Other Edens
Journeys through the dark, mysterious and weird towns and villages in the British Isles. Each episode, a new place with new stories.
Praise for The Town That Didn't Stare:
"Arch and funny, but... deeply serious in trying to understand the peculiar history of the town" – Financial Times
"Facinating... mysterious, it really hooks you in" – BBC
"Brilliantly arch" – Sunday Times
"Hilton is an engaging narrator, tip-toeing the lines between nostalgia, comedy and truth-telling" – The Big Issue
Praise for The Town That Didn't Stare:
"Arch and funny, but... deeply serious in trying to understand the peculiar history of the town" – Financial Times
"Facinating... mysterious, it really hooks you in" – BBC
"Brilliantly arch" – Sunday Times
"Hilton is an engaging narrator, tip-toeing the lines between nostalgia, comedy and truth-telling" – The Big Issue
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 28 minutes
- Episodes
- 21
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2022
5: The Ballad of Reading Services
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 speci…
00:17:04 |
Fri 23 Dec 2022
4: A History of the English Village
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…
Everyone knows the English village, whether it's from real life or via The Vicar of Dibley or Midsomer…
00:31:37 |
Tue 29 Nov 2022
3: The Maunsell Sea Forts: Iron islands in the Thames
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 – r…
00:27:14 |
Mon 21 Nov 2022
2: Lewes: a town of smoke and flame
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 at…
Well, in the East Sussex town of Lewes, that 1605 assassination at…
00:23:35 |
Fri 04 Nov 2022
1: Pluckley: England's most haunted village
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 be…
00:21:15 |
Mon 31 Oct 2022
Coming on Halloween... Other Edens
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…
00:03:01 |
Fri 28 Oct 2022
The Town That Knew Too Much: The Doughnut
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, the men and women of GCHQ go to work every day…
00:44:27 |
Wed 01 Sep 2021
The Town That Knew Too Much: The Black Abbot
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 …
This is a story of death. It is a story …
00:32:58 |
Wed 25 Aug 2021
The Town That Knew Too Much: Time of Trial
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 com…
00:31:58 |
Wed 18 Aug 2021
The Town That Knew Too Much: The Wishing Fish Clock
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: tha…
00:35:41 |
Wed 11 Aug 2021
The Town That Knew Too Much: Through The Looking Glass
This is the story of a man who had not one but two double lives. It is the story of the disorientating topsy-turvy world you'll find through the looking glass, where all is not what it seems. This is…
00:36:08 |
Wed 04 Aug 2021
The Town That Knew Too Much: Enigmas
Enigmas. Things that cannot be understood; things that must be unravelled and unriddled. Things that are not what they seem.
00:31:26 |
Wed 28 Jul 2021
The Town That Knew Too Much: The Devil's Chimney
Tucked away in a scenic corner of the Cotswolds, you'll find the Regency spa town of Cheltenham. It could be more English: from royal visits to Jane Austen re-enactments, it has everything an outside…
00:27:30 |
Wed 21 Jul 2021
Coming Soon... The Town That Knew Too Much
Set in the rolling hills of the Cotswolds, in a part of England known for its beautiful Regency architecture, famous public schools and sky-high house prices, is the idyllic town of Cheltenham. This …
00:02:57 |
Wed 14 Jul 2021
The Town That Didn't Stare: Why East Grinstead?
East Grinstead, the home of Scientologists, Mormons, Rosicrucians and more; a nexus for ley lines, a perfect Prime Meridian settlement and Britain's most haunted town. But why?
Why is East Grinstead…
Why is East Grinstead…
00:31:53 |
Mon 10 Aug 2020
The Town That Didn't Stare: A Very British Killing
In 1556, three martyrs are burned at the stake. In 1812, the Prime Minister is gunned down in the House of Commons. And in 1996 a businessman is shot returning to his mansion.
This is the story of E…
This is the story of E…
00:43:09 |
Mon 03 Aug 2020
The Town That Didn't Stare: The Guinea Pig Club
What is the Guinea Pig Club?
At the height of the Second World War, the sleepy Sussex town of East Grinstead played host to one of the most remarkable and revolutionary medical facilities of the 20t…
At the height of the Second World War, the sleepy Sussex town of East Grinstead played host to one of the most remarkable and revolutionary medical facilities of the 20t…
00:33:59 |
Mon 27 Jul 2020
The Town That Didn't Stare: The Ley of the Land
There is something that makes East Grinstead special, and has drawn extraordinary people to what looks, on the surface, like a very ordinary town. Amongst those who read the land like a book – like a…
00:35:59 |
Mon 20 Jul 2020
The Town That Didn't Stare: The Scientologists on the Hill
In 1959, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, one of the world's most controversial religions, bought a manor house in the sleepy Sussex town of East Grinstead. In doing so, he changed everyth…
00:51:11 |
Mon 13 Jul 2020
The Town That Didn't Stare: The Land of the South Saxons
From the early humans of the Middle Pleistocene era through to the Norman conquest, the history of Sussex is a tale for the ages. East Grinstead, the town that didn't stare, is nestled in this landsc…
00:24:32 |
Mon 06 Jul 2020
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