Christmas Day, 2021. I stop at Reading motorway services and find graffiti on the wall of a toilet cubicle: two locals, Gavin and Chelsea, are hacking brains using their iPhones. This Christmas special episode of Other Edens is the story of Reading motorway services, toilet graffiti, and the strange native poetry that binds them together.

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

Sound design by Ewan Cameron.

Theme music by George Jennings. 

This episode features a song by Laura Christy. Find more about Laura's music: https://twitter.com/laura_christy_

What makes the quintessential English village? A church? A pub? A post office? A cricket pitch?

Everyone knows the English village, whether it's from real life or via The Vicar of Dibley or Midsomer Murders. But what is the real history – from archaeological ruins to the present day – of this settlement? On today's Other Edens, we speak to Dr Ben Robinson (aka The Flying Archaeologist) about his book England’s Villages: An Extraordinary Journey Through to get the full story of how the great English settlement developed.

Presented by Nick Hilton.

With Dr Ben Robinson.

Theme music by George Jennings.

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In 1942, an engineer named Guy Maunsell constructed a series of audacious defensive towers out where the Thames estuary meets the North Sea. These structures – known now as the Maunsell Sea Forts – remain to this day, rusting and abandoned. But they also had a strange, eerie afterlife, from pirate radio to the micronation of Sealand.

On today's episode of Other Edens, we look at the history of the Maunsell Sea Forts, and speak to some of the people inspired but their mysterious presence off the Kentish coast.

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

Sound design by Ewan Cameron.

Theme music by George Jennings.

Find out more at podotpods.com and contact us for sales and advertising details.

Remember, remember the fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Well, in the East Sussex town of Lewes, that 1605 assassination attempt on the Protestant head of state has not been forgot. Each year, the Lewesians swam out on the streets of their little town, clad in the garb of the different bonfire societies, firing cannons, shooting fireworks, bearing flaming crosses and torches, and burning huge effigies. This is an ancient ritual, played out on the streets of a quaint British town which, for one night a year, becomes the centre of the universe.

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

Sound design by Ewan Cameron.

Theme music by George Jennings.

For sales and advertising please visit podotpods.com

Nestled away in Kent is the small village of Pluckley. It looks charming and chocolate boxy: a pub, a butcher, a post office and a churchyard. But scratch that veneer and you find a place that has become famous over the past century as England's most haunted place. Ghosts and apparitions, strange sights and noises. Murder, mysteries and the macabre, all haunt this Kentish village.

What is it that makes Pluckley so singularly spooky? And what will we find in the Screaming Woods, said to be the most terrifying woodland in Britain?

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

Sound design by Ewan Cameron.

Theme music by George Jennings.

Go to podotpods.com for sales and advertising.

All things must change. As surely as winter bursts into spring life, spring into bountiful summer, summer into the falling leaves of autumn and autumn back into the denuded branches of winter, so too does my podcast change. Since I started making documentaries about England’s towns and villages, we’ve had three cycles through these seasons, three spins around the sun, and three Prime Ministers. Everything changes.

I’ve spent the past year travelling around the country, collecting stories from its towns and villages. History, folklore, mysticism. This England is full of extraordinary people, doing extraordinary things, extraordinarily.

In the coming days, a change will come over this feed. It will be come Other Edens – a series of documentaries about strange corners of this nation, and why they matter. Don’t be alarmed – if you’ve listened to my podcasts previously, you can expect more of the same. Just more of it. Forever and ever until you get bored of me (or I get bored of you) Other Edens will tell these stories.

Stay subscribed. Encourage others to subscribe. Tweet or Instagram your enthusiasm using @thetownpod (I was too late to get @otheredens, sorry). On Halloween, the stories start.

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

Visit podotpods.com for more information.

The Doughnut. A giant circular low-rise office block in west Cheltenham; it is, jokingly I'm sure, said to look from above like a giant bullseye.

Here, the men and women of GCHQ go to work every day. Here they listen to the world. Here they keep tabs. And here, in 2013, their secrets spilled out to the world. This is the story of Edward Snowden and the GCHQ/NSA leaks, and how the secret world of surveillance was blown wide open almost a decade ago. What happened? And have things really changed?

Contributors to this episode: Geoff Dyer, Alan Rusbridger, Ewen MacAskill, James Ball, Michael S. Kinch, Sam Kean.

