The English Heritage Podcast

While the family upstairs feasts and toasts, who’s stoking the fires, serving the supper and sweeping up the pine needles? This episode heads below stairs to explore how servants in historic country houses really spent Christmas.  Amy Matthews is joined by English Heritage expert Dr Andrew Hann and writer Sian Evans to uncover the season of hard work and stolen play. Not to mention vast quantities of beef, balls, baffling numbers of eggs and moments when the social order relaxed just a little!  Drawing on diaries, documents and oral histories, we meet cooks, gardeners and housekeepers who found ways to celebrate despite the workload and discover why Boxing Day often mattered more than Christmas Day for those in service.  Don’t forget to follow this podcast and leave a review if you love the show.    Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠    Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*   Support our work: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.   *Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did an English abbey come to own a fragment of Santa’s finger?   And what has this got to do with a long tradition of spiritual journeys?   Beginning with a relic from St Nicholas that found its way all the way to Battle Abbey in Sussex, we’re lacing up our boots to follow the history of Christian pilgrimage around the world.   Dr Michael Carter and modern-day pilgrim Luke Sherlock @englishpilgrim help Amy Matthews understand why people travelled for spiritual purposes in the past and how we continue to undertake life-changing journeys in the modern day.  Don’t forget to follow this podcast and leave a review if you love the show.    Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠    Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*   Support our work: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.   *Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.”   Step inside the layered, lyrical, sometimes lonely world of writer J.M. Barrie. Amy Matthews meets with Blue Plaques historian Howard Spencer who explains how Peter Pan was born in this London home, before diving into the life and works of the writer with Barrie biographer Lisa Chaney.  From a weaving town in Scotland to Edwardian theatre fame, we follow Barrie’s extraordinary rise, his complicated marriage, his intense bond with the Llewellyn-Davies boys, and the deeper and perhaps darker meaning behind the ‘fairytale’ of Peter Pan.   Don’t forget to follow this podcast and leave a review if you love the show.    Neverland at Kenwood 2025 invites you to experience a magical festive light trail this winter. Find information and tickets: www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/whats-on/kenwood-neverland/  Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠    Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*   Support our work: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in the early Neolithic period were pioneering farming in England and building our first architecture – not stone circles or elegant homes, but grand tombs that often dominated the landscape.  This time on the English Heritage podcast, Amy Matthews steps back in time with Jennifer Wexler and Win Scutt to explore how death and remembrance were tied into the cultures, daily lives and traditions of the people who built the world we live in today.   But how much can we relate to them now? Join the debate!  Don’t forget to follow this podcast and leave a review if you love the show.   Join: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/   Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*  Support our work: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/   The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.  *Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do Charles Darwin’s wife, a Victorian cook, and a food historian with a sweet tooth have in common? Pudding — and plenty of it.   This week, Amy Matthews is joined by Dr Annie Gray and Dr Andrew Hann to dig through centuries of recipes, from Emma Darwin’s handwritten notes to the rise of the sticky toffee pudding. Along the way, they uncover the people behind Britain’s best-loved desserts — cooks, servants and home bakers who stirred up comfort, celebration and just a little competition.  It’s part history, part kitchen gossip — and proof that pudding has always been about people.    Don’t forget to follow this podcast and leave a review if you love the show.   Join: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/   Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*  Support our work: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/   The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.  *Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices