Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep17: Loremen S5Ep17 - The Wild Man of Letchworth Hall

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

John Alington was an English eccentric who really put the "letch" in Letchworth. This randy reverend scandalised Hertfordshire with his saucy sermons and rock-and-roll hijinks. Alasdair tells James the peculiar history of a very rich man with a penchant for leopardskin and massively over-explaining things. Plus, an unusual attorney, a pair of identical twin poachers and a ghostly monk chucked in for chills. This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): 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

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And this week, James, I'm bringing you an English eccentric from Hertfordshire. Ooh, the heart of Fordshire. Yeah, my story, it's got twin poachers, it's got a spectral monk, and it has got Sunday sermons so saucy

you could dip your chips in them. What? It's the wild man of Letchworth Hall. James, would you like to come with me to Hertfordshire? I would, but can I air my complaint first? Oh, yes. We always like controversy on the podcast. This is a county-based complaint. We have Hertfordshire, we have Herefordshire.

There is one letter difference between those two counties. I don't think that's sustainable. That's your complaint? If I go to the Hertfordshire Wikipedia page and scroll down to controversies, I'll see name two similar to Herefordshire Wikipedia page and scroll down to controversies, I'll see name two similar to Herefordshire. Yeah. And it will get instantly taken away again by the editors. Well, James, if that shocks you, then the story I have to tell you is going to blow your mind. Is it? Yeah. In front of me, I have a book called Hitchin Worthies from 1932. It's a nice green hardback book written by the solicitor and local historian

Reginald Hine. It's a book about all of the Worthies, the dignified fellows, the stout gentlemen, the stolid bricks that made up people in the hitching and the surrounding areas. And then, James, I'm not interested in any of that, but then at the end, there's a section about the oddballs. Yes. We're going straight to the oddball section. Very much the controversies of an old book. It's the controversy. I've scrolled down basically to the controversies of the book. There's a few wrong-uns here. There's a few tasty so-and-sos, a few raggle-taggle ruffians. Now, I'm not even going to mention all of them. I'm not even going to mention the Unheavenly Fox Twins. What?

Who, true to their name, were notorious poachers. Ooh. Yeah, their names were Albert Ebenezer Fox and Ebenezer Albert Fox. Ah. Yeah, just to avoid confusion. Really? I don't think that avoids confusion. That's a Hertfordshire-Herifisher situation right there.

They were very much the Hertfordshire Herefordshire situation right there they were very much the Hertfordshire Herefordshire of people um I'm going to show you a picture of the uh the identical twin criminals or twiminals if you will nice Ebenezer and they look almost exactly like Thompson and Thompson from Tintin who similarly were one letter different they were one yeah they were weren't they because they were, weren't they? Because they were, at least as I remember it, they were no relation. No.

I think in some translations they're brothers. Oh, really? But one's got a P and one's not got a P. They can't be brothers then, can they? That was their whole thing. Just a coincidence. Well, James, let me ask you this question. Do you think they used their status as twins

to evade capture by the authorities? Yes. The answer is not successfully. Oh, well, I suppose halfway. But they made a good go of it. I think essentially what happened was the wrong one kept going to prison, which between, like, on aggregate, they didn't really get away with anything.

But individually, they got away with some crime. I suppose that's the thing. Like, if it's just one of them is a criminal, they're actually now twice as likely to get caught in a way. Yeah, you're much easier to find, especially since they live together, as far as I can tell, in the woods. Oh. Ebenezer Albert and Albert Ebenezer Fox died

with 82 and 113 convictions to their names, according to Reginald Hines Hitchenworthy's. Apparently, according to Time magazine, they were some of the first people convicted based on fingerprint evidence because even identical twins have different fingy prints they were convicted on fingy print evidence some of the first people but i'm not i'm not even going to tell you about that don't unlearn any of that information stop looking at them oh but this looks like promotional pictures for the top one their stage The second one, their ill-conceived film. The caption for the second one is

Albert Ebenezer and Ebenezer Albert Fox in the Hitchin prison yard. And they do not look like they're having a whale of a time. Not at all. But they got both of them on that case. They evidently both did the crime. I mean, we may be just looking at one guy in a mirror. We don't know.

