Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep43: Loremen S4Ep43 - The Ham House Horror

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Duchess, Poisoner, Spectre, Spy. James and Alasdair leap back to the English Civil War and meet the two-timing royalist schemer Elizabeth Murray. Her Richmond home is haunted by stories of intrigue, betrayal and ghosts. And a little dog too. The gloomy pile that is Ham House was Elizabeth's lifelong passion. Some believe that she never left. Visit Ham and maybe you will hear the old duchess rapping. (With her cane, on the floor.) This episode is part of a pair. Check out S4E42 - Strawberry Hill Gothic for some spooky business from the other bank of the River Thames. Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. With me, Alistair Beckett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. And James. Allow me to slip into my impression of Vincent Price that sounds a bit more like Brain from Pinky and the Brain. James Shakeshaft, tell me, have you ever seen a house made completely of ham? Oh, no. Could you imagine such a thing?

Most nights. A wondrous creation defying God. What are they going to do today? The same thing we try to do every day. A character who isn't Pinky. Make a house out of ham. Can't wait. A, the house isn't really house out of ham. Can't wait. A, the house isn't really made out of ham, it's just called that.

And B, this is a murder at Ham House. Slash in the vicinity of Ham House. James, James, James, James, James. Alistair Beckett, Beckett, Beckett, Beckett, Beckett King. How are you doing? I'm doing all right, thanks. I'm quite tired, but I think I can keep it together. You told me before the recording that you were extremely tired.

Yes, I am. Okay, well, if this degenerates into another one of your half-sleep, half-waking episodes. Oh, a Lorman fever dream. Yeah, that would be appropriate because, of course, that is the state, the psychopompic state in which people see ghosts. I genuinely have had a mild visual hallucination already where I thought I saw a leaf. I thought I saw a leaf on the stairs,

but there wasn't a leaf on the stairs right there. Listener, James has never been this close to the other side. A little leaf without clogs on. It's being haunted by a bush. Yeah, it was a ghost leaf. A leaf with unfinished business. Oh, it's not even

autumn. No, exactly. An unseasonal leaf. Explain that. Yeah, with your science. Well, last week on the podcast, I gave you part one of two. I told you the story of Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill House. Yes. And I called it Strawberry Hill Gothic. Great name.

I agree. Not a phrase I coined, but I'm happy to take credit for it. Mm-hmm. And I promised you a sister episode. Mm-hmm. Murder at Ham House. Also a great name. I know.

And then I did a bit more research and I have to change the name. Oh. It's annoying. It's annoying to start this way. Is it Ham Manor? No, it's definitely Ham House. But the murder didn't actually happen there. Oh.

So I'm going with the Ham House horror. Oh, that's nice. Because it sounds a bit like Hammer Horror, I thought. Yes, that's good. I was going to suggest if the murder happened at another place, but the culprit travelled to Ham House, all you need to do, add two letters, murderer at Ham House. The murderer at Ham House, yes. We could call it that. It's clunky call it that it's

clunky sure it's clunky it's clunky as hell james so i'm gonna i'm gonna go with my suggestion yeah the ham house horror the dignified ham house horror that's not part of the name triple h it's the ham house horror so previously on law men we had the specter of an old woman appearing in saint mary's university in the grounds of strawberry hill house an old woman appearing in St Mary's University in the grounds of Strawberry Hill House. An old woman who was suspected of killing her husband. Mmm. Just pop a little pin in that and remember that. Oh, okay.

And now I'm going to take you across the Thames. If you were to plunge bodily into the Thames from Strawberry Hill House. Oh, yeah. You'd be dead in seconds. Yes. But let's imagine you've got some bridge natural swimming ability and you were to make it to the other side. Let's imagine you were one of your David

Walliams types. Or your Jimmy Shake Shaft One. The original Grandad Jim. Oh yes! Who could swim in the Thames for cash. Yes, who did swim in the Thames. Of course in those days it was mostly solid. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to skim on the Thames. So thick, in those days, it was mostly solid. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to skim on

the Thames. So thick with eels that you could just... He could skim himself across. He was very round and flat. He was perfect for skimming. He was not implicated. He was cited as one of the... I mean, I'm sure he was implicated in a few things. Oh, God.

Yeah. He was part of the inspiration for the dam busters he's the original bouncing bomb yeah yeah but in the end he just bopped a policeman no that was his dad oh i'm sorry that was donkey shakes i think that was donkey shakes donkey shake shaft again named after the animal he wasn wasn't a Spanish failure. Yes. I haven't read Don Quixote, to be honest. Yeah, Don Quixote is a local landowner who goes mad. Right.

