April 18, 2023 • 9 mins
Curious people and the stories they left behind will never not be fascinating to us.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
How we're remembered after we die is only partially up
to us. Our lasting impact will be remembered by those
who survive us, and so it's important to make sure
that the impression we leave behind is a good one,
a moral one, and perhaps a sober one. On the
outskirts of London is an area known as the London
Borough of Waltham Forest. It's an amalgamation of several other
boroughs which were merged together in the mid nineteen sixties,
(01:00):
and within this location is the Chingford Mount Cemetery. Opened
in May of eighteen eighty four by the Abney Park
Cemetery Company, Chingford Mount was a secondary location for the
city's more colorful characters. It made sense given its sister
location had been opened in eighteen forty in what became
known as a notable cemetery for one noisy and smelly reason.
(01:22):
Abney Park was opened by Sir Robert Fowler, the Lord
Mayor of London, who was quite large in stature. Frank Harris,
a writer who knew and detested Fowler, wrote about a
dinner party the two men attended, in which Fowler seemingly
ate his weight in beef, game, birds, and fish. Then,
part way through the meal, without warning, Harris heard something,
(01:43):
he wrote, and I quote, Suddenly there came a loud,
unmistakable noise, and then an overpowering odor. Apparently something Fowler
had eaten, or maybe most of what he had eaten
hadn't agreed with him. The hostess lost her appetite after
that and fled for fresher air and so. Forty years later,
Chingford Mount Cemetery was opened by another Lord Mayor in
(02:05):
a ceremony that was far less well foul. Though it
may not have had a flatulant politician cutting the cheese
or the ribbon, the people occupying its forty one and
a half acres certainly made up for it. After it opened,
Chingford Mount became a veritable who's who of England's most
notable and notorious, the most well known residents of the
cemetery are the Cray family, including twins Ronnie and Reggie.
(02:29):
These brothers, born in October of nineteen thirty three, became
prominent gangsters and murderers during the nineteen fifties and sixties.
They owned a night club where they mingled with celebrities
such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. They also killed
a lot of people, sometimes because someone looked at them
wrong or made a snide comment behind their backs. The
pair were arrested in nineteen sixty eight. Ronnie died in
(02:52):
nineteen ninety five from a heart attack while a patient
at a hospital in Berkshire. He was sixty one. Reggie,
on the other hand, lived to be sixty six and
died in October of two thousand from bladder cancer. He
was released from prison just weeks before his death. Much
of the family was buried at Chingford Mount over the years,
including the twins' mother. But the Cray brothers, while homicidal
(03:14):
and infamous for their lengthy crime spree, are not in
fact the most renowned of the cemetery's permanent residence. When
the white Field Tabernacle of Tottenham Court was rebuilt in
eighteen ninety eight, many of the coffins and bodies in
its cemetery had to be moved elsewhere, and one of
the new locations chosen was Chingford mount Of the coffins
(03:35):
that were dug up, one happened to be made of iron,
and inside it was a woman whose body had been
preserved through mummification. Her skin looked like marble and was
just as solid, though the metal box lacked a plaque
describing who the occupant was, and so her identity remained
a mystery. One person whose identity was quite well known
(03:56):
in the area, though, was Jane Cakebread. She was buried
in Chingford Mountain eighteen ninety eight. Only one person attended
her funeral, the North London Police Court missionary, a man
named Thomas Holmes. He had tried for a long time
to help missus Cakebread, who sadly passed away at only
sixty four years of age. She had been homeless, mentally ill,
and had trouble seen. Holmes placed a wreath of flowers
(04:18):
atop her coffin, more than others believe that she deserved,
because the newspapers described her as the drunkest person in
the world. She'd been convicted two hundred and eighty one
times for drunk and disorderly conduct and spent the equivalent
of twelve years in jail. As a result, she died
in an asylum from a combination of edema, cirrhosis of
the liver, and heart failure. Looking back, it is fitting
(04:42):
that Jane Cakebread was interred in our curious little Chingford
Mount Cemetery, a place that wasn't meant for everybody, even
though everybody was dying to get in. It seems that
(05:07):
for as long as humans have existed, they've tried to
keep track time. Ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks or sun
dials and obelisks to monitor the sun's movements throughout the day.
