The BBC’s Secret Lincolnshire podcast has been investigating forgotten tales and local legends in the county. From mysterious disappearances in secret tunnels to haunted bingo halls and the life of a crime writing legend, here are some of the most intriguing tales they’ve uncovered.
There is a legend that a man disappeared while exploring a secret tunnel said to run from Kirkstead Abbey to Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire. Dr Rory Waterman, who leads the Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project, says that while several people visited the tunnel, it is unlikely that anyone ever went down. In the abbey’s heyday, it would have been a large complex, but today is nothing but ruins. “I think what is true is that there was a subterranean passage. I’d imagine there were lots of stories around what that might be and where it might go to,” Waterman says.
Bingo players at a hall in Skegness claim that their location is haunted by a “mischievous but friendly” presence they call “Cyril”. The Roman Bank bingo hall was built in 1887 and at one time was a cinema. Staff say they have experienced strange occurrences and some have seen a shadow walking upstairs on the balcony. General Manager Jason Beauchamp-Hughes has been told that Cyril was a projectionist and army volunteer, whose wife was an usherette.
Ted Lewis is known as the “godfather of Brit noir” and one of the “most important authors you’ve never heard of”. His most famous work, the novel Jack’s Return Home, became the film Get Carter. Lewis broke the mould in British crime writing in the 1960s and spent his formative years in Barton-upon-Humber. His biographer, Nick Triplow, says the finale of the novel is set in the ruined brickworks of the Humber foreshore, a location that Lewish drew from his own experiences and life in Barton. A blue plaque marks Lewis’ childhood home in Westfield Road, and the Ted Lewis Centre tells his life story.
The Secret Lincolnshire podcast from BBC Sounds seeks to uncover fascinating tales and local legends from Lincolnshire. The podcast features topics such as mysterious disappearances, haunted sites, forgotten characters, and intriguing folktales from the county. The podcast has explored several mysterious stories, including a legend that tells of a tunnel running from Kirkstead Abbey to Tattershall Castle where several people went to investigate it, including a man who later disappeared. The story of the haunted bingo hall in Skegness, where a cinema seat is said to move on its own and believed to be haunted by a former projectionist known as “Cyril,” is also explored in the podcast. Finally, the podcast also tells the story of Ted Lewis, one of the greatest crime writers of the 20th century and the author of Jack’s Return Home, which was adapted into the film Get Carter. The podcast focuses on Lewis’ life in Barton-upon-Humber and how his experiences there influenced his work
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