But that's not who I'm going to talk about. I think I see this episode, James, as the counterpart to the episode where you told the story of Cornwall's loneliest vicar. Oh, yes. Get ready for Hertfordshire's

sleaziest vicar. Oh. Timpson's English eccentrics calls him Mad Allington of Letchworth Hall. Carl Shaw's oddballs and eccentrics calls him Mad Jack.

But my source is, as you know, Reginald Hines, Hitchin Worthies, and he gave us the man's real name, the Reverend John Allington, 1795 to 1863. This guy, James, was rich as heck. Very, very rich. I'll give you a little background on how he came to be so wealthy. His maternal grandfather, a farmer named John Williamson, had had a farm at Hell End in Baldock. Wow. Now, speaking of things one letter different, I went on a school trip to Hill End. Oh, in Baldock?

Not in Baldock. No, I think it was in Oxfordshire. Still, not bad. Pretty good. Pretty good. Now, Farmer Williamson had a very good harvest one year. Basically, he had an inkling, an inkling that the weather was about to turn, that the rains were about to come. So he travelled the length and breadth, presumably, of Hertfordshire, rounding up a hundred hands to reap all of his corn. That's 50 people. And, okay, 200 hands.

200 hands with a lowercase h and then a great storm destroyed all his neighbor's crops and many of them were ruined and basically just just in that year he became one of the richest men in the region as far as i can tell he basically bought the neighboring farms for a song because his his neighboring his neighbors were. Off the proceeds of his intuition, he bought a grand estate in Letchworth, which is now Letchworth Garden City. They say the whole area, there's a city there now. In those days, there wasn't much there. It was a small place between Baldock and Hitchin, but it didn't change him. Wealth did not change him. He still continued to go about looking like a scruff. In the words of Francis Lucas, he was a little man of mean

appearance and never dressed well, and his breeches were much patched. In the words of Francis Lucas, he was a little man of mean appearance and never dressed well, and his breeches were much patched. In the same way that, James, you and I, we're now moderately successful podcasters, but I don't think it's changed us. No, we still patch our breeches one leg at a time. I'm still a little man of mean appearance. When he died in the year 1830 farmer williamson had 43 farms and a million pounds which is a which i think in 1830 is a lot of farms and a lot of pounds yeah a lot of pounds his fortune ended up belonging to the reverend john allington right and i'm sure i've mentioned this on the podcast before you know how much i like lotto louts, right? Yes, yes.

We all love a lotto lout. They're just flipping the bird to the camera person at any point. Riding on a quad bike, flipping the bird. Doing a demolition derby in the garden. Yeah, demolition derby. Because I think if you don't remember me complaining about how much people used to hate lotto louts in previous episodes, or if you don't remember the concept of lotto louts. Basically, when the National Lottery was

introduced, working class people started winning it, and the papers were very unhappy that they were spending their winnings in a fun way. They weren't buying posh people stuff. They were just having a nice time. And there's a little bit of the lotto lout. He was basically a lotto lout who was also an ordained reverend and someone who had a degree from Oxford. But he started out fairly small in his eccentricities. But he moved into Letchworth Hall, the grand hall that belonged to his grandfather. And he began a lifelong vendetta against the Reverend Samuel Hartop Knapp.

Now that's, I hope those Ps are popping there. I hope those plosives coming through because this guy has two Ps in Hartop and two Ps in Knapp. He's a four P man. Whoa. Hartop Knapp. Wowzers. And he was the rector of Letchworth Church who made, I think, one big mistake. What?

Wait a minute. This is vicar on vicar violence. Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah absolutely intravicar conflict or intervicar conflict oh an ecclesiastical blood feud yeah i don't know what a blood feud is it's probably a real thing i think a blood feud is when it passes on through your family which as far as i know didn't happen in this case which also i think is literally what a vendetta is so maybe maybe that wasn't the right word. Oh, really?

A vicar's vendetta? A vicar's vendetta, very good. Yes. So here was Samuel Hartop Knapp's mistake. When Allington arrived, he said, hi, basically, welcome, and I'm the rector. But, you know, if you fancy coming and taking some of the services, feel free, you know, because you're a reverend as well.

