Secret Somerset Episodes Episode guide
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26/12/2024
The best of our Secret Somerset series from 2024.
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The WW2 hero who didn’t carry a weapon
Arturo Fanconi from Ilminster was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for saving lives.
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The witchcraft trial of Julian Cox
Julian Cox was the last person to be executed in Taunton for witchcraft in 1663.
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The Witch of Wookey Hole
Exploring the caves and the legend of the witch of Wookey Hole.
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The Taunton flat unchanged since the 1960s
The flat holds more than 50 years of family history.
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The Somerset bank with its own banknotes
It’s said Stuckey’s banknotes had a circulation second only to the Bank of England.
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The Pauper Lunatic Asylum Cemetery
The cemetery is the final resting place for inmates and staff from the asylum.
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The lost village of Clicket
The Exmoor village was abandoned more than a hundred years ago.
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The lepers’ hamlet
Culbone now consists of two houses and the tiny church of St Beuno.
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The hidden past of Exmoor’s WW2 training site
A radar station and archaeological remains can be found on the North Hill site.
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The hauntings and history of Syndenham House
The grade II listed building is over 500 years old and is full of haunted tales.
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The Gurt Worm
The legend of the Gurt Worm on the Quantocks.
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The gothic mansion that became a TB Sanatorium
Quantock Lodge was built in the 1800s for the-then MP of Taunton, Henry Labouchere.
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The Exmoor White Horse Inn
The story and history of a 16th Century Inn owned by a couple for the past 35 years.
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The Exmoor pub with famous connections
A president, a spy and a tragic ghost – the history of The Royal Oak in Withypool.
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The darker side of the Mendip hills
A new digital trail tells the dark stories of Cheddar and the Mendips.
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The D-Day air support
Discover the role the South West’s airfields played in D-Day.
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The coal miner who ended up in a lunatic asylum
Mark Whitcomb and the Furman sisters are remembered at the Mendip Hospital Cemetery.
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The chained library with books older than America
The Wells Cathedral library securely holds books, published before the 1800s, in chains.
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The burning city on the Mendips
Lights and fires were used to trick German bombers into thinking they’d reached Bristol.
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The bootmaker whose inventions changed lives
Chard's James Gillingham found his calling after a local man was injured in an accident.
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The Bakery that disappeared from the A303
The Bakery in West Camel no longer sits on the A303 due to the new road layout.
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Taunton’s Tudor Tavern
The town's oldest listed domestic building is now a café.
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Reconstructing Somerset’s Roman Mosaics
Volunteers have spent five years reproducing Roman designs at Avalon Archaeology.
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Old Mother Leakey: the ghost of Minehead
A ghost, a bishop and mysterious shipwrecks around Minehead harbour.
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In the cockpit of Concorde
The story of Yeovilton’s Concorde at the Fleet Air Arm Museum.
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How Cheddar inspired Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings
The author first visited the picturesque area of Somerset on his honeymoon in 1916.
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Glastonbury’s 550 year old pub
The George and Pilgrims Inn claims to be the oldest purpose-built pub in the South West
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From Exmoor to Australia: The oldest ringing church bell
How a 16th century bell that chimed in Upton ended up in an rainforest wedding chapel.
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Dead Woman’s Ditch
The chilling story of where a woman's body was discovered in 1789.