The ancient Greeks developed a sort of alarm clock called
the klepsidra, which kept time using water. The water would
rise at certain parts of the day and cause a
mechanical bird to blow a loud whistle. And the Chinese
(05:29):
use candles that burned at a specific rate to track
the passage of time. At night. In Prague, though they
use something else. It's called the Orloi, a medieval astronomical
clock built into the old town Hall. It's comprised of
three distinct segments, the mechanical clock that tells the time,
the calendar dial that shows the current date, and the
(05:50):
astronomical dial that highlights the position of the sun and
the moon along with the signs of the zodiac. There
are also sections on the main clock plate that display
specific time times of the day, such as the sunrise
and the sunset, and in the middle of it all
an image of a globe. Now Surrounding the clock are
wooden figures representing death, Vanity, the astronomer, the chronicler, and
(06:12):
the philosopher. Some of these figurines move every hour, while
others remain stationary. Meanwhile, inside the clock are another set
of wooden figures, twelve in total, which are supposed to
be the twelve Apostles who rotate past two windows at
the top of the structure. They look down on the
townspeople that come to watch their hourly performance. The clock
(06:33):
is a marvel of technology, but it wasn't built all
at once. Its origins can be traced back to fourteen ten,
when the astronomical dial and the mechanical clock portion inside
were first constructed. They were the work of clockmaker Mikaelus
of Kadania and math professor Jan Shindel, although for a
long time it was believed that clockmaster Jan of Ruche
(06:54):
had been the original creator, and that misattribution led to
several dark legends and a curse that have round of
the clock's history for the past six hundred years. According
to one story, the work done by Jan of Rouge
had been admired by others outside of Prague, but he
wouldn't let anyone see his plans. A rumor began to
spread that he'd been hired to build another more advanced
(07:14):
clock for one of those other nations, while the Prague
counselors couldn't have that, so they blinded him, preventing him
from finishing their clock and from ever building another one
for anyone else. And Yan was enraged by their actions,
so he damaged the astronomical clock as revenge. Since he
was the one who had built it, he was the
only one who could fix it. In another version of
(07:36):
the story, they had the counselor's blind Michelus of Kadana instead,
but he didn't just break the clock. In retaliation, he
threw his body into the gears, destroying both himself and
the mechanism. At the same time, his suicide led to
the belief in a curse that anyone who tried to
fix the clock would lose their mind just as he had.
Now Could either story be true, possibly, although it's more
(07:59):
like that the clock simply broke down over time. What
we do know is that the calendar dial was added,
presumably by Janavrush, around fourteen ninety. The clock also underwent
a series of repairs during the mid fifteen hundreds, as
it would often stop turning for one reason or another.
The exterior wooden statues, such as those of death and Vanity,
were added during the mid seventeenth century, while the apostles
(08:22):
were incorporated sometime during the late seventeen hundreds. In the
eighteen sixties, the calendar doll was updated by a check painter,
Joseph Mannus, with twelve or eight discs made to represent
the months. That face was taken down and replaced with
a copy in eighteen eighty, while the original was put
on display in the Prague City Museum. In other words,
(08:42):
for hundreds of years the clock was either being fixed
or upgraded. It also underwent serious renovations after the Nazis
attacked Prague, during World War II. I've been to Prague myself,
but only once, and the week that I was there,
the clock was covered up for yet more repairs. That
said I have, I've been told that to see the
astronomical clock is to time travel in a way. It's
(09:04):
a glimpse back through hundreds of years of innovation and engineering.