And decides to become a knight errant, like the characters of Historic Romance. A bit of a Horace Walpole figure. He's not a donkey. He's not a donkey. A sort of reverse of that joke from earlier. That's not canon. He's not a donkey. A sort of reverse of that joke from earlier.

It is not. That's not canon. So if you were to travel across the Thames, you would land in an area now called Hamlands. Oh, lovely. Mm-hmm. Like a theme park of ham. Love to be there. Yeah.

It's very un-vegan. That is the grounds, presumably, of Ham House. Oh. Is it not there anymore? It is still there. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, Ham House is still there, and the grounds are just still there, and they, of Ham House. Oh, it's not there anymore. It is still there. Oh, okay. Yeah, Ham House is still there, and the grounds are just still there, and they're called Hamlands. But it's within Hamlands.

Yeah, exactly. They've got Hamlands, they've got a beef haunted house. Have they got a pork mince ball pit? A bologna slide. It's horrible. Charles G. Harper. Chucky G. I know Ch Charles G. Harper. Chucky G. I know Chucky G. Old Chucky G. of Haunted Houses, 1907.

The book, not just hanging around, although he probably did hang around them as well. Charlie G. wrote that Ham House was situated in a fine, damp position amid the meadows beside the Thames, midway between Richmond and Kingston, and it was prominent among those stately mansion whose very appearance presupposes the supernatural. It is densely overshadowed by trees, and the singular disuse of the entrances originally planned has itself given rise to many fantastic and entirely fictitious legends. But every circumstance, historic and scenic, connected with Ham House is provocative of

tales of the marvellous. Brilliant. And Chucky G wasn't the only person who thought that. Hmm? Our own Horace Walpole. Yes? Yeah, War Horatio. Yes?

Wrote in a letter in 1770, the visiting Ham House, delighted me and made me peevish. Hmm? Hmm, yeah, get you a house that can do both. Wow. He wrote, Close to the Thames, in the centre of all rich and verdant beauty, it is so blocked up and barricaded with walls, vast trees and gates

that you think yourself a hundred miles off and a hundred years back. Yes, he wrote an hundred years, because it was the olden times. When an H was a vowel. An hundred years back. The old furniture is so magnificently ancient, dreary and decayed that at every step one's spirits sink and all my passion for antiquity could not keep them up. Oh. Every minute I expected to see ghosts sweeping by. Ghosts I would not give sixpence to see. Lord Adale's, Talmash's and Maitland's! What?

Yeah, yeah. Sorry, what happened there? He just said some noises at the end there. Did he lean on his auto correct? No, that was not a case of autocomplete tripping him up. Those were some names of the people who have lived there, some of which I may have pronounced correctly. Right.

And some of which will come up. Ooh. So wait a minute. I'm just confused about what his vibe is there. He thought he was going to see ghosts, but he didn't want to see them. No, that's the thing. This place was so spooky that Horace Walpole of I Built Myself a Spooky House fame felt

this place is actually a little bit too spooky and old-fashioned. I'll just go back to the castle I'm going to build in a few years. I see, right. Or did build, I can't remember. Depending on the timeline, yeah. Depending on when he wrote that letter, yeah. Final old geezer from the olden days quote, describing the house. Augusta's hair, who I suspect is a friend of the podcast, because I'm sure I've heard

that name before. I definitely have. Like a posh rabbit. Yes. I think that was in the times when we were taking people on their surname a little bit more literally. Yep. Augustus Hare, as far as we know, a human. In his book, which I assume is supposed to be pronounced, story of my life.

From volume four of story of my life, 1857, wrote, and I'm really having to work to try and distinguish these old geezer voices. No half-inhabited... Sorry. I thought he would be a little bit more like... A little bit more... More of a little rabbit fellow. Okay, okay. Little rabbit fellow.

No half-inhabited chateau of a ruined family in Normandy was ever half so dilapidated as this home of the enormously rich Tolmaches. T-O-L-L-E-M-A-C-H-E-S. I think it's pronounced Tolmash. Like a French chateau too is the entrance through a gateway to a desolate yard with old trees and a sundial and a donkey feeding. Now, I don't know if that is a donkey feeding or a thing that feeds a donkey. It's not my area of expertise.

Or a Spanish loser. Yeah, could be. Donkey feeding. The inhabitants of this palace, which looks like that of the sleeping beauty in the wood, have wealth which is inexhaustible, though they have scarcely any servants. No carriage, only bread and cheese for luncheon. And never a pair or restore anything. No pair?

