logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2024
32m 39s

CLASSIC: London Made a Train for the Dea...

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

In the mid-19th century, London was literally filling with corpses. When the city was in the grips of a cholera epidemic, the already-overfilled cemetaries couldn't handle the extra bodies. So when there's literally no room in the soil for another dead body, what's a city to do? To the creators of the London Necropolis Railway, the answer was simple -- build a train for the dead. Tune in to learn some grisly, ridiculous history with Ben and Noel.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Yesterday
Who was the real John Henry?
For well over a century, schoolchildren across the United States learned the story of John Henry. According to the legend, John was a formerly enslaved man who found work with a railroad after the Civil War. Widely known as the best steel driver in the area, John wins a Phyrric v ... Show More
35m 13s
Jul 28
From Slaves to Superpower: The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Janissaries
While often forgotten by the global West, the Ottoman Empire was an absolute superpower in its heyday. As the Empire expanded across three separate continents, they also practiced mass enslavement -- and used it to power their army. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore t ... Show More
38m 58s
Jul 25
CLASSIC: The Nature of Ephemera, with Alex Williams
Whether we’re talking yesterday’s newspaper, pamphlets from museums, or even old lottery tickets and straw wrappers, the world is chock full of things that were not meant to last. Today the guys join Alex Williams, the creator of the new podcast Ephemeral, to explore the strange, ... Show More
40m 7s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2024
BrainStuff Classics: Why Did London Once Have a Train for the Dead?
As London grew throughout the 1800s, it became clear that there wasn't enough real estate for its deceased citizens. Learn how the London Necropolis Railway took the funerary show on the road in this classic episode of BrainStuff.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio ... Show More
4m 41s
Apr 2022
The Ghosts of the Catacombs of London
When the dead could no longer be buried due to lack of space, people turned to storing them in tunnels underground. This may explain the many ghost encounters underneath the city of London, England.<br /><br />Find Edwin on Instagram and Twitter at @edwincov or over at edwin.fm<b ... Show More
20m 12s
Aug 2022
The Bodies Buried at Bedlam
When 42 bodies buried near Liverpool Street Station in London were dug up as part of the works on Crossrail on 12th August, 2015, they were thought to be victims of the Great Plague of 1665. The incident shone a light on the cemetery in which they were buried - a pauper’s grave a ... Show More
12 m
Feb 2021
Cholera! Public health in mid-19th century Britain
The 1848-1849 cholera epidemic in England and Wales was described by a government report as if a ‘foreign army’ had ‘held possession of the country, and slain 53,293 men, women and children’. In the mid-19th century the country faced an epidemic of filth; poorly drained, overcrow ... Show More
40m 27s
Jan 2023
The Great Stink
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and working beside it, including those in the new Houses of Parliament which were still under construction. There had been an outbreak of ... Show More
50m 12s
Jan 2023
The Great Stink
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and working beside it, including those in the new Houses of Parliament which were still under construction. There had been an outbreak of ... Show More
50m 12s
Aug 2020
Dirty Water
Throughout human history, cities have grappled with how to keep excrement separate from drinking water. In the Middle Ages, gong farmers excavated human waste from city dwellers and took it to the countryside to be used as fertilizer. In the 19th century, cities grew so big, this ... Show More
22m 23s
Dec 2023
S4/E5- The Great Stink: A Smelly Chapter in London's History
📝 Get FREE Episode Worksheet 🧐 Take English Level Test 👄 Improve Your Pronunciation In this episode, Charlie invites Martin on the show to talk about the "Great Stink" in London in 1858, focusing on the city's bad sanitation and how Sir Joseph Bazalgette's new sewage system he ... Show More
28m 47s
Oct 2024
The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween
In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect. Two men, William Burke and William Hare, spotted a grim business opportunity. They began sourcing bodies - by any means possible... In this ... Show More
41m 47s
Dec 2016
The Golden Age of Grave Robbing: Stuff You Should Know Live in London
<p>There was a brief period in the US, UK and Ireland when a dead body could fetch a pretty penny for a person willing to dig it up and sell it to surgeons for dissection. It turns out that there was no shortage of ghoulish types willing to do just that.</p><p> </p> Learn more ab ... Show More
1h 15m