And if you can pay it a visit on the hour,
you'll be treated to a delightful twenty seven second show
put on by the clockswooden characters. You know, if you're
in Prague and you have a little time on your hands,
(09:25):
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(09:47):
and you can learn all about it over at the
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
How we're remembered after we die is only partially up
to us. Our lasting impact will be remembered by those
who survive us, and so it's important to make sure
that the impression we leave behind is a good one,
a moral one, and perhaps a sober one. On the
outskirts of London is an area known as the London
Borough of Waltham Forest. It's an amalgamation of several other
boroughs which were merged together in the mid nineteen sixties,
(01:00):
and within this location is the Chingford Mount Cemetery. Opened
in May of eighteen eighty four by the Abney Park
Cemetery Company, Chingford Mount was a secondary location for the
city's more colorful characters. It made sense given its sister
location had been opened in eighteen forty in what became
known as a notable cemetery for one noisy and smelly reason.
(01:22):
Abney Park was opened by Sir Robert Fowler, the Lord
Mayor of London, who was quite large in stature. Frank Harris,
a writer who knew and detested Fowler, wrote about a
dinner party the two men attended, in which Fowler seemingly
ate his weight in beef, game, birds, and fish. Then,
part way through the meal, without warning, Harris heard something,
(01:43):
he wrote, and I quote, Suddenly there came a loud,
unmistakable noise, and then an overpowering odor. Apparently something Fowler
had eaten, or maybe most of what he had eaten
hadn't agreed with him. The hostess lost her appetite after
that and fled for fresher air and so. Forty years later,
Chingford Mount Cemetery was opened by another Lord Mayor in
(02:05):
a ceremony that was far less well foul. Though it
may not have had a flatulant politician cutting the cheese
or the ribbon, the people occupying its forty one and
a half acres certainly made up for it. After it opened,
Chingford Mount became a veritable who's who of England's most
notable and notorious, the most well known residents of the
cemetery are the Cray family, including twins Ronnie and Reggie.
(02:29):
These brothers, born in October of nineteen thirty three, became
prominent gangsters and murderers during the nineteen fifties and sixties.
They owned a night club where they mingled with celebrities
such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. They also killed
a lot of people, sometimes because someone looked at them
wrong or made a snide comment behind their backs. The
pair were arrested in nineteen sixty eight. Ronnie died in
(02:52):
nineteen ninety five from a heart attack while a patient
at a hospital in Berkshire. He was sixty one. Reggie,
on the other hand, lived to be sixty six and
died in October of two thousand from bladder cancer. He
was released from prison just weeks before his death. Much
of the family was buried at Chingford Mount over the years,
including the twins' mother. But the Cray brothers, while homicidal
(03:14):
and infamous for their lengthy crime spree, are not in
fact the most renowned of the cemetery's permanent residence. When
the white Field Tabernacle of Tottenham Court was rebuilt in
eighteen ninety eight, many of the coffins and bodies in
its cemetery had to be moved elsewhere, and one of
the new locations chosen was Chingford mount Of the coffins
(03:35):
that were dug up, one happened to be made of iron,
and inside it was a woman whose body had been
preserved through mummification. Her skin looked like marble and was
just as solid, though the metal box lacked a plaque
describing who the occupant was, and so her identity remained
a mystery. One person whose identity was quite well known
(03:56):
in the area, though, was Jane Cakebread. She was buried
in Chingford Mountain eighteen ninety eight. Only one person attended
her funeral, the North London Police Court missionary, a man
named Thomas Holmes. He had tried for a long time
to help missus Cakebread, who sadly passed away at only
sixty four years of age. She had been homeless, mentally ill,
and had trouble seen. Holmes placed a wreath of flowers
(04:18):
atop her coffin, more than others believe that she deserved,
because the newspapers described her as the drunkest person in
the world. She'd been convicted two hundred and eighty one
times for drunk and disorderly conduct and spent the equivalent
of twelve years in jail. As a result, she died
in an asylum from a combination of edema, cirrhosis of
the liver, and heart failure. Looking back, it is fitting
(04:42):
that Jane Cakebread was interred in our curious little Chingford
Mount Cemetery, a place that wasn't meant for everybody, even
though everybody was dying to get in. It seems that
(05:07):
for as long as humans have existed, they've tried to
keep track time. Ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks or sun
dials and obelisks to monitor the sun's movements throughout the day.