You also heard GCHQ by Markee Ledge, reproduced with permission, and voice acting by Scott Westwood.

This is the seventh, and final, episode of The Town That Knew Too Much, written, produced and presented by Nick Hilton.

The music is by George Jennings, based on The Planets by Gustav Holst. The entire score for the series is available to stream on Spotify.

This is the seventh part of a 7-part series available on all good podcast platforms. You can find out more about the show on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook – just go to @thetownpod – or visit www.thetownpod.com for episode notes and more information. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please go to your podcast provider and leave a rating and review.

The Town That Knew Too Much is a Podot podcast, for more information visit podotpods.com.

Where do the dead go when they die? Do we file them away in obituaries? Or celebrate them at a memorial service and slowly forget their day-to-day existence?

This is a story of death. It is a story of spirits lingering on. It is a story of how lives become stories and how stories define places. From the ghosts of Prestbury to the dead GCHQ mathematician Gareth Williams – via, of course, the singing mice of the Tailor of Gloucester – The Black Abbot is about the imprints we make on the world and how they outlive us.

Contributors to this episode: Ian Jelf, Philip Ingram, Catherine Curzon, Colin Towns, Iggy Ostanin.

This is the sixth episode of The Town That Knew Too Much, written, produced and presented by Nick Hilton.

The music is by George Jennings, based on The Planets by Gustav Holst. The entire score for the series is available to stream on Spotify.

This is the sixth part of a 7-part series available on all good podcast platforms. You can find out more about the show on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook – just go to @thetownpod – or visit www.thetownpod.com for episode notes and more information. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please go to your podcast provider and leave a rating and review.

The Town That Knew Too Much is a Podot podcast, for more information visit podotpods.com.

Geoffrey Prime, Soviet spy at GCHQ, has been arrested on sexual offences against children. But that was just the start of his world unravelling. And as the Prime affair came to a boil, the grubby compromises of espionage would also be aired.

This is the story of the Prime trial and the trials that all people must bear as their world disintegrates. From the calm of Cleeve Hill to the Mafia drama of the death of Roberto Calvi, this is a story of how things come to their end.

Listener note: This is the second episode of the series dedicated to the story of Geoffrey Prime. The first episode looking at Prime – 'Through The Looking Glass' – is the third episode in the series, and should ideally be listened to before 'Time of Trial' as it provides contextual details that may not be repeated in this episode.

Contributors to this episode: Rupert Aker, Dominic Carman, Richard Norton-Taylor, Nick Davies, Peter Picken, Gerald Posner, Jeff Stein, and Ben Meier.

This is the fifth episode of The Town That Knew Too Much, written, produced and presented by Nick Hilton.

The music is by George Jennings, based on The Planets by Gustav Holst. The entire score for the series is available to stream on Spotify.

This is the fifth part of a 7-part series available on all good podcast platforms. You can find out more about the show on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook – just go to @thetownpod – or visit www.thetownpod.com for episode notes and more information. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please go to your podcast provider and leave a rating and review.

The Town That Knew Too Much is a Podot podcast, for more information visit podotpods.com.

There's a clock in Cheltenham that hangs above a shopping arcade. Below its face a magnificent golden fish rotates and, on the half hour spews bubbles. It is a singular work from a singular mind: that of Kit Williams.

Williams is most famous for the Masquerade puzzle hunt in the 1980s. This is the story of the man, the book and the quest he set in motion. And if you keep listening throughout the podcast, you might find yourself off on a hunt of your own...

To start your puzzle hunt go to WishingFishClock.com

Contributors to this episode: Paul Slade, Dan Amrich, Mariella Cook, Kelvin Horton, Stuart Ashen, Anneka Rice, Karl Coppack.

And the team at Dreamcatcher: Sarah Binney, Michael Kearns, Ben Below and Catalin Ursachi.

This is the fourth episode of The Town That Knew Too Much, written, produced and presented by Nick Hilton.

The music is by George Jennings, based on The Planets by Gustav Holst. The entire score for the series is available to stream on Spotify.

This is the fourth part of a 7-part series available on all good podcast platforms. You can find out more about the show on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook – just go to @thetownpod – or visit www.thetownpod.com for episode notes and more information. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please go to your podcast provider and leave a rating and review.

The Town That Knew Too Much is a Podot podcast, for more information visit podotpods.com.