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BBC Sounds. Music, radio,

1:20

podcasts. Is

1:24

this it? Yeah,

1:26

this is it. What

1:29

a shit hole. We're

1:32

standing in the woods just up from the village of

1:34

Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. Where

1:37

we are now is just a hundred yards or so from

1:39

where the cliffs drop down into the North Sea. And

1:43

there's a house here in the woods. The

1:45

lane that led up to it is long forgotten, overgrown.

1:49

It's a Victorian house and

1:52

it doesn't look like anyone has lived in it for decades.

1:56

But this is it. This

1:58

is the house that Robert Blake was leading us to. It

2:02

was about a half an hour after Matt had stormed

2:04

out of the studio. Victorieness

2:07

and Marcus Byron had gone after him to

2:09

make sure he didn't do anything stupid. We

2:12

didn't know at the time just how stupid

2:14

his plans were. Eleanor and

2:16

I discussed the problem we'd been having with Matt and

2:18

the new aspects of his personality that were not making

2:21

it onto any of the recordings. And

2:23

while we were doing that, I had spotted

2:25

a strange anomaly with the notebooks. So

2:28

I set up a distress flare. And while I

2:30

was waiting, Victorieness returned. I've

2:33

left Marcus with him. Two on one. Seemed

2:35

like overkill. What's Matt doing? Stomping

2:38

about like a petulant child as far as I can tell.

2:40

You know,

2:41

man stuff. Ah, okay,

2:43

here we go. Alright, Kay?

2:46

Yeah, good. Where are you? South

2:49

of France, made by the pool. Cousin's wedding. Shit,

2:51

okay. What's up? I've got a puzzle

2:54

to solve. Ghosts and shit? Yeah,

2:56

something like that. Can

2:59

you see this? That looks like a book. Yeah, it's

3:01

a notebook. I think on paper, mate. Old tech, not

3:03

my area. I can make a bonfire out

3:05

of it. I recognise that, Syene. Doctor Peck is in the house. Hello,

3:07

Slide. Who's the other hottie? I'm sorry,

3:09

what? Slide, it's the page numbers in this notebook. Because

3:12

he can't count. Can I see? I think the missing

3:14

numbers

3:15

are code. I'm sorry,

3:15

what? I'm sorry, what? Slide,

3:18

it's the page numbers in this notebook. He's numbered

3:20

the pages by hand, but he's missed some out. Because he can't

3:23

count. Can I see?

3:26

I think the missing numbers are code. You

3:30

were right. Crafty old sod,

3:33

everything we were trying to decipher was nonsense

3:35

and he knew it. This whole notebook

3:38

is a giant red herring.

3:39

Well, sounds like Charlie's Angels have

3:41

cracked it there. You don't need me.

3:44

I've got numbers. They don't mean anything. Is it a planet again?

3:46

Did you try planets? There's going

3:48

to be some exfilish shit.

3:50

It's not a planet. GPS. Can we

3:52

assume I've tried everything that you're going to suggest? I'm

3:55

going to send you the numbers now. It's

4:00

not a GPS.

4:00

You think? I'm not sure

4:02

what

4:03

this is. But you can figure

4:05

it out. I can't buy the pool, okay?

4:08

So figure it out by

4:09

the pool.

4:11

And figure it out he did. The missing page numbers in

4:13

Robert Blake's notebook

4:15

corresponded to a document in his Majesty's Land Registry.

4:19

That is to say, it was the deed to a piece of land. This

4:22

piece of land. With this old, deserted house on

4:25

it. A house that was purchased back

4:27

in 1897 by

4:30

the Marsh Refinery Company of Innsmouth. This

4:34

was Obed Marsh's house. So,

4:37

are

4:37

we going in? Should we wait?

4:39

Before

4:41

Matt? Marcus Byron had called and told

4:43

us what Matt had done and the consequences

4:46

of those actions. The studio being shut down by Caroline

4:48

Morse, who turned out to be

4:50

the real power behind Wilberforce Ashton Heath just before the

4:52

war. The real power behind Wilberforce

4:55

Ashton Heath, just as her grandmother, Abigail

4:57

Fisher, had been the real power behind the church's

4:59

story wisdom and supposedly the

5:01

curse of the 20th century.

5:02

Hey, we're just fine. You didn't sound fine.

5:06

We only have a small window here. Caroline

5:08

Morse and her people have the notebook now. It won't take them

5:10

very long to work out where this place is. Matt,

5:13

I think maybe he should stay out of this. Kennedy,

5:15

are you coming in? No. No,

5:18

I'm going to wait for Matt. Okay.

5:21

Let's go. Okay.

5:23

I'm fine.

5:24

Matt's going to be fine. He's with Marcus. Not

5:27

worried about Matt. Okay. How

5:29

long have you known Marcus? 20 years. Wow,

5:31

okay. I married him for 15.

5:33

What? Seriously? Good.