Never a pair. Not one pair. No pairs? So, it's a classic. So, pair. No pairs? So, it's a classic. It's not all bad. Classic spooky old house, held on to by aristocrats who simply will not make it any less spooky. And that was

in the 19th century when Augustus Hare visited. But the original ham house was built in 1610 by Sir Thomas Vavasour. Who I know nothing about Thomas Vavasour, who I know nothing about. Vavasour. Mm.

Ooh la la, Sir Thomas. It's got a little bit of Vavasour about him. Yeah. The house that Harry's describing there is mostly the work of Elizabeth Murray, Second Countess of Dysart in Fife. Later, Elizabeth Maitland, Duchess of Lauderdale. And she is quite a character, James. She was a great wit and beauty, apparently. Nice.

Although there are several paintings of her, and they look like a shaved version of me. It's like, I'm not sure the gene pool was that wide at the time. Is there any evidence of the wit in the painting? Is there a speech bubble saying, like, your mum? Well, she may or may not have been conventionally attractive by my standards. Nice. Yep.

A little bit of my own medicine there. Yeah. But she was certainly an attractive character. Mm. To some people. Mm. And someone who created a lot of enemies in a slightly war Polish fashion. Oh.

According to her biographer, Doreen Cripps, Elizabeth's talents and red hair earned for her in Scotland the reputation of wielding the powers of a witch, particularly in her fascination for men. Cripps dwells on that. Apparently, she was just widely regarded as being a witch back in Scotland because, like all the best Scottish aristocrats, she was born in England and was English and lived in England the whole time. Right.

Even though she was of Scottish gentry. She was born in Westminster and she lived in Ham House in Richmond, but she also lived in Suffolk in Fakenham Magna. Now, I'm sure Fakenham we've come across before in Suffolk. This is Fakenham Magna, which is a little town outside Fakenham. So Fakenham Magna is also known as Great Fakenham and also known as Little Fakenham, which is confusing. Yes.

So she was the daughter of the Earl of Dysart, William Murray, who was supposedly Charles I's whipping boy. Now, I don't know if the whipping boy is really a thing, but are you familiar with the myth of the whipping boy? Is it like, sort of like an escaped goat? It's very like an escaping goat, yes. But in human form. So if a royal...

Princeling, yeah, needs a slap across the chops. But in human form. So if a royal... Princeling, yeah. Needs a slap across the chops. A princeling. You can't slap a king's bottom. Yeah. You legally can't. Legally, yeah. You can't twist a little king's ear right off.

You cannot do that. So they have... They've got a stand-in bum. They're just subbing another bum. For those sort of situations. Of a close pal. A bum in. Yeah. A bum sub. Yeah. Like in films, sometimes

they say that some... Yeah, like a body double. When there was quite the fad for men's bums in sort of 80s action films, often they were a faux bum. Yeah, they just phoned in the bum. Someone would, they'd ring up, you know, Bum Central central and someone dropped it off and that's that's the agency that's

the really badly named agency for uh yeah nice bums now whether or not that was true and when i say that i mean the whipping boy thing not the whether or not there was a bum central yeah a central bum depository that people could phone up for bums, which was definitely true. Yeah, I have to remind listeners, I'm very tired. He's such a tired boy. The whipping boy, apparently historians are dubious of whether whipping boys were real. Nonetheless, that gives you a sense of how close he was to old Charlie Wan. Now, according to the V&A Museum's Guide to Ham House, published in 1959,

According to the V&A Museum's Guide to Ham House, published in 1959, the historian Bishop Gilbert Burnett... Nice. ...was not a fan of Murray Senior, Mr. Murray, the Earl of Dysart. Okay. He thought Murray was a duplicitous schemer with just one talent. Having a bum. Just one talent, which was having a bum that really could take his banking. Burnett wrote,

He had one particular quality, that when he was drunk, which was very often, Having a bum that really could take a spanking. Burnett wrote, He had one particular quality, that when he was drunk, which was very often, he was upon a most exact reserve, though he was pretty open at all other times. So his one skill was keeping his mouth shut when he had too much to drink. Right. Because you've got to understand, James, we're talking about the Civil War times. We're talking about the English interregnum. Yes, we are. And I had to look that up. Are you familiar with the phrase? Is it betwixt regies? Yes. Yes, it is. It's the period. It's the little bit in the middle.

When there was no reg. There was no reg. When we were dereg'd.. Not de-reg, like a license plate, but when we were without king. Murray died without a male heir. And so Elizabeth inherited the whole caboodle, the title and his reputation for being untrustworthy. To be fair, though, she was actually a spy. Oh, for whom? Well, the royalists, supposedly. supposedly, during the interregnum. However, both she and her dad were suspected of being double agents. Oh.