Must enjoy it. Freeze frame. I suppose you're wondering how I got into this ridiculous situation. It's because what you did was you invited John Allington to come and take some of the services in your church. Samuel Hartop-Knapp, you fool. You foolish man. Was that his first mistake? That was his first and only mistake.

mistake. That was his first and only mistake. Arlington took that offer quite seriously and began to do all of the Sunday services in the church, as well as all of the weddings and christenings, leaving just the funerals, which nobody likes, to Samuel Hartop Knapp. And his sermons were quite unconventional. Basically, he began doing erotic sermons, expounding a doctrine of free love. Direct quote from Reginald Hine there, inspired by, you know, the Song of Songs from the Bible. Yeah. Is it pure Song of Songs? Yeah. It's famously the sexiest bit of the Bible. It is ever so sexy. It's like lawmen elate material.

By the Bible's standards, it's very sexy. Yeah. And, um... Here, could I just read out just one bit of the sauciness? Oh, please do, yes. I can't believe you've got his hand. Cover your children and pets' ears. Cover your children with animals.

Proceed, James. Let me kiss him with the kisses of his mouth. Oh! Oh, that, saucy. Oh, la, la. So you can imagine the regbrun Samuel Hartopnap fouling himself as he comes to his own church and hears this sort of filth from the pulpit.

I've just read another bit. I've just read it. Can I just read one more bit? Let's hear it, let's hear it. While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. Our couch is green. The beams of our house are cedar.

Our rafters are pine. Maybe that might just all be euphemistic. So Nap had no choice. He went over Allington's head to the bishop. And he had Allington suspended. Oh. End of story. Too blue, doing blue services. You know what these rural gigs are like? They don't like the blue material.

I can see why he didn't do the funerals, though. It's probably for the best. It's very hard to make him sexy. That's the problem. You'd think that would be the end of the story. It's not. Allington basically said, right, fine, I'll go. I'll set up my own church. You know Bender in Futurama? Yes. His famous line, well, he didn't have blackjack. The sermons he set up were basically like illegal raves with music and dancing. Hine describes it as a saturnalia.

He would take to the pulpit, dress in a full leopard skin. And I've got a picture of it for you there, James, which you might like to describe for the listener. From a sketch by local artist Samuel Lucas, you can see John Allington there, draped in the skin of a leopard. I'm still googling sexiest bit of the Bible. Get back over to the picture I sent you. Whoa. What's... Okay. I mean, that's a man in a rug it's a man in a man in a leopard rug a full leopard it had a tail it definitely had a tail and there's something

at the front which is not the tail but there's like a sort of a bundle of hairs it has a sort of sporran effect what's is that he would um he would give his sermons from a pulpit dressed like that in full leopard skin. He would play on the tiddly bump. Oh, hello. It was his name for a ramshackle piano. There were music boxes. And he rode around before the sermon on his hobby horse, which is not a horse.

But if you go to the next picture I've sent you, it was a four-wheeled moving contraption. Oh, that's four wheels. I thought it was just one of them recline bikes. It looks a bit like a bicycle, but it's like a four-wheeled bicycle, if you can imagine. It's just Mario Kart in, and then dressing as some sort of Bowser,

leopard Bowser. You might imagine from this picture that this was an outdoor vehicle. From what we're describing in the list, I might imagine him riding around outdoors. No, this was an indoor vehicle. He would ride that around inside the room before the sermon began. I'm going to read from Reginald Hines' book. Precariously seated on this, propelled by his own feet or pushed behind by his men,

he would ride up and down the cleared middle of the hall, whooping, whipping and spurring and cheering wildly as he rebounded from the brick wall at one end and the wooden screen at the other. If he fell off, which happened every other turn, he would roar with laughter and bow to the congregation before he remounted the machine. Finally, he would trundle it up and down the two ranks of the people, holding out a pound jar of snuff so that all who cared might help themselves to a pinch. If Ellington disliked the look of a person, however, he would snatch the jar away. No snuff for you, I imagine him saying. And this is before church. This is before his version of church, which was very, very unconventional. He would give powerful

sermons, there'd be music, he would disappear from the pulpit only to reappear from a trap door somewhere else. Nice stagecraft. I like it. Yeah, it's got everything. And the climax of the performance was this. His crimson face would stream with perspiration. And as a final triumphant gesture, at a clinching point in his crowning argument, he would catch hold of his sandy wig, wave it wildly in the air and hurl it into the hall.