5:37

I love that you're a joker, Matt. We're

5:42

heading up to Suffolk to Dunwich to meet

5:44

up with Kennedy and Eleanor and Victoria

5:46

Ness. This is a good

5:48

sign. What is it?

5:51

A new recording. Well, this is all

5:53

we have left now, isn't it?

5:55

Marcus Byron had watched Caroline

5:57

Morse and her goons enter the studio. and

6:00

had waited for them to leave again before he came and

6:02

found me and told me where Kennedy and the others

6:04

had gone. Before that, he

6:07

had seen my altercation with Wilberforce

6:09

Ashton Heath. So I think he was

6:11

well aware that I wasn't really on solid

6:13

ground, psychologically speaking. You were

6:15

away for a long time. You've been to the

6:17

kind of places you were at,

6:19

but just for an hour or two at the most. I

6:21

know what it does to you mentally. Considering

6:24

you were gone for three years, I'd say you

6:26

were holding up pretty well. Do I hold the

6:28

record? You actually

6:30

might. How much do you remember?

6:32

Nothing. Dreams.

6:36

No. Bullshit. You've

6:40

got to let people know what's going

6:42

on with you. You can't bottle

6:44

it up. No one has the capacity

6:46

to hold all that in. And

6:49

if I let it out, you'll go mad. You

6:51

might. But you might not. If

6:54

you do, you might recover. Keep

6:56

it inside, it will just explode. Eventually

6:58

I've seen it.

6:59

No one comes back from that. How

7:01

do you come back? This

7:04

is a cop. A

7:06

function, but it

7:08

changes you. You have

7:10

to accept that. There's medication

7:13

that can take the edge off the nightmares. And

7:15

there's some studies being done, mostly in the Middle

7:18

East, about

7:18

how to safely curtail deep sleeps

7:21

so the memories don't get a good hold on your

7:23

mind. But there's no returning

7:25

to normal. What's normal? No,

7:29

there's no way back to where you were. That's

7:31

true of anything, isn't it? Experience

7:33

changes you. You could go on a nice

7:36

beach holiday and you wouldn't be the same person

7:38

when you're going back. This wasn't a beach holiday.

7:40

I

7:43

don't imagine it was. Oh,

7:49

we're gonna have to break a window. Last resort. Stay

7:52

here. I'll see if there's another way.

7:58

I get that Matt's had a bad experience.

8:00

I pissed off that he didn't talk to me. I

8:03

pissed off that he couldn't control his behavior, that he just

8:05

got angry every time I tried to talk to him about it.

8:09

And he went and blew the whole thing and got us shut down.

8:14

You're going to be listening to this at some point, Matt, so there

8:17

it is. It's a bunch of male

8:19

pride bullshit, and this whole thing is too

8:21

important. All

8:23

that time I've been trying to find you. I've

8:26

been all over the world. I've been digging everywhere. I

8:28

didn't give up.

8:31

And after three years, three

8:34

years,

8:34

you show up again, and you're acting like

8:37

a hormonal teenager.

8:38

And

8:40

I get it. I

8:41

can't imagine what it was like or

8:44

what you went through. But I was

8:46

just trying to help. I

8:48

wasn't expecting it to be easy

8:50

or quick, which is why I played

8:53

along and pretended it was all fine. Because

8:55

I thought sooner or later he'd open up about it.

8:57

But you didn't. You just

9:00

blew it all.

9:02

You didn't let me help.

9:03

You didn't talk to me.

9:07

Whatever happens now,

9:10

I'm sorry. But

9:12

that's why we left you outside. Bingo.

9:25

This place has definitely

9:27

not been occupied for a long time. It's

9:30

really big. Victorian, as you said.

9:33

There's no carpet. The walls

9:35

are pretty much bare. I

9:37

don't even know if there was ever electricity put in here.

9:39

And be careful where you're

9:41

walking. There's probably a cell underneath us, and a lot

9:43

of these floorboards that were awesome. So

9:45

this is the Church of Stary Wisdom. I don't think so.

9:47

I think it's a weigh-in. Okay, that

9:49

sounds ominous. It does, doesn't it?

9:52

Probably is.

9:54

Should we

9:56

wait for a market? No, we could do. Or

9:59

we could...

9:59

I'm just driving you with the person who trained

10:02

for us. OK. I

10:06

don't want the door upstairs. Why?

10:08

What do you think is up there?

10:09

I have no idea. But I don't think the stairs

10:11

will hold. And I think

10:13

whatever we're looking for is going to be down.

10:17

In the cellar? In

10:18

the cellar. Ready?

10:20

No

10:22

isn't an option really, is it?

10:31

OK then.

10:36

The only illumination we had were

10:38

the flashlights on our ferns.

10:40

A set of stone steps led down into

10:43

a long, low cellar that seemed

10:45

to be about the same area again as the

10:47

ground floor of the house.

10:49

Whatever this space was used for, it

10:52

clearly hadn't been disturbed

10:53

for years.