The ancient Greeks developed a sort of alarm clock called
the klepsidra, which kept time using water. The water would
rise at certain parts of the day and cause a
mechanical bird to blow a loud whistle. And the Chinese
(05:29):
use candles that burned at a specific rate to track
the passage of time. At night. In Prague, though they
use something else. It's called the Orloi, a medieval astronomical
clock built into the old town Hall. It's comprised of
three distinct segments, the mechanical clock that tells the time,
the calendar dial that shows the current date, and the
(05:50):
astronomical dial that highlights the position of the sun and
the moon along with the signs of the zodiac. There
are also sections on the main clock plate that display
specific time times of the day, such as the sunrise
and the sunset, and in the middle of it all
an image of a globe. Now Surrounding the clock are
wooden figures representing death, Vanity, the astronomer, the chronicler, and
(06:12):
the philosopher. Some of these figurines move every hour, while
others remain stationary. Meanwhile, inside the clock are another set
of wooden figures, twelve in total, which are supposed to
be the twelve Apostles who rotate past two windows at
the top of the structure. They look down on the
townspeople that come to watch their hourly performance. The clock
(06:33):
is a marvel of technology, but it wasn't built all
at once. Its origins can be traced back to fourteen ten,
when the astronomical dial and the mechanical clock portion inside
were first constructed. They were the work of clockmaker Mikaelus
of Kadania and math professor Jan Shindel, although for a
long time it was believed that clockmaster Jan of Ruche
(06:54):
had been the original creator, and that misattribution led to
several dark legends and a curse that have round of
the clock's history for the past six hundred years. According
to one story, the work done by Jan of Rouge
had been admired by others outside of Prague, but he
wouldn't let anyone see his plans. A rumor began to
spread that he'd been hired to build another more advanced
(07:14):
clock for one of those other nations, while the Prague
counselors couldn't have that, so they blinded him, preventing him
from finishing their clock and from ever building another one
for anyone else. And Yan was enraged by their actions,
so he damaged the astronomical clock as revenge. Since he
was the one who had built it, he was the
only one who could fix it. In another version of
(07:36):
the story, they had the counselor's blind Michelus of Kadana instead,
but he didn't just break the clock. In retaliation, he
threw his body into the gears, destroying both himself and
the mechanism. At the same time, his suicide led to
the belief in a curse that anyone who tried to
fix the clock would lose their mind just as he had.
Now Could either story be true, possibly, although it's more
(07:59):
like that the clock simply broke down over time. What
we do know is that the calendar dial was added,
presumably by Janavrush, around fourteen ninety. The clock also underwent
a series of repairs during the mid fifteen hundreds, as
it would often stop turning for one reason or another.
The exterior wooden statues, such as those of death and Vanity,
were added during the mid seventeenth century, while the apostles
(08:22):
were incorporated sometime during the late seventeen hundreds. In the
eighteen sixties, the calendar doll was updated by a check painter,
Joseph Mannus, with twelve or eight discs made to represent
the months. That face was taken down and replaced with
a copy in eighteen eighty, while the original was put
on display in the Prague City Museum. In other words,
(08:42):
for hundreds of years the clock was either being fixed
or upgraded. It also underwent serious renovations after the Nazis
attacked Prague, during World War II. I've been to Prague myself,
but only once, and the week that I was there,
the clock was covered up for yet more repairs. That
said I have, I've been told that to see the
astronomical clock is to time travel in a way. It's
(09:04):
a glimpse back through hundreds of years of innovation and engineering.
And if you can pay it a visit on the hour,
you'll be treated to a delightful twenty seven second show
put on by the clockswooden characters. You know, if you're
in Prague and you have a little time on your hands,
(09:25):
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(09:47):
and you can learn all about it over at the
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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