And yeah. So before his death, it shouldn't be necessary to say that if you've heard the rest of the sentence. Yeah. Before his death, William Murray was arrested as a suspected Royalist spy while travelling in 1646, and he was sent to the Tower O London. You say that, but a few years later, people were dug up and tried, hanged and beheaded. That's true. He could realistically have been sent to the Tower of London after death,

but he was alive on this occasion. But basically, his connections got him off and he was released. After which, he was always suspected of being a double agent, working on behalf of the parliamentarians. To further their interests in royalist circles. And basically Elizabeth ended up with the same reputation. She was an active member of the Royalist Spy Network. The Sealed Knot.

What? The Sealed Knot. What? That was the name of the Royalist Spy Network. Isn't that the name of the people that reenact things nowadays i think it is yeah battle reenactors i think they've taken their name from the royalists right or maybe they are the same secret society assassin's creed style and they've just rebranded as nerds sorry listeners the real zinger from me there. Maybe they're hiding in plain sight.

Maybe that's the thing. They're constantly reenacting their battles just to get better at them. And then they're going to invent time travel like the Assassin's Creed gang do. Is that what happened? I don't know. I've not played it.

I think the plot is that your DNA has memories or something of your ancestors, which is... Yeah, and you can... Which is nonsense. Sorry, sorry again to the other half of the listeners who like nonsense, but that is nonsense. DNA doesn't have memories? DNA hasn't got memories. Sorry. So this lady's bum couldn't remember what happened to her dad's bum?

No. All right, then, if you insist. She would have no idea so she was a member of the sealed knot but she was also suspected of being oliver cromwell's mistress oh booyah now whether this was true or not this is repeated every every time you hear about her she's a turn bum i had a look at historian nadine ackerman's book about female spies, which is called Invisible Agents, which talks about an interesting thing that happens. And this will shock you, James, that female spies were so good at being spies that historians have just not bothered mentioning them at all, really, while recording the history of our nation. Isn't that interesting?

That is interesting. That they would just sort of be swept aside did they just repeat what the female spies had said but louder and then everyone laughs yeah it's annoying as though it was their own idea yeah so ackerman's book is about several female spies including elizabeth trying to tease out what they actually got up to from all of the poison pen letters written about them. Because that's one of the things Elizabeth has in common with Horace Walpole. Everyone who made a note of anything she did at any point in her life, seemingly, could not stand her.

But on the other hand, the style of writing at the time is so polite that I can't tell that they're being mean. It's like sort of high school mean girl stuff. Like, oh, nice hat. You have to be really pretty to pull off hats. And I was like, oh, I can't tell what's being said there. In 1658, her neighbour, Judith Isham, wrote, this is just after she became the Countess of Dysart,

they call her My Lady Dessert. She is so taking, expressing extraordinary civility to every person that's apparently this is a criticism i cannot make sense of what she's saying my lady dessert i think she might be saying she's sickly sweet she might be punning on dessert as in deserter or the concept of being deserving oh she's she's having a go, but I can't tell what the problem is. I thought it was just like the, you know, draw sugar in your tea, now I'm sweet enough kind of thing. And then my current response to that is someone says that,

it's like, so it's two then, is it? Ooh. Yeah, sick burns. Oh, we are laying down the law this time. I'm going after the reenactors. I'm going after people who don't take sugar in their tea. I don't take sugar in my tea. I would never say I'm sweet enough.

Not around me, you wouldn't now. No, never. You're going to get zinged. I'll get two. It'll be more sugar than tea. Here's Bishop Burnett again, giving her a sort of backhanded compliment insults. She was a woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts. She had a wonderful quickness of apprehension and an amazing vivacity in conversation.

She had studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics and philosophy. She was vehement in everything she said about a violent friend, but a much more violent enemy. She treats her friends violently and her enemies more violently, James. Yeah, that's a method. Yeah, seems reasonable. She had a restless ambition, lived at vast expense and was ravenously covetous. Now, to be fair, this is the other thing she's famous for, spending all of the money on her fantastic house.

Ham house. House made of ham. And would have stuck at nothing by which she might compass her ends. And he goes on to accuse her of various dalliances. She had been early in a correspondence with Lord Lauderdale that had given occasion to censure. When he was a prisoner after Worcester fight, she made him believe he was in great danger of his life

and that she saved it by her intrigues with Cromwell, which was not a little taken notice of. Cromwell was certainly fond of her, and she took care to entertain him in it, Okay, so there's a lot of subtext there that I'm not sure will make sense until I give you some more information. Ah. He's accusing her of being quite saucy. Mm-hmm. So her first husband was Sir Lionel Tolmash, the third baronet of Helmingham. Helmingham?

