Sleepbound Nights (free)

Sleepbound Nights · Ian & Alex
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Original bedtime stories for grown-ups — cosy serial fiction, written and narrated by us, slow enough to fall asleep to. Quiet villages and kitchen tables: a toast maker on a Sunday, a bookshop cat who won't settle, a family farm in 1953, a garden almanac kept through the year. Low stakes on purpose. Nothing bad happens. That's deliberate. Each episode is a whole evening — four hours or so — so you can put it on, settle in, and not be woken by the end of it. Every series has its own writer: Eliza Hartley writes The Toast Maker, Margery Cole writes Green Hollow, Cecily Ash keeps the Elderwick Almanac. More of it, ad-free, with new members-only episodes every week: → Supercast — all three Sleepbound shows in one app. Free for 7 days, cancel any time: https://sleepboundstudios.supercast.com → Patreon — the same readings, plus the community: https://www.patreon.com/c/SleepBound Just me and Ian and the writers. Recorded gently, for sleep.

  1. 5d ago

    The Toast Maker – Episode 23: His Father's Bench

    The Toast Maker — Episode 23 By Eliza Hartley Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts Tonight, the village WhatsApp has been awake since before breakfast — the Christmas lights competition is two days out, Mrs Henderson is chairing, and a seven-foot inflatable Santa is under formal dispute. Tom ties his boots and slips out the back before any of it can find him. He's heading to his father's bench in the Back Lane workshop with a cherry off-cut, a 1979 mitre box, and the wedding invitation he promised to frame before Christmas Day. We left them at the end of the longest night — Iris's words in the dark, and Tom's answer. This episode sits in the morning after: quiet, practical, and full. Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams. — Ian & Alex Includes mentions of: Mention of Loss, Romance, Beverages, Animals, Weather.

    The Toast Maker – Episode 23: His Father's Bench

  2. Jul 21

    Green Hollow – Episode 1: The Long Meadow

    Green Hollow — Episode 1 By Margery Cole Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts The hay in the Long Meadow is ripe, the dew is heavy on the gate, and before first light Green Hollow Farm is already stirring. Tonight, Captain the old shire horse goes down the field in harness alongside the new grey Ferguson, and everyone finds their place in the longest, warmest day of the farming year. This is the first evening at Green Hollow — the Weavers, their two live-in hands, a long breakfast at the scrubbed deal table before the work begins, tea carried out to the field in the afternoon heat, a far rumble of thunder that keeps its distance, and the farm settling to sleep at last as soft rain comes down on the shorn meadow. Thank you for being here at the very start of this. We hope you drift off somewhere in the middle of the day's long, quiet work. Take care, everybody. And I'll see you soon.

    Green Hollow – Episode 1: The Long Meadow

  3. Jul 12

    The Toast Maker – Episode 22: The Plate That Waited

    The Toast Maker — Episode 22 By Eliza Hartley Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts A cake under a tea towel was, she thought, one of the most comforting objects in domestic life. It said: there is a cake. The cake is here. The cake will be eaten. The snow is still falling on the morning of the shortest day. Iris is putting on lipstick for Tom's mother. Tom is carrying the cake.Tonight, they walk Mary's chocolate cake through the village to Millfield Road — where Margaret has swept the path twice, the navy apron is on, and a plate that has been waiting ninety years is finally ready to receive it. Mr Pritchard is already at the table. The beef is better than the one at Tom's twenty-first. And before the cake is cut, Tom says something about Mary. Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams. — Ian & Alex Includes mentions of: Food, Weather, Mention of Loss, Animals, Beverages.

    The Toast Maker – Episode 22: The Plate That Waited

  4. Jun 24

    The Bookshop Cat – Episode 2: A Staying-Still Night

    The Bookshop Cat — Episode 2 Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts Tonight, Mittens skips her patrol. The rain has come in soft against the window, and there is only one place to be — the butter-coloured armchair at the back of the shop, with its reader-shaped dip in the seat.Where Episode 1 took us on the full evening circuit — fiction, poetry, history, the front window glow — this one stays still. One chair, one lamp, one book left open on the low table between the armchairs. The brass clock ticks above the door. The rain does what rain does on the kindest of evenings. Alex narrates with exactly the quiet warmth the night calls for. Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams. — Ian & Alex

    The Bookshop Cat – Episode 2: A Staying-Still Night

  5. Jun 13

    The Toast Maker – Episode 21: The Wooden Star

    The Toast Maker — Episode 21 By Eliza Hartley Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts The world had been muffled overnight. Tonight, Little Darlow is buried under December snow, and Emily's cephalopod presentation is still on. It would take a meteor to cancel it, and Emily knows this. Last time: Tom came home through the first snow with a Norwegian spruce, and Iris finally told him about Mary's second card. This morning, the tree is still undecorated in its corner, and there is somewhere to be. There are pipe-cleaner tentacles, hand-drawn suckers, a tin of ginger biscuits, and Mr Pritchard in a hat he has owned since 1974. Eight people will undulate on command before the morning is over. In Rose's kitchen afterwards, something quieter — a button finally pressed, and what it costs to say it out loud. Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams. — Ian & Alex Includes mentions of: Snow, Animals, Food, Beverages, Romance.