Oh, this sounds like he sounds like a rock star. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really, it was incredibly popular with the young folk. He would gather all sorts of people together. He gathered together Romani musicians to play with him. None of that book stuff for me. Give me the real wild music. He was reported as saying by Wisdom Boswell, who went on to add, you're a very nice gentleman, were the squire, and I wish there were more of his sort about. He was reported as saying by Wisdom Boswell, who went on to add, Pardon?

You were a very nice gentleman, were the squire, and I wish there were more of his sort about. Sorry, what was that person's name again? Wisdom Boswell. Just dropping a little Wisdom Boswell in there. I'm so confident about names, don't even have to stress them. Just a throwaway name there, Wisdom Boswell. Oh, Wisdom Boswell. Well, you sent me the picture, the sketch of in still in his slippers uh riding the hobby horse i could just see some of the other text and i can see there's

someone called his groom jimmy tough uh jimmy tough no but presumably tough jimmy for short there's definitely a james king and an arthur king and i can see what their parents were doing name wise they were going for like King James, King Arthur. Very good. Nice. Basically, his servants were his, I don't know, wingmen, sidekicks. He worked very closely with them in his many, many odd schemes. But I know I've been implying that it got pretty hot and heavy.

It really did. He was extremely liberal. He was at home to all in the world and it seems apparently people were welcome to ride their horses right in through the front front door when arriving okay now imagine this getting a bit out of hand how high is the door you'll be surprised to hear local people were somewhat judgmental one gentleman farmer said of his sunday sermons that all the whores of hartfordshire were there. But James, you know who else spent his time with sex workers? Angus Deaton, yeah. But also Jesus. And this guy,

and Jesus as well. So, you know, who's to say what the Christian thing to do is? Certainly, when things went a little bit far, he did step in. if he saw young folk getting a little out of hand in the room he would he said if you young colts want to roll about there's plenty of grass outside what's the people that gets in have them kicked out they're necking at church one of the people that hinds interviewed tried to attend one as a boy but it had been so thronged with people he couldn't even get into the room. He did throw, quote, gentlemen's parties, which are printed with inverted commas around them. And I think the reason for the scare quotes is that the people who attended them weren't really gentlemen, rather than that they weren't really gentlemen's parties. Oh, I see.

Gentlemen's parties. He would invite people upstairs to view his collection of what rodney shaw called non-go rackley's which i'm i apologize for the pronunciation of the romany words there naked girls is uh his collection of nude portraits which he kept upstairs for the lads for the lads for the lads and dads yeah and would there be like a bible verse next to it or something he was very big on the preaching. He did read from the Bible. Yeah, probably just a little bit of scolding on the way up. Just sneaking in, like tricking them into reading the Bible by just putting it like in the book, yeah, interweaving it, every other page.

He may have been a great orator. He was a very bad farmer. He would have his men collecting flint and building great big towers of flint for no real reason. And a middling pornographer. He had his men build great big towers of flint by collecting up bits of flint from the fields just to give them something to do, really. Because they relied upon him and he didn't really have any work for them. So he just had them doing general stuff. The estate was huge and supposedly the labourers would stop planting corn

as soon as they were out of sight of the house because he didn't really go in that direction. So they just made it look like a farm from his point of view. Oh no. Do you think underneath the flint it was just like a box and they just put flint, glued flint to the outside of a cardboard box? Like, oh yeah, we've got a big pile. Yes, to make it look like a larger pile of flint so much flint making less and less corn that's not our farmers that's not the farming word i'm not a farmer james growing is that the

word yeah i guess so yeah they didn't make as much corn as as you could have on obviously on this vast estate but that suited him because if you grow corn you have to pay tithe to the local church who is that that's of course the reverend samuel hartop nap and corn, you have to pay tithe to the local church. Who is that? That's, of course, the Reverend Samuel Hartop Knapp. And he didn't want to pay tithes to his enemy. What's this guy's authority to be running the church? I don't get it.

