know, my dad was a ghost, so NEPO ghosts. Nepo phantoms. A lot of nepo ghosts. I'm sick of them. Just to kind of give more credence to that tale of the powder room being haunted,

an Alsatian dog brought to the doorway refused to enter. And they're usually quite obedient, aren't they? Dogs, man's best friend. Yeah, and it howled and rushed downstairs. And then he sort of concludes his little tour by saying, they went back out into the cheerful sunshine, and they saw this old, the old well, and it says,

most of the mechanism and wooden cogged wheel used to pump up the water still remains in situ, and efforts will be made to completely restore it to full working order, but not to use it in drowning customers, we were assured. Bit of fun there from Chucky Gardens. So there you go. Wow. T-da-dun, spooky.

Very, very spooky edifice. Shall we score? Yeah. Yeah. Let's score it. Yeah. All righty. Okay, first of all, supernatural.

All right? Well, well, I'll. Okay. I think the spookiest thing is finding a skeleton with its hands still in manacles, but that isn't actually supernatural. No, that's... But at the same time, I kind of don't believe it really happened, so... It feels like the next bit of the sentence that said, and that skeleton turned to dust. Feels like that turned to dust. Usually they turn to dust, don't they? Or at least the manacles turn to dust. Yeah.

Hmm. There was the medieval woman at the medieval banquet. She must have... thought she was... Medieval woman. Yes. She must have thought she was... Fine. But there's kind of no ghosts from that bit where there's loads of, like, probably lots

and lots of people died. The noises in the ladies' powder room, that vows in old Charlie just didn't know what to think or do. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bit spooky. It's spooky. I don't think it's very supernatural, but it has been a spooky one. I'm going to say it's a three.

Fine then. I'm going to say... Fine then. Naming. Are we doing the passive-aggressive scores? Yeah. Well, you would say naming. If that's what you want.

Typical. Okay. Well... So names, Reverend Sampson, Huron. All right, yeah. I might say, I think it might be Hyron. Highron. No, it's Hieronymus Bosch, isn't it?

So, Heron makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Either way. What a cracker. By the way, you know that... that guy that was on dancing on ice or whatever

for a bit, the Bosch guy. Was he on that or was he in the jungle? I don't watch these shows, James. You know there's the guy, the Bosch guy. He's a guy who said Bosch? Yeah. Is he talking about Hieronymus? Is he a comment on hell?

Is that why his videos are about? I think his stuff is to do with eating, but I don't know if it shows like a, you know, like a... A big demon eating someone with its own bum. A blue bottle, yeah, eating someone and pooing them out at the same time. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. No.

But yeah. Did you hear that someone, you know, there's some sheep music written on someone's bum in that painting? No. Someone played the music. It sounds terrible. Yeah, it sounds really bad. It sounds like music written on a guy's bum. Why do they play exclusively on brass and 90s synthesizers?

the fartiest instruments More names Ezekius Fogg Brilliant Ezekius Fogg I don't even think Ezekius is a name but it's great

Brilliant Bishop Odo Bishop Odo So Dudley Diggs These are just These are great names I think this are some of the best names We've had in a long time

Viscount Mazarin and Farad Yeah yeah It's five out of five for names change Yes Didn't even get to Charlie Gardens Before we can before we get to Charlie Gardens. Wow.

Great names. Yes. Okay. I've moved on from a passive-aggressive score taking to my third category, which is lost. Oh, because, well, the Canterbury Tales experience is no longer lost. For now. Yes. Or the process of being found.

Yes. What other things are lost? The bit where they thought it was on part of the Pilgrim's Root. but it wasn't. I suppose they sort of lost their way a bit there, but that's tenuous. So I'm going to go with something

a little bit firmer. Yeah, very tenuous. Which is the dungeon is a seems like, or at least part of it, is an ubliette. Ah, the donjon is an ubliet. Way.

Yeah. Which is Jules Verne for Lost, right? That's the type of prison. Forgotten. Oh. Wait, wait, James. Did you think ubliet meant lost?

Oh, yeah. I thought they just lost them prisoners. Oh, where did you prison them last? So when you were saying, Jeublié mon sac. Yeah, I thought I'd lost something, edit that out. You thought you didn't forget it, you'd lost it. I thought I'd lost my homework.

Oh. In the dog. Not that I forgot my homework in the dog. Jeubliééééééé mon homework, Don Le Chien. More, yeah. I don't know the word for homework. No, me neither. Le Chande de Terre.

The dog of the earth? The dog of the earth, yeah. That's really undermined my category. Okay. Well, okay. Does the story resemble the TV show lost? There's a lot of false starts to the story and things that are not explained or referred to again,

like the TV series lost. Yes. How about I imply that I'm going to give you a really good score? Go on. And then sort of string it out. for many, many seasons. Oh. And then deliver a one.

How about that? Yeah, I suppose that is what, that is what I asked for when I gave a category called Lost, really, isn't it? I think it is what you asked for. Yeah. All right then. Final category. Amount of eight.

Oh, there was a lot of eight. Wasn't there so many eight? There was a lot. There was so many eight. There was the eight, eight-sided building with eight. Yes. Meet or eight-foot-thick? Eight foot.

Eight meters. That's good. That's still good. Eight meters is absurd. Where would they get all the stones for that? They wouldn't be able to take them to the Isle of Shepi. The middle bit would have to be filled with dead bodies. Yes. As a sound baffler, although not, because there was that knocking on the walls, wasn't there, of the old lady friend who was bricked up?

Yeah. I do like the way, though, when you see a crumbled old building, the way they have beautifully chiseled masonry on the outside. Use. And on the inside. But then in the middle bit, it's just all jumbled in. there. Just cowboys. They just tucked it in there.

The client can't see that bit. Just chuck them in. But also, those things took ages to make. Like, you would have had to really distract them for a very long time for them not to notice. Yeah. That you were filling it with bodies. Yeah, there was the 800 prisoners. Which is 100 eight.

1068 it was built in. Was it? That's another eight. That's another eight. And, um... And of course, James, you really ate with this category, didn't you? And you left no crumbs. So...

Oh, I don't... Oh, you're so youthful. I don't know what your youth speak means. I don't know what it means, but what I'm saying is it's a high score. It's a very high school. It's... I think it's five out of eight. What? Yeah, exactly. It's such a good score.

I'm going out with the usual scoring system. Wow. Also, because I think the listeners have started up the spreadsheet again, and I want to make things difficult. This is it. I thought as much. Yeah. Good luck, spreadsheet people.

I'm ever so sorry. That was a pretty chill ham. Some of the most laid-back ham. I'm imagining there is quite a lot of the did not make the cut there because I started waffling on about my personal brand. Yes, and you keep financiers. So get straight on to the Patreon.

Patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. That's exactly right. Thank you, Alistair. And get on the link below for tickets to your tour show, which will be coming to, amongst other places, Canterbury, which is near Chillham. Yes, it is. Come along, please. It's a good show. I don't know why I sound so weak whenever I say that. It is good. It is good.

It's good, actually. Actually, it's really good. Thank you to all the people that already do support us at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. And, well, see you next week. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, that's everything. Yeah.

Yeah, let's do it. Before we do the scores, I do have a little something that's probably for the bonus that I've been thinking about. I'm working on my brand, my personal brand. The James Shakespeareft brand?

Yes, and I've got... Shakespeare International, New York, Paris, London. I'm going with JFS. Because that seems to be a thing that people do, they go for their initials. Yep, great idea. And I'm thinking of a tagline. Diamonds.

Yes. When you're thinking, FFS, it has to be JFS.