Bad, Mad & Northern

Lucy Sheridan

Bad, Mad & Northern is a historical true crime podcast unearthing the darkest, strangest stories from the North of England. From infamous killers to the villages that vanished beneath reservoirs, the myths that still cling to the moors, and the history no one talks about at Sunday dinner. Hosted solo, told slow, and steeped in northern wit, each episode digs past the headlines to find the real story underneath. Equal parts investigation and ghost story, this is history with the lid off.

Episodes

  1. 8h ago

    6. Stolen from the Grave: The North's Body Snatchers

    How long would your grave stay yours? In the 1820s, the answer might have been a matter of days. Anatomy schools needed bodies, the law supplied very few, and across the north of England a trade grew up to fill the gap. Bodies moved like freight, with paperwork, addresses and paying customers at the end of the line. This episode follows that trade across the North: a trunk at Newcastle's Turf Hotel, casks in a Liverpool cellar, Resurrection Cottage in Leeds, a case in Hull, and the watch house built to guard the graves of Doddington in Northumberland. Everyone has heard of Burke and Hare. Fewer people know about the network that was already operating long before them. This is a story about grief, money, and what happens when the dead become a commodity. Content note: this episode includes discussion of grave robbing and human remains. Follow Bad Mad and Northern so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, 5* a rating really helps new listeners find the show. Thanks, lads! **** About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern sarcasm. Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording with an armchair vibe in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair. **** Website: www.badandmad.com Newsletter 'The Landlady' join for BTS and case report extras at www.badandmad.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

    6. Stolen from the Grave: The North's Body Snatchers

  2. 3d ago

    5. Spooky Season reveal: What's Lurking in the North This October?

    Who was digging up the dead of the North? What would you give up so a city a hundred miles away could turn on a tap? And how did a holiday in Whitby create the most famous toothed monster in the world? In this short voice note, Lucy says a heartfelt thank you for taking Bad, Mad & Northern into the UK history charts within days of launch, and previews a properly dark October. Coming up this spooky season: The body snatchers. Burke and Hare were just the tip of the iceberg. This is the whole northern trade in the dead.The drowned villages. These are the homes, chapels and graves the North gave up to keep its cities running.Dracula (two parts). A shipwreck, a black dog, a clifftop graveyard and Bram Stoker's notebook.The Pendle witches (two parts). In 1612, a Lancashire hillside and a trial still argued about four hundred years later.Surprise content. It won't be announced. It'll just appear.New episodes drop every Wednesday, starting with a double drop this week, then two a week through October. Enjoying the show? Please follow wherever you listen, and share it in your WhatsApp or Facebook groups. It's the biggest thing you can do to help an independent podcast get found.

    5. Spooky Season reveal: What's Lurking in the North This October?

  3. 6d ago

    4. The Scuttlers: Victorian Manchester's Teenage Gangs

    Content note: this episode includes violence against children and teenagers, including the deaths of two boys under eighteen. For more than thirty years, from 1870 to the early 1900s, the streets of Manchester and Salford belonged to the scuttlers: teenage gangs armed with belts, bricks and clasp knives. They fought for territory and pride, and for the coveted title of King of the Scuttlers. Some of them were fourteen years old. This episode follows the scuttlers from a mass street fight inspired by a war on the continent, through the slums of Angel Meadow, to two trials that gripped the city, including the case of a sixteen-year-old sentenced to hang. Along the way, we find what may be Britain's first youth cult, decades before the Peaky Blinders, and a surprisingly direct link to Manchester United and Manchester City. Were the scuttlers just bad lads, or did the city around them make them what they were? Manchester couldn't agree at the time, and it's an argument we're still having. Follow Bad Mad and Northern so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, 5* a rating really helps new listeners find the show. Thanks lads! **** About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern scepticism. Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording from an armchair in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair. **** Watch on Youtube from 1st October 2026 Website: badandmad.com Newsletter: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