Arlington had no authority to run the church. He was just invited to, out of politeness by the local vicar, to do a sermon now and then. Because, you know, he lives in the big house. And then he just muscled his way in and then created his own rival church after he was kicked out. Oh my word. And then went out of his way to avoid giving the church any money.

He switched from farming sheep to farming bullocks because he didn't want to pay tithes on wool. But he didn't, it wasn't all getting into fights with local vicars. He spent a lot of his time trying to educate the men who worked for him. I think largely unsuccessful ways. He had a pond, which he shaped like a map of the world, as far as I can tell,

because most of his men had never left Hertfordshire. And so he shaped it like the geography of different parts of the world. And then he would punt about it in his boat, quizzing his servants on the geography of different areas did he throw like pictures of naked women in there to try to attract their attention to the map of the world he doesn't seem to have had a hugely high opinion of his servants in some ways he tried to educate them but he doesn't seem to have rated them very highly his servants were interested in going to the great exhibitionhibition in London, but they were nervous. Let me find the quote.

In the Crystal Palace? In the Crystal Palace, which was at that time in Hyde Park, not in Crystal Palace. So in 1851, he thought it would be instructive for his men to attend the Great Exhibition, and as most of them were strangers to London and were fearful about being lost in that den of wickedness. He bet he knew a lot about that.

He directed them to lay out bulks of timber in the park and arranged these himself so as to represent the principal streets between King's Cross and Hyde Park. So basically he built a large, as far as I can tell, almost life-size map. I don't know quite how big it was, but a large, large map of King's Cross to Hyde Park

so he could train his men. He tied little hay bands around their right knees in order to distinguish people who were going to Hyde Park from people who were coming from Hyde Park. And the whole thing was

a complete write-off. In the end, he decided they were all too stupid and he would not let them go. Kingscross, if you don't know, it's quite near Hyde Park. It's not that hard to walk from Kingscross to Hyde Park. I mean, I thought I gave like overly elaborate directions. I do see, but that is...

He was a father with many children. So this is clearly dad, like, I don't know what you want to do. You don't want to get the tube. It's a rip-off. It's a rip-off It's a rip off. They get you on when you beep in and when you beep out. He did kind of the same thing again. During the Crimean War, he had his men dig trenches to recreate the siege of Sevastopol on his land.

He would climb up into a tree and sort of watch them recreating the ongoing battle. It is balmy, frankly balmy, but it does sound like it would have been quite fun. It does sound pretty fun. I mean, most of these things sound balmy, but quite fun. Some of them are a little more depressing. George Jeeves of Hitchin used to tell how, going over to Letchworth on business one day,

he found Allington being carried round and round the garden in an open coffin. You see, Jeeves, he remarked, lifting his head for a second, I'm getting ready. Oh, and getting them ready as well? Eddie Blue tucked nuddy pictures to the coffin to attract their attention to it. Unfortunately, he didn't live forever.

Sneaking into town to scare people one night, something he regularly did apparently, he slipped, as any one of us might, on the tail of his leopard skin that he was wearing and the frosty ground. If you go around in slippers. He was quite badly injured and that had him laid up for a while. He didn't die, but there is a very odd thing in the book.

Hine mentions that, you know, it wasn't that bad being laid up in the house for him. He was a man of infinite resource. He could paint. He could read. He could sew. He could play chess. He could play the violin. He could play was a man of infinite resource. He could paint. He could read. He could sew. He could play chess. He could play the violin.