I just want to put more ham into the story. Helmingham? Yeah, no, that's good. I'm thinking of a ham helmet now. Just a ham helmet. It's practical and delicious. Mm, and greasy. And they were married for 21 years, during which his health deteriorated markedly until he died in Paris in 1669.

Not annoyingly in Ham House. Her second husband was... I see where this is going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm moving at the speed of a slow poisoner towards allegations of slow poisoning. Her second husband was John Maitland, the Duke of Lauderdale, and they married in 1672, a year after his first wife, Anne Hume, died. Also in Paris!

It's just a coincidence. Yeah. Although, she did die very shortly after Lionel Tolmache died, enabling the two of them to get married. So the accusation that Bishop Burnett was lobbing around wildly was that she was having it off with Lord Lauderdale while she was still married to her first husband. And that she got up to something with Cromwell

in order to keep Lord Lauderdale safe. Really, it must be, sounds like it's really fun saying Lord Lauderdale and I've just said it for the first time and it's great. Lord Lauderdale, and I've just said it for the first time, and it's great. Lord Lauderdale. So there's definitely something going on around the death of Anne Hume. Some kind of shenanigans, because Anne Hume, this is John Maitland, Elizabeth's second husband's first wife. Right. Are you with me?

Just about. She's the one that we need to get out of the way if Elizabeth, our hero, is going to marry her second husband. Now, Anne bequeathed her jewels to her daughter, completely reasonable, in the event of her death, and she left them in the charge of her friend, Lady Bog Hall. Cool. Disappointingly not Lady Bog Ham, but you can't have everything. Yes, but a Bog Hall is good.

It's definitely not. Given the choice between a ham house and a bog hall. I think you would want to put in a couple of bogs in a house made of ham, though. Yeah, you would need at least an outdoor privy. Yeah. Bog hall bodged it, James. Oh. And

War Elizabeth ended up with the jewels and spent the rest of her life, I think, litigating and fighting with Anne Hume's quite reasonably upset daughter, who didn't get the jewels that she was supposed to get. But she loved things. She loved stuff.

And she loved Ham House. Some say she never left. Charlie G again. Haunted Houses 1907 The old dame's boudoir remains as it was when she left it And her silver-mounted ebony walking stick lies across the table And they do say that the stick may be heard Rap, rap, rapping

At the most untimiest hours Do you want to do a rapping joke, James? I can hear you coming in there Yeah, I do. The way with the rap-rap-rapping, it... I can't do it. I'm trying to do a record scratch noise, but I sound like an old-timey car horn.

I think we're moving back to Don Quixote. The stick can be heard rap-rap-rapping. I'm a walking stick, and I'm here to say I go round the house in a clip-cloppy way. It can be heard rapping at the most untimiest hours when no Christian is about, nor, under the circumstances, would be doing aught but putting his head under the bedclothes

for fear of the uncanny. Elliot O'Donnell's Haunted People, 1955. I think Elliot O'Donnell is Irish, People, 1955. I think Elliot O'Donnell is Irish, fully justifying the accent I'm about to attempt. Brilliant.

Agrees that the wrapping of the stick and the tapping of heels are very much one of the manifestations of Elizabeth. In the still hours of the night,

the tapping of high heels and of a stick are sometimes heard crossing the polished oak boards of various of the rooms and ascending the beautiful old staircase.

Sometimes they stop outside one room and sometimes another, and occasionally, not content with stopping outside, the Duchess or rather her ghost enters. Frenemy of the show and president of the ghost club, Peter Underwood. He's no frenemy

of ours. Salute the president, James! In his book, This Haunted Isle, 1986, he said, I have no idea what Peter Underwood's voice should be. No. He wrote, when I was at Ham House some years ago with Dr. Peter Hilton Rowe, life member of the Ghost Club, we were told by one of the guides that the more active ghost these days

was a phantom king Charles Spaniel that was often seen and heard running, yapping, along the terrace in daylight. A daytime dog ghost. Daytime dog ghost. A little poo-poo stinks. This is like the Isle of Wight all over again. Other reports state that the cheerful little animal has been seen roaming through various rooms of this handsomely furnished house

and once again, in daylight, it was seen to run from a room on the west passage and disappear into the skirting board. What? Once on the terrace, a woman visitor

went to approach the animal, but it bared its teeth at her and then promptly vanished. It wasn't just a big mouse, big weird mouse. Well, you take it up, James, you old sceptic you, with property manager Jan Graffius. Come on then, Jan Graffius. I believe it up, James, you old sceptic you, with property manager Jan Graffius.

