PODCAST · history
Bad, Mad & Northern
by Lucy Sheridan
Bad, Mad & Northern is a historical true crime podcast unearthing the darkest, strangest stories from the North of England. From infamous killers to the villages that vanished beneath reservoirs, the myths that still cling to the moors, and the history no one talks about at Sunday dinner. Hosted solo, told slow, and steeped in northern wit, each episode digs past the headlines to find the real story underneath. Equal parts investigation and ghost story, this is history with the lid off.
Episodes
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12. The Pendle Witches, Part 2: The Finger of God
What happens when the only witness who can hang a family is a nine-year-old girl? In August 1612, the accused from Pendle stood trial at Lancaster Castle. In Part Two, we’re in the courtroom as Jennet Device is stood on a table to give evidence against her own family, and as Alizon Device kneels...
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11. The Pendle Witches, Part 1: A Handful of Pins
Content note: this episode includes executions, the deaths of adults and children, and a child used as a witness against her own family. How could a few pins on a muddy Lancashire road lead to ten people being hanged? In March 1612, a pedlar called John Law refused to give some pins to a poor…
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10. The Halifax Gibbet: England’s Guillotine That Beheaded Thieves for Pennies
The Halifax Gibbet was a beheading machine used in Halifax, West Yorkshire, from 1286 until 1650. Under the town’s ancient Gibbet Law, anyone caught stealing goods worth thirteen and a half pennies or more could be tried by their neighbours and beheaded on the next market day, more than a century...
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9. The Holiday That Created Dracula, Part 2: The Monster Escapes
Bram Stoker went home from Whitby with the bones of a monster. So how did they become the most famous vampire in the world? In Part Two here, we follow the seven years it took Stoker to write Dracula, and the disastrous stage reading at the Lyceum Theatre in 1897. We look at what the novel was...
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8. The Holiday That Created Dracula, Part 1: Bram Stoker in Whitby
Why did a man on holiday in Whitby go home with a monster in his pocket? In the summer of 1890, Bram Stoker, a Dublin civil servant turned manager of London’s Lyceum Theatre, took a break in Whitby. He arrived with a few pages of notes and a villain called Count Wampyr. He went home with the…
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7. The Valleys We Drowned: The Lost Villages Under the Water
What would you do if you were told your village had to disappear so a city could have water? (Content note: this episode includes a fatal explosion and the exhumation of graves.) In the first half of the twentieth century, three northern valleys were flooded to make reservoirs. This episode tells...
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6. Stolen from the Grave: The North's Body Snatchers
How long would your grave stay yours? In the 1820s, the answer might have been a matter of days. Anatomy schools needed bodies, the law supplied very few, and across the north of England a trade grew up to fill the gap. Bodies moved like freight, with paperwork, addresses and paying customers at...
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5. Spooky Season reveal: What's Lurking in the North This October?
Who was digging up the dead of the North? What would you give up so a city a hundred miles away could turn on a tap? And how did a holiday in Whitby create the most famous toothed monster in the world? In this short voice note, Lucy says a heartfelt thank you for taking Bad, Mad & Northern into…
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4. The Scuttlers: Victorian Manchester's Teenage Gangs
Content note: this episode includes violence against children and teenagers, including the deaths of two boys under eighteen. For more than thirty years, from 1870 to the early 1900s, the streets of Manchester and Salford belonged to the scuttlers: teenage gangs armed with belts, bricks and clasp...
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3. Regicide, Part Two: Yorkshire and the King's Revenge
Content note: this episode includes descriptions of executions and exhumed human remains. In May 1660, Charles II rode back into London to cheering crowds. For the men who had signed his father's death warrant, the celebrations meant something else: it was time to run. In the second of two...
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2. Regicide, Part One: Yorkshire and the Killing of a King
Content note: this episode includes descriptions of war and a public execution. On 30 January 1649, King Charles I stepped out onto a scaffold in Whitehall. Fifty-nine men had signed his death warrant, and a striking number of them came from the North. In the first of two episodes, we follow the...
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1. John George Haigh: Wakefield's Acid Bath Murderer
Content note: This episode includes discussion of murder and human remains. In 1949, detectives searching a builder's yard in Crawley uncovered fragments of evidence that should not have survived: bone, dentures, a handbag clasp, and tiny gallstones. Their discovery would unravel the crimes of…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Bad, Mad & Northern is a historical true crime podcast unearthing the darkest, strangest stories from the North of England.
From infamous killers to the villages that vanished beneath reservoirs, the myths that still cling to the moors, and the history no one talks about at Sunday dinner. Hosted solo, told slow, and steeped in northern wit, each episode digs past the headlines to find the real story underneath. Equal parts investigation and ghost story, this is history with the lid off.
HOSTED BY
Lucy Sheridan
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Bad, Mad & Northern have?
Bad, Mad & Northern currently has 12 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Bad, Mad & Northern about?
Bad, Mad & Northern is a historical true crime podcast unearthing the darkest, strangest stories from the North of England. From infamous killers to the villages that vanished beneath reservoirs, the myths that still cling to the moors, and the history no one talks about at Sunday dinner. Hosted...
How often does Bad, Mad & Northern release new episodes?
Bad, Mad & Northern has 12 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Bad, Mad & Northern?
You can listen to Bad, Mad & Northern on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Bad, Mad & Northern?
Bad, Mad & Northern is created and hosted by Lucy Sheridan.
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