    The Toast Maker – Episode 21: The Wooden Star

  6. Jun 6

    The Toast Maker – Episode 20: The Emergency Cake

    The Toast Maker — Episode 20 By Eliza Hartley Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts Friday morning at Elder Cottage. Tom's taken the van out to Greater Darlow — hardware errands, a Christmas tree from a farm past Bramley he's been going to since he was about Emily's age. He's promised a small one. Iris has her doubts. She's alone now, in a kitchen she cleared twice out of nerves, with Mary's recipe box open and the Emergency Chocolate Cake card weighted by the salt mill. It's the first recipe she'll actually make. She's been reading it for days. Eat the cake in a lit room, with both hands, never as punishment. And outside, very quietly, the sky is doing something it hasn't done yet this winter. Narrated in Ian's warm, unhurried voice — perfect company for a December kitchen and the first snow falling soft past the window. Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams. — Ian & Alex Includes mentions of: Baking, Food, Beverages, First Snow, Mention of Loss.

    The Toast Maker – Episode 20: The Emergency Cake

  7. May 29

    The Toast Maker – Episode 19: The B&B on Darlow Road

    The Toast Maker — Episode 19 By Eliza Hartley Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts Welcome back to Little Darlow — or rather, tonight, a little further along Darlow Road than usual. Episode 18 left us with something tender and weighty: Mary's recipe box on the shelf, and the quiet that follows a good cry in good company. Tonight we step outside into a Thursday morning in mid-December, the frost having turned the village into somewhere that needs to be stepped into carefully. Iris joins the walking group and falls into step beside Helen Marsh. They've walked together perhaps six times, but conversation has never quite grown beyond two sentences. Today something feels different — the frost, the cold air, the weight of having been written to by a stranger. Something is finally being allowed. After three miles past Cobb's Farm and up the hill, Helen doesn't turn toward the village hall. She turns toward the B&B on Darlow Road instead — sage cabinets, an old French range, a slate hallway, a line of crocuses not yet risen. She walked the way she stood: as if she'd thought about it once long ago and decided this was the way she was going to walk, and never had cause to revisit the decision. Thank you for being here, and for making quiet evenings like this one possible. Sleepbound Patreon · headphonesaudiobooks.com/nights · YouTube Includes mentions of: Weather, Food, Beverages, Mention of Loss.

    The Toast Maker – Episode 19: The B&B on Darlow Road

  8. May 3

    Downton Abbey: The Thirties – Episode 2: The Solicitor's Letter

    Downton Abbey: The Thirties — Episode 2 By Hugo Ashcombe Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts Welcome back to Downton, and thank you for being here for Episode 2. Last time, we settled into the new order — Mary running the estate alongside Tom, Robert inventing botanical excuses to visit his old home, Cora quietly sending money across the Atlantic to rescue her brother, and the dressing gong ringing for an audience of one. Tonight carries us through Wednesday and Thursday. Mary sets Henry Talbot's solicitor's letter in front of Tom: £1,100 for the motor business, the final thread of a marriage that ended long before the paperwork caught up. Tom signs without hesitation — and that tells you everything. Then Edith arrives. Two suitcases, Marigold, and something she isn't quite ready to say. The sisters begin their patient circling — hints dropped and deflected, old instincts tested against newer affections. By Thursday evening, the dining room holds eight for the first time since Mary took the house. "The armistice was holding. Neither of them was fool enough to call it peace." Content Timing 00:00 — Welcome and settling in 0:07 — Company 45:13 — Soft music to drift away Downton Abbey: The Thirties is an original fan fiction continuation, written in affectionate tribute — not affiliated with ITV or any official Downton production. As a Patreon supporter, your episode download is yours to keep. If you love the world of Downton, our sister channel Sleepbound also carries a prequel series set in the Abbey's earlier years — well worth a visit. Patreon · YouTube · Website Includes mentions of: Mention of Loss, Family Tension, Children, Food, Travel, Financial Matters.

    Downton Abbey: The Thirties – Episode 2: The Solicitor's Letter
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About

Original bedtime stories for grown-ups — cosy serial fiction, written and narrated by us, slow enough to fall asleep to. Quiet villages and kitchen tables: a toast maker on a Sunday, a bookshop cat who won't settle, a family farm in 1953, a garden almanac kept through the year. Low stakes on purpose. Nothing bad happens. That's deliberate. Each episode is a whole evening — four hours or so — so you can put it on, settle in, and not be woken by the end of it. Every series has its own writer: Eliza Hartley writes The Toast Maker, Margery Cole writes Green Hollow, Cecily Ash keeps the Elderwick Almanac. More of it, ad-free, with new members-only episodes every week: → Supercast — all three Sleepbound shows in one app. Free for 7 days, cancel any time: https://sleepboundstudios.supercast.com → Patreon — the same readings, plus the community: https://www.patreon.com/c/SleepBound Just me and Ian and the writers. Recorded gently, for sleep.

Information

  • Creator
    Sleepbound Nights · Ian & Alex
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Sleepbound Studios
  • Show Website
    Sleepbound Nights (free)