Come on then, Jan Graffius. I believe it's a woman, but it could be a kind of Swedish guy. He's from Ireland as well. Cool. Jan Graffius, she told the Times in 1998, the visitors often complained about seeing a dog in the house, even though animals were not allowed inside. And that very year, the bones

of a spaniel-like dog were found in the orangery. The orangery? The orangery? They were found in the orangery. The orangery. And, according to the Ghost Club's investigation, put on display

in the Round Gallery. The Ghost Club had held several vigils there, including one in 2004 when Joanne Kelly, one of their psychic mediums, I think, one of their sensitives, saw a dog as well. In the house, though, James. Dog in a house? Dog in a playground?

Dog in a house. Explain that. That's going to distract a Ghost Club meeting. Dog in a playground. Now, there are paintings of Elizabeth with what seems to be a King Charles Spaniel-y kind of dog. Because it is the kind of dog a royalist would have, isn't it? Exactly.

A King Charles Spaniel. Yeah, they're not going to have a blooming Cromwell bulldog. I don't know. They've got quite round. There's a National Trust video. Yes. Which I think I saw on YouTube of the house manager, the now house manager,

Naomi Campbell. What? Not that one. No, different person. She did what? I think she's also Irish. And a volunteer called Peggy Curtis, and they recount

very similar ghostly encounters, including the Duchess seen in the chapel as a grey, cloudy figure, supposedly mourning the death of her second husband. I'm yet to get over the fact that the house manager is Naomi Campbell, if I'm perfectly honest. Who's the caretaker?

Claudia Schiffer? I suppose Elle, the body work person, delivers the milk. But these are mere trifles, James. I'm just scattering a few ghosts in your direction to confuse you, like a leaf on the stairs. We're at the ghost leaf. The most famous ghost story about Ham House, told and retold, is first captured in print by Augusta's Hare in Story of My Life.

And I'm glad you enjoyed that because I needed to clear my throat. And I'm going to read it in full. There is a ghost at Ham. The old butler there had a little girl and the lady Tolmash kindly asked her to come on a visit. She was then six years old. In the small hours of the morning, when dawn was making things clear, the child, waking up, saw a little old woman scratching with her fingers against the wall close to the fireplace. She was not at all frightened at first, but sat up to look at her.

The noise she made in doing this caused the old woman to look round, and she came to the foot of the bed, and grasping the rail with her hands, stared at the child long and fixedly. So horrible was her stare that the child was terrified, and screamed and hid her face under the clothes. People who were in the passage ran in, and the child told what she had seen. The wall was examined, where she had seen the figure scratching, and concealed in it were found papers which proved that in that room,

Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, had murdered her husband to marry the Duke of Lauderdale. Whoa. Yeah. And her one mistake was writing it down. And a piece of paper and plastering it in the wall on a piece of paper then plastering into the wall and then years later as a ghost

just pointing it out to a child wow she would have succeeded too if it hadn't been for that pesky self self there was one kid yeah that pesky. And the dog as far as we know, doesn't talk but is still present. He's a little dark too. And that is the ghost of Ham House. Elizabeth the Countess of Dysart. I mean, also, just to be clear,

none of that happened clearly. The last bit there. There's no historical... Even the Ghost Club don't think that happened. Very scary though. It's a great story, but there's no particular evidence that there was a butler who had a six year old kid how could documents prove that you had murdered your husband when he was in paris and you were in england it just doesn't make sense but what a story i did it in this room where i'm writing this and also i'm gonna pop this in the wall. Yeah. Yep. Signed me. I murdered him here.

And then he was in Paris and he died in Paris. And I'll explain over leaf. So it doesn't make sense. But it's a great story. And it remains an extremely haunted house. People report all sorts of stuff. And I love the dog one because people seem to think that it's just an animal. So they come and say, there's a dog in here.

Then the volunteers have to go, there never was a dog the dog died 300 years ago it's been dead for 70 dog years so that is the story of the horror the ham house House Horror. Oh, yeah, that was very, very horror-y, horrific. I mean, it could probably have been a little bit more horrific. Yeah. But I needed some alliteration. It was good. Couldn't just do a Ham House Ghost. No, it was good. It was good. I like it.

Are you ready to... Scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch. That's where you might, at night, if you think you hear a screeching... It might be Elizabeth Maitland. Nay, Marie. It's not the rats in the walls. It's a self-sabotaging murderer.