He could play handbells and musical boxes. He could arrange his bird's eggs, his butterflies and moths. Above all, he could drink. And there's a drawing of him. And you know the way sometimes the drawings

are captioned with a line from the text in books? Yes. Yes. So this is a drawing of him reading a book and the caption just says he could read it's far from unusual in people with a degree from oxford if you were to slip

the dust cover off that book it would be mostly pictures now he reads the articles as his second wife after his first wife died he married a peasant girl a toughenal i think and even though he was very keen on educating his men never taught her to read which i think is it's suspicious would i think maybe she wasn't attracted to the nuddy pictures of women that he would use to trick men into learning oh so maybe it was her fault that she maybe she did like to be called lady allington a title which i think is she didn't have any right to but she liked to be called lady allington by the people in the village he did die in his final sickness he refused to take the physic prescribed by his doctor and instead died

after drinking a tumbler of neat brandy which is sad not very supernatural but oh james whoa what's happening now what a tonal shift yeah let's zoom out. Uh-oh. Yeah, this story. Yeah, no, get ready. Was he dead all along? This story is like a turducken. Oh, no. Yes, yes, he was.

He was dead from the very start of this story to now. Oh, no. The Reverend Ellington was an eccentric. The author of this book, Reginald Hine, he was an eccentric as well. What? Not only was he an English eccentric, he was a believer in ghosts and i think perhaps uniquely among sources on our podcast he is a ghost whoa maybe he might be a ghost hein was very enthusiastic about ghosts he mentions in this book that let's with hall had three ghosts but he

sadly doesn't give any of any of the details but he was obsessed by a nearby ruin called Minsden Chapel, which was said to be haunted by a cowled monk. Now, Minsden Chapel, it doesn't have a roof. It doesn't now. It didn't in the mid-20th century when Hine was writing. It's tumbled down walls and it's overgrown.

The vision of a hooded figure is sometimes seen there. And in fact, I have a photograph of Minstead Chapel and the Cowled Monk, which I've drawn an arrow on it for you, James. It's not that easy to see, but what do you see there? Oh, oh, oh yeah. A sort of see-through monk looking like this in the middle of doing like a big bit of, you know.

Either preaching or going, I mean, he's in a classic ghost stance. Now, that photograph is obviously a double exposure, but it was printed in one of Reginald Hines. They took a picture when the ghost wasn't there and then they took a picture when the ghost was there. They combined those two pictures. Clever.

Reginald Hines found Mainzrel Chapel to be an entirely magical place. And in his other book, Confessions of an Uncommon Attorney, 1945, he says that the very air at Minstrel is tremulous with that faint sorceress. Call it the undersong of earth, the music of the spheres. He liked the place so much that he bought it, or rather, leased it from the church. He goes on to say, My body or my ashes shall be laid to rest in the chancel. I have more than a tenant's quiet enjoyment. I have enlarged my title and usurped a freeholder's pride of ownership. It was that which led me, in my account of Minsden,

in his other book, History of Hitchin, Volume 2, to bid trespassers and sacrilegious persons take warning, for I will proceed against them with the utmost rigor of the law, and after my death and burial i will endeavor in all ghostly ways to protect and haunt its walls now that photograph i showed you was from uh his 1929 book the history of hitch in volume two it was taken by his friend tw latchmore and latchmore admitted it was ours it's it's's not real. And commentary around this on the internet, a lot of people suspect that Reginald Hine is the man dressed in the cloaked figure. Some people suspect that Reginald Hine himself is the cowled figure in the photograph, but Hine never admitted it. So he is the ghost? trying to scare people away from a place that he cared a great deal about in his lifetime. And

perhaps even after death, he's still trying to scare people away. Reginald Hine died a very sad death in 1949. And later visitors to Minsden Chapel described the place quite differently to him. The ghost hunter David Farrant interviewed Peter Roseworn from Baldock, who took his fox terrier to Minsden in 1959, and Roseworn told Farrant, It was a warm summer's evening around 4pm and a bright cloudless day. We left the motorcar at the bottom of the footpath and entered the chapel and looked around. The dog wandered off while we were looking at the Hyne Memorial Stone, and we noticed this was cracked in half, it still is to this day james they've not repaired it eventually eventually the dog returned and seemed afraid all at once the atmosphere seemed