10:55

There were wooden shelving units all along

10:57

one side.

10:59

Large glass specimen

11:00

jars were arranged in rows on these, covered

11:03

in dust. After

11:05

my experiences under the Devil's Reef trailer

11:07

park, I knew not to look too

11:09

closely. Babies.

11:22

Babies. Babies.

11:25

I don't think we've done much at all.

11:27

I suggest we're in the right place, sir. At

11:30

the far end of the space, there was another

11:32

door. Give me a

11:34

hand. Wide

11:45

stone steps descended away from us,

11:47

seemingly in

11:48

a spiral. These

11:50

stairs seemed older and more permanent

11:53

than the house above them. And

11:55

around them was a cavern, an

11:57

apparently limitless dark space.

11:59

that didn't make any sense existing

12:02

beneath the quiet woods of Dunwich.

12:03

Didn't bring a radio. You

12:06

think this is a breach? It's

12:08

weird. Weird? Good?

12:11

No.

12:14

This is it? Through

12:16

those trees according to the map.

12:17

Okay. How

12:30

are you feeling?

12:32

Like an idiot. Dude, you're an idiot.

12:36

I'm sorry. I'll

12:38

cheerfully beat the shit out of you later. Where's

12:40

Kennedy? Inside, with Ness. You let them

12:42

go in?

12:43

Let? Have you met Victoria

12:45

Ness? So what do we do? We wait.

12:48

We don't know what's in there. No

12:50

we don't, which means we could blunder in and screw it all up for them. So

12:52

we wait. For

12:54

what? I'm

12:57

not sure yet. Get under the trees.

12:59

Is

13:02

it them? They found this fast. Does that

13:05

change the plan? Yeah. It

13:07

changes the plan. I

13:18

reckon they've gone 40 or 50 meters in a row.

13:22

It's those little bits of a kit. We

13:25

kept going down and down for a few more

13:27

minutes. And then the steps stopped

13:29

abruptly. Okay.

13:34

We're standing

13:38

in darkness. It

13:40

seems to extend infinitely all around

13:42

us. The ground

13:44

is rocky, not even.

13:48

What now? I'm not sure. There's

13:51

nothing here. Even the new system built a

13:53

massive staircase and nothing. Maybe

13:55

whatever it was wasn't finished.

13:59

This is a

14:02

path. Be

14:05

careful with the bridge. Jesus.

14:11

There was a path marked out on the ground, just

14:14

a strip of rock that looks more worn than

14:16

the rest. But where Victoria

14:18

Nes was standing, our flashlights

14:21

showed that the strip of rock extended out

14:23

across darkness.

14:25

There was no way of knowing how deep the abyss

14:27

went on either side. But

14:29

the path itself was only a couple

14:31

of feet wide.

14:33

I think this is where we're

14:36

meant to go. I don't fall off. I

14:40

don't think I've ever had a worse few minutes

14:42

in my

14:42

entire life, and I've been

14:44

through some stuff. The drop

14:46

to either side of us could have been a few meters or

14:49

half a mile.

14:50

The bridge was narrow and uneven

14:53

and slippery underfoot. Every

14:55

now and then, water would drip down on

14:57

us from somewhere above.

14:59

I'm

15:01

so cold. I

15:04

think we're under the sea bed.

15:06

And it's leaking.

15:09

By my calculation, the bridge was

15:11

about 40 meters long.

15:13

As we got to the other side, we

15:16

saw a large oak door on

15:18

heavy iron hinges cut into

15:20

the rock wall. The

15:22

door was ajar.

15:32

Okay. We're

15:34

in a long room with a smooth stone wall.

15:38

A stone floor, it's a crypt under

15:40

the sea. Well, it is. Maybe then it wasn't.

15:43

One of the Danish churches before the town sank? How

15:45

is it not flooded? Because it hasn't sunk yet.

15:48

This is a bridge. This church is in Old Danish. We're

15:51

in the 13th century. Kind of.

15:53

More outside of time than in a particular

15:55

period. Wherever we were in

15:57

time, as our flashlights illuminated,

15:59

the familiar Inakian characters etched

16:02

into the walls,

16:03

it became clear where we were in space.

16:07

This was the Church of

16:09

Starry Wisdom. From

16:28

the makers of the Battersea Goldengast and

16:31

Uncanny, a new... paranormal

16:33

podcast series from BBC Radio 4.

16:37

The Witchvar, people of the South, was

16:39

castered in a long time.

16:41

They bloody were waddlers. The

16:44

Witchvar is the true story of an

16:46

ordinary couple in an extraordinary,

16:48

terrifying situation. I

16:51

don't think I've ever come across the case with

16:53

this much phenomena. I

16:55

call her the Grey Lady. Like a black and white

16:57

image, there's no colour to her at all. So

17:00

you believe that

17:01

the devil is real?

17:02

The devil. Leave us

17:04

alone! Leave us alone!

17:08

The

17:12

Witchvar subscribed and she's dead.