Yeah. Would you like to lay down some scores? Absolutely. And I'll bury them right here in my orangery. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Alistair. I'm going to write down the scores and i'm going to do alistair i'm gonna write down the scores and i'm gonna hide them in the wall and you'll find out when you get a six-year-old to sleep in the room i will return as a ghost to scratch at that wall deal cool first category names lovely

hamlands hamlands i feel like i feel like i'm confident just based on hamlands hamlands i did prefer ham world because it has all the different you know it's got it's got it's got the gammon zone well i don't know i was always quite enthusiastic about euro ham ah that was the thing about euro ham is you could get brandy glazed ham there you famously couldn't in any of the other ham theme parks. Yeah, Hamland definitely is strong. And there were all sorts of other great names. I can't remember any of them because I'm incredibly tired, but yes.

Yeah, there were Faken and Magna. Faken and Magna. Augusta's hair. but Faken and Magna. Faken and Magna. Augusta's hair. I've looked him up and he looks like he might be a hair masquerading as a person. The tollmashes.

Yes, that's nice. Yeah. Although I'm a little bit concerned because we got caught up with a Waldergrave last week, which I believe should be pronounced like just Walgrave or something like that. What? I checked that as well. I honestly looked that up. It's one of them posh names. Ah, yeah. This is Fanshawe and Chumley all over again.

Yes. Well, yeah, Tolmash is not spelled Tolmash. I'm definitely not pronouncing it as how it's spelled. I've got a good chance of being right. Yeah. Alrighty. These days, I think the Tolmash family pronounce it Tolmash. it's spelled so you're halfway i've got a good chance of being right yeah all righty these days i think the tall mash family pronounced it tall mash it's spelled like nine different ways in all the different every quote i have spells it differently thomas making a nice house i can't i mean we could i'm just i'm over glazing the ham here. It's got to be five out of five. Thank you. Thank you very much.

It's ham-tastic. In that case, let's move slickly on to the second category, which is supernatural. Yes. It's just ghosts, James. It's just, it's just one of Europe's most haunted houses. It's just wall-to-wall ghosts. It's just one of Europe's most haunted houses. It's just wall-to-wall ghosts. And it is wall-to-wall ghosts,

because one of the ghosts is so wall-to-wall that they're trying to get extra space by removing some of the wall. Yeah, exactly. And the dog ran through the wainscoting. Dog in a skirting board. Yeah, absolutely five out of five. For Supernatural? Absolutely five out of five for Supernatural. That scary

lady scritching at the wall. Yep. That is staying with me. And there's a spooky echo of the tales that were told just over the river. I wonder if the walled grave, walled grave, I wonder if the legends that are attached to her have actually been

borrowed from Elizabeth. Maybe. Maybe she got lost. Yeah. One night. Maybe night maybe in fact it was the ghost of elizabeth the davy craigs or davy craig davy yeah she might have just been checking all the walls for confessions yeah i mean it was a different building but still it's it's less than a mile away you know as the crow flies if you've started putting confessions into the walls, I mean, you've got to check all the walls in the surrounding area. Yep. I did actually, just going back to last week's ghost tales, I did make a connection that I can't believe that I didn't make at the time.

One of the ghosts was described as having a stiff collar. And wasn't our hero of the tale, Horatio Rumpole? Horace Walpole, yes. Horace Walpole. Didn't he famously have a wooden cravat? Which would be a stiff collar. Can you have a

collar stiffer? This is the stiffest of collars. It'd be hard. You'd be hard pushed to find a stiffer collar than a wooden one. A wooden cravat. Exactly. That's the sound. Is that the sound of a case being busted wide open? Exactly. I left my case

and it has been busted open in a controlled explosion. Don't worry. Whoa! Yes. Well, my mind must have just been in there because you have blown it. It was also blown? Yep. Oh.

In a controlled explosion by the British Transport Police. Thanks. Thanks for doing it in a controlled manner. Thank you, the British Transport Police. How controlled are their explosions? Mm. Can you really control an explosion? It's always irritated me that they work for us only for as long as they want to.

The BTB. The explosions. Oh, right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not the British. I'm not suggesting the British Transport Police are out to go rogue. Powerful faction in their own right. I'll take my five out of five.

Good. Thank you very much, James. And I'm going to stow it away in the orangery or the wall. I haven't decided yet. Put it on display in the round room. Now, you'll remember I had a category I'm going to reuse, because this is a sister episode to the previous episode, and I think it applies just as well to Elizabeth,

the Duchess. Haters gonna hate. Yes, they are. And they did. They tell stories. She was besmirched during her lifetime and then forgotten by history. Forced to just wander around like a grey cloud.

Yep. Occasionally scratching at a wall. A dog gets more attention these days than she does. Maybe she was a poisoner. Maybe she poisoned her husband and her lover's wife. Yeah. We don't know. Maybe she was a spy.