to go cold and the dog whined and lay down cringing on the ground we then noticed that although the sun was out and the day cloudless it had gone dark in the chapel. It was a strange experience, as neither of us had any experience of anything occult and no interest in things psychic. And Mary Prowse told the same ghost hunter David Farrant a very similar story that took place in 1975, and she has the exact same voice as Peter Roseworn. It was a hot summer's day, but Mary Prowse distinctly recalled the cold, gloomy atmosphere inside the ruins, despite the fact the chapel had no roof and there was nothing to obstruct the sunlight. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Prowse took some family snapshots just outside the ruins, and when later developed, two of these showed what appeared to be the vague shape

of a cowled figure standing in the background under an archway at the entrance to the chapel. James, was it the ghost of the monk, or was it the ghost of Reginald Hine himself? I don't know. I don't know anymore. That's the story. That's the story of Hertfordshire's sexiest vicar. What did I say? Saucy.

No. Saucy-ist. Was it saucy? Sleazy-ist. Saucy-ist vicar. He was all of these things and more. That was great. That was amazing.

James, would you like to score Hertfordshire's Silesiast vicar during 1830 to 1863? Yes, yes, I am. My first category is names. Names. Yes, right. Okay. Okay. And I don't even want to have to mention Albert Ebenezer Fox and Ebenezer Albert. It's hard to say, but they got the same name, James. That's why they got away with it for so long. I mean, they didn't get away with it at all. They were arrested a lot. What was the name of his vehicle that he would travel around on the hobby horse?

No, he had a thing. The tiddly bump. You're thinking of his tiddly bump. I'm thinking of his tiddly bump, which was a type of piano, of course. Not to mention the farm. We started in the farm a hell end. A hell end. Oh, my word.

The Reverend Samuel Hartopnap. Hartopnap? Too many Ps. the farm a hell end a hell end oh my word the reverend samuel heartop nap heartop nap too many peas it's five out of five i mean really what was my favorite name what was my favorite name you quite enjoyed wisdom boswell yeah wisdom boswell wisdom boswell yeah five gotta be five we didn't i didn't even need to give you tw latchmore no in that case pleasing names i'll move swiftly on to my second category supernatural okay now don't forget the turducken structure of the episode where we went out to the the containing story and in that story there was some ghosts so it was a person that threatened to be a ghost but also had a picture of a ghost at the place that they wanted to haunt. But now, maybe...

It's almost like a proof of concept. Yeah, that was his plan, was that's what I'm going to do. And maybe he achieved his goal. Maybe for the first time ever on this podcast, we've heard directly from a ghost, a pre-ghost. Well, we may have many times heard from a pre-ghost. Cantrell may even, it would explain a lot of things if Cantrell already was a ghost. Yeah, okay. I kind of feel that there's at best two ghosts. Okay. Because if you buy that that one in the picture is a ghost, then there's one other ghost. I mean ghosts could be twins and i could like the um like the fox bros let's withhold did have three ghosts but i i accept that they didn't really feature i don't know anything about them apart from that they were there that would add up to

a five but i feel i can't hand out i can't hand out a five for such but you do have a picture of a ghost and it does look like that picture of the ghost from rippon same style of the cowled monk with the sort of it doesn't quite have a skeletal hand coming out of it pointing at a book but it's still we're still in that oh yes we are yeah so i think it is a three a three okay okay okay so one per ghost and then one for luck. One for luck. Yeah, one for the pot. My next category, James, is... Ah, now that's going a bit far.

Oh, because there's people getting off with each other in church. There's people getting off. Peace game, very... Yeah, that's going a little bit far. I think in every respect, everything is taken a little bit too far. You can enjoy walking around a ruined church, but to buy it and then haunt it, that's going a little bit too far. You can give someone directions in London.

Of course you can. Give them advice about getting around in London. It can be overwhelming for country folk. Building a map of it and training them to that's just going a bit far now yeah you can like eggs but to have a full collection of eggs it's too it's too much too many eggs that is too many eggs yeah he was going a bit far he went he went too far he flew too close to the sun he probably did also fly too close to the sun at some point yeah if that hobby horse had only had wings it looked it would look like a classic chitty chitty bang bang

contraption pegasus meets chitty chitty bang bang meets icarus ah that's going a bit far now so i'd like to give you a five for this but i fear that that would be going a bit far so should i just give you a four i suppose i suppose should I just give you a four? I suppose you should just give me a four. Because I don't want to fall into that trap. I haven't had enough time of, like, lying in an open coffin for people to get used to the idea of me dying. With a nuddy picture stuck on the front. That was my own invention.