    4. The Scuttlers: Victorian Manchester's Teenage Gangs

  4. 6d ago

    3. Regicide, Part Two: Yorkshire and the King's Revenge

    Content note: this episode includes descriptions of executions and exhumed human remains. In May 1660, Charles II rode back into London to cheering crowds. For the men who had signed his father's death warrant, the celebrations meant something else: it was time to run. In the second of two episodes, we follow what happened next. We cover the Act of Oblivion and the men it left out, the October 1660 trials, and the grim January of 1661, when Cromwell and others were dug up to face a punishment their deaths hadn't spared them. We follow the fates of the North's regicides and the generals who refused to sign, visit the legend that Cromwell's body lies hidden at Newburgh Priory in North Yorkshire, and look at plague, fire and a brother's crown. We finish with the world of Robert Harris's novel Act of Oblivion, which inspired this episode. It's a story about revenge, survival, and how long a king's memory can be. Missed Part One? Start there for the road to the scaffold!

    3. Regicide, Part Two: Yorkshire and the King's Revenge

  5. 6d ago

    2. Regicide, Part One: Yorkshire and the Killing of a King

    Content note: this episode includes descriptions of war and a public execution. On 30 January 1649, King Charles I stepped out onto a scaffold in Whitehall. Fifty-nine men had signed his death warrant, and a striking number of them came from the North. In the first of two episodes, we follow the road to the regicide. It starts with a gate slammed shut at Hull and runs through Marston Moor, the largest battle ever fought on English soil, to a trial Westminster had never seen the like of. We meet four signatories with Yorkshire roots: Peregrine Pelham, Thomas Chaloner, John Alured and Sir William Constable. And we meet two of the North's greatest generals who didn't sign: Thomas Fairfax and John Lambert. It's a story about loyalty, conscience and family, and about choices that would follow these men long after the axe fell. Part Two, on Charles II's return, the Act of Oblivion and the revenge that followed, is out now. Please follow Bad Mad and Northern on your podcast app, so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, 5* a rating really helps new listeners find the show. Thanks lads! **** About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern scepticism. Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording from an armchair in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair. **** Watch on Youtube from 1st October 2026 Website: badandmad.com Newsletter: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

    2. Regicide, Part One: Yorkshire and the Killing of a King

  6. 6d ago

    1. John George Haigh: Wakefield's Acid Bath Murderer

    Content note: This episode includes discussion of murder and human remains. In 1949, detectives searching a builder's yard in Crawley uncovered fragments of evidence that should not have survived: bone, dentures, a handbag clasp, and tiny gallstones. Their discovery would unravel the crimes of John George Haigh, later known as the Acid Bath Murderer: a charismatic fraudster who believed he had found the perfect way to erase his victims and escape conviction. This episode follows Haigh's path from West Yorkshire to the hotels and social circles of post-war London, tracing the confidence tricks, forged identities and escalating murders that led to one of Britain's most notorious trials. It's a story about greed, appearances, and the fatal mistake of confusing the absence of a body with the absence of evidence. My gratitude to Jade Reilley, my researcher, for such a brilliant job with the case report. To check out her work, please follow her on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/msjadereilly?stkn=MWxmdGhlcTdwZW1vMg%3D%3D Follow Bad Mad and Northern so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, a 5* rating really helps new listeners find the show (**hint hint lol!**) Thanks lads! Lucy **** About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern scepticism. Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording from an armchair in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair. **** Subscribe and watch on YouTube from 1st October 2026 Website: badandmad.com Newsletter: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

    1. John George Haigh: Wakefield's Acid Bath Murderer
  • 6 Episodes

About

Bad, Mad & Northern is a historical true crime podcast unearthing the darkest, strangest stories from the North of England. From infamous killers to the villages that vanished beneath reservoirs, the myths that still cling to the moors, and the history no one talks about at Sunday dinner. Hosted solo, told slow, and steeped in northern wit, each episode digs past the headlines to find the real story underneath. Equal parts investigation and ghost story, this is history with the lid off.

Information

  • Creator
    Lucy Sheridan
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Lucy Sheridan
  • Show Website
    Bad, Mad & Northern

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