Maybe she was a double spy. She could have been a double agent. Daughter of a double agent. Maybe she was a triple spy she could have been a double agent daughter of a double agent maybe she's a triple spy i don't know what that would be she might have been so sweet that they called her lady dessert yeah i don't know i don't really confusing nickname but so because she was she was fairly hated i think it's just it's a four a four yes okay okay because she might have been you think she could have been more hated she might have been deserved because she might have been a murderer murderer she might have been a murderer murderer might have been a murderer yeah no that's fair walpole probably wasn't a murderer but she she might actually have been a murderer even if she

probably wasn't oliver cromwell's mistress. Oliver Cromwell's mistress. Final category. Uh-huh. And this is again a twist on the category from last week, which was fake it till you make it, faking them till you're making them. Nice. Faking ham until you're making ham.

Yeah. And don't you go telling me that there was no enough ham in this episode, James. We had ham house. We had ham lands. We had faking ham. Helpingham. The neighbour who said that they call her My Lady Dessert. Hmm?

Her name, Judith Isham. Or Judith is Ham. Oh, my God. It's staring me right in the face. Ham was there all along. I set up some ham in the first act, but you didn't even see. It's staring me in the face like the ghost of a lady that was just scratching at the wall yeah and what was in that probably quite a bit of ham yeah i imagine her confession was written on one of those bits of what way for thin ham foreign ham that has that

has a little clown's face on it is that ham i don't know what it is. It's definitely formed. It's not naturally occurring. Yeah, it doesn't happen in nature. The clown meat. There's no pig, no joyful pig who can be sliced to produce that. There's actual clowns like sticks of rock. The makeup goes all the way through. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. She was faking ham until she was making ham, and she made a lot of ham. I mean, she may have been a spy. She may have been a double spy, but she was definitely faking things. You know, they sent letters in code to each other. Mm-hmm.

Code's so convincing, it just sounds like they were being polite the whole time. Yeah. And she built Ham House, right? And she built... Well, she is responsible for most of the vast and crumblesome mansion that Augustus Hare and Walpole were describing. It was built by Sir Thomas Vavasour, who I didn't even get any points for in the naming category.

Vavasour? Yeah, she made Ham while the sun shone. Yep. Which is gross. yeah she made ham while the sun shone yep which it's gross that's uh you're actually making cured meats at this point you're making a parma ham really rather than than a wet wafer thin yeah um i i would say it's got to be five out of five for faking ham till you're making ham thank you very much james you're very welcome james i think if you hadn't been on the edge of sleep we probably could have got three or four more meat themed disneyland zones well ironically it kept me awake last night trying to think

of them yeah yeah and then i went to sleep dreaming of a log flume, but the boats were sausages and the water was gravy. Let me remind you that that's now copyrighted to you, and you're able to exploit that commercially thanks to the magic of podcasting. I'm going to write this podcast down and send it to myself. And if the listener is not tired of hearing us say those exact words and wants to hear more of this sort of nonsense, hop on to lepatreon.com.

Forward slash. Le Raymond. Bod. Never has an earl been read out so unclearly. Except maybe on a French podcast. Or I just got fixated on, first of all, the cups cups and saucers how that could be something to do with meat yep and it'll be it'll be cuts and sirloins is the absolute best cups and saucers yeah that's nice dodgums could just be like bad oysters oh dodgyans dodgyans yeah see we the other thing and i've just googled the name of the ride

that was the big ride when the when the chippy mop came to town when i was a kid uh it's called it was called the eggs in space and after a cursory google and thinking about it i don't think it was ever written down that it was called the eggs in space it was basically it was like a ferris wheel but you had like your little thing was like an individual cage and you had your own break in there so you could break the um the your compartment yeah you could stop your compartment from spinning in relation to the outer wheel so you could go you know like uh like a like a you know with your head facing towards the middle of the thing all the way around but like if you went in with someone who knew what they were doing they'd know when to apply the brake and release the brake to get like a spin within a spin. Wow.

And that was known as the eggs in space. And I don't know if it was ever known that. All I'm finding from eggs in space is people also ask, do they have eggs in space? The ones from alien yes well only one bird has ever actually laid an egg in space well that's still way more than i was expecting that was in 1990 on the mere space station wow so that the the egg that was laid there is almost certainly dead sorry to put a cast a pall of that news an egg has been laid in space but that's too boys don't live that long there's there's videos of someone dropping an

egg from space to to to to the earth and it didn't crack what yeah it didn't crack how come probably i don't know i'm not clicked on, but I'm guessing it got boiled while it fell. Oh, I was hoping that it took so long that it was a bird bird and it got to the bottom. And it flew away. And just flew away, yeah.