Genuinely, I'm feeling physical pain at how clever that was, James. You got me. You got me with one of my own ruses. Yeah. I should have shown you some fours beforehand that were to scale. To prepare me for receiving a four. To prepare you, yeah. No, I was too stupid.

Now, my final category. You wouldn't understand, man. Who's saying this? Argument for this is that reverend allington and all of the party-going proto hippies are being like oh no you you don't get it square james shakeshaft with your button down life you wouldn't understand us oh right so i yes yeah you you you might understand going a little bit far but but that's because you don't even get it. No, I'm too enthralled to the man.

Yeah, exactly. Have you ever even been upstairs to see some naked pictures? With Bible verse written on, drawn over them. Presumably with some, yeah, just some educational equations or something. Some improving sentiments written around the edge and i suppose that's his thing as well to go to go back to the um the map as well it's like his whole thing is is kind of getting people there without them being there the london people they weren't even there in london but they kind of got the feeling right they were you weren't

there man you weren't in london you weren't really in a map of the world. You were in a pond. Yes. Although I've realised you wouldn't understand man is hippies. You weren't there, man, is the Vietnam War. So I think we're slightly combining our idioms, but if it gets me points, I'll accept it. Oh, oops. Fair enough. Well, then, if you're going to go with there's the war, there's the people who were called upon to reenact the war live. They weren't there, man. For some reason. That's a much better category.

Can I retroactively change my category to the better category that you have heard? Yes. You weren't there, man. The category is you weren't there, man. Also, James, you and I weren't there. And I, I would have hated it. The dancing and the music. And the necking.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Because it's ended up being my category i've got to give it a five so i'm getting a five because it was your idea yes that's fine that's fine i'll take it probably even the fox brothers probably on a number of occasions one of them was being arrested for a crime when he he wasn't even there they weren't even there man i wasn't even there it was one of the other unheavenly fox twins unheavenly as well unheavenly yes that's heinz that's heinz adjective to describe them unheavenly very nice

and then also yeah because the story kind of zoomed out as well so it was it was the story within the story that's got the flavor of you weren't even there yeah and then that ghost and that ghost definitely wasn't there yeah but then but then it was as well though because it was the man who reckons he's the ghost now so it was a picture if that guy does now haunt that is a picture of the ghost before it was pre-ghost well thank you james i accept my five for you wouldn't understand man slash you weren't there man yeah i mean that yeah what a great story what a what a great bunch of images that are in my head now from that very odd vicar hopefully you've put a few bible verses around the edges yes good good i've i'm on a web page now called the sexiest chapter in the bible

from learnreligions.com yeah not. I mean, it's not great. Your waist is a mound of wheat surrounded by lilies. James, can you say that? I don't know if we should probably bleep that. Yes. But it's the sponsored stories at the bottom. There's wmbrashop.com. And, you know, you just get the start of the headline

for these sort of teaser articles things it's a 70 year old grandmother oh great and it's a picture of a lady in a bra

you get the same thing when you're researching this story it all adds like local vicars hate him because he refuses to pay tithes get to heaven

with this one hack those sermons there James like top of the Pops 2. And hey, haven't we got a groovy party of our own going on on the Discord? We do, and there is not quite as saucy as that, I should hope. A lot less saucy, actually. It's not got teens necking on the grass outside.

Certainly not. But it is accessible via patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. Sign up and join us. And if you're not all plugged out, I'll be on BBC Radio 4's news quiz on the same day that this goes out. And then on a national tour of the United Kingdom. Oh, yeah. By which I mean there's one date in Scotland and one date in Wales and one date in Northern Ireland and loads of dates in England. Oh, well, where can people find out the information about that? The internet.

The show's called Nevermore. Nevermore. Alastair Becker-King, Tor, Nevermore. There's nobody else with my name. Good to go. OK. I'm just going to wait for a motorbike to pass. Hmm. is one coming

it's bound to be one along soon