Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: How we're remembered after we die is only partially up
Speaker 1: to us. Our lasting impact will be remembered by those
Speaker 1: who survive us, and so it's important to make sure
Speaker 1: that the impression we leave behind is a good one,
Speaker 1: a moral one, and perhaps a sober one. On the
Speaker 1: outskirts of London is an area known as the London
Speaker 1: Borough of Waltham Forest. It's an amalgamation of several other
Speaker 1: boroughs which were merged together in the mid nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: and within this location is the Chingford Mount Cemetery. Opened
Speaker 1: in May of eighteen eighty four by the Abney Park
Speaker 1: Cemetery Company, Chingford Mount was a secondary location for the
Speaker 1: city's more colorful characters. It made sense given its sister
Speaker 1: location had been opened in eighteen forty in what became
Speaker 1: known as a notable cemetery for one noisy and smelly reason.
Speaker 1: Abney Park was opened by Sir Robert Fowler, the Lord
Speaker 1: Mayor of London, who was quite large in stature. Frank Harris,
Speaker 1: a writer who knew and detested Fowler, wrote about a
Speaker 1: dinner party the two men attended, in which Fowler seemingly
Speaker 1: ate his weight in beef, game, birds, and fish. Then,
Speaker 1: part way through the meal, without warning, Harris heard something,
Speaker 1: he wrote, and I quote, Suddenly there came a loud,
Speaker 1: unmistakable noise, and then an overpowering odor. Apparently something Fowler
Speaker 1: had eaten, or maybe most of what he had eaten
Speaker 1: hadn't agreed with him. The hostess lost her appetite after
Speaker 1: that and fled for fresher air and so. Forty years later,
Speaker 1: Chingford Mount Cemetery was opened by another Lord Mayor in
Speaker 1: a ceremony that was far less well foul. Though it
Speaker 1: may not have had a flatulant politician cutting the cheese
Speaker 1: or the ribbon, the people occupying its forty one and
Speaker 1: a half acres certainly made up for it. After it opened,
Speaker 1: Chingford Mount became a veritable who's who of England's most
Speaker 1: notable and notorious, the most well known residents of the
Speaker 1: cemetery are the Cray family, including twins Ronnie and Reggie.
Speaker 1: These brothers, born in October of nineteen thirty three, became
Speaker 1: prominent gangsters and murderers during the nineteen fifties and sixties.
Speaker 1: They owned a night club where they mingled with celebrities
Speaker 1: such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. They also killed
Speaker 1: a lot of people, sometimes because someone looked at them
Speaker 1: wrong or made a snide comment behind their backs. The
Speaker 1: pair were arrested in nineteen sixty eight. Ronnie died in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five from a heart attack while a patient
Speaker 1: at a hospital in Berkshire. He was sixty one. Reggie,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, lived to be sixty six and
Speaker 1: died in October of two thousand from bladder cancer. He
Speaker 1: was released from prison just weeks before his death. Much
Speaker 1: of the family was buried at Chingford Mount over the years,
Speaker 1: including the twins' mother. But the Cray brothers, while homicidal
Speaker 1: and infamous for their lengthy crime spree, are not in
Speaker 1: fact the most renowned of the cemetery's permanent residence. When
Speaker 1: the white Field Tabernacle of Tottenham Court was rebuilt in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety eight, many of the coffins and bodies in
Speaker 1: its cemetery had to be moved elsewhere, and one of
Speaker 1: the new locations chosen was Chingford mount Of the coffins
Speaker 1: that were dug up, one happened to be made of iron,
Speaker 1: and inside it was a woman whose body had been
Speaker 1: preserved through mummification. Her skin looked like marble and was
Speaker 1: just as solid, though the metal box lacked a plaque
Speaker 1: describing who the occupant was, and so her identity remained
Speaker 1: a mystery. One person whose identity was quite well known
Speaker 1: in the area, though, was Jane Cakebread. She was buried
Speaker 1: in Chingford Mountain eighteen ninety eight. Only one person attended
Speaker 1: her funeral, the North London Police Court missionary, a man
Speaker 1: named Thomas Holmes. He had tried for a long time
Speaker 1: to help missus Cakebread, who sadly passed away at only
Speaker 1: sixty four years of age. She had been homeless, mentally ill,
Speaker 1: and had trouble seen. Holmes placed a wreath of flowers
Speaker 1: atop her coffin, more than others believe that she deserved,
Speaker 1: because the newspapers described her as the drunkest person in
Speaker 1: the world. She'd been convicted two hundred and eighty one
Speaker 1: times for drunk and disorderly conduct and spent the equivalent
Speaker 1: of twelve years in jail. As a result, she died
Speaker 1: in an asylum from a combination of edema, cirrhosis of
Speaker 1: the liver, and heart failure. Looking back, it is fitting
Speaker 1: that Jane Cakebread was interred in our curious little Chingford
Speaker 1: Mount Cemetery, a place that wasn't meant for everybody, even
Speaker 1: though everybody was dying to get in. It seems that
Speaker 1: for as long as humans have existed, they've tried to
Speaker 1: keep track time. Ancient Egyptians used shadow clocks or sun
Speaker 1: dials and obelisks to monitor the sun's movements throughout the day.
Speaker 1: The ancient Greeks developed a sort of alarm clock called
Speaker 1: the klepsidra, which kept time using water. The water would
Speaker 1: rise at certain parts of the day and cause a
Speaker 1: mechanical bird to blow a loud whistle. And the Chinese
Speaker 1: use candles that burned at a specific rate to track
Speaker 1: the passage of time. At night. In Prague, though they
Speaker 1: use something else. It's called the Orloi, a medieval astronomical
Speaker 1: clock built into the old town Hall. It's comprised of
Speaker 1: three distinct segments, the mechanical clock that tells the time,
Speaker 1: the calendar dial that shows the current date, and the
Speaker 1: astronomical dial that highlights the position of the sun and
Speaker 1: the moon along with the signs of the zodiac. There
Speaker 1: are also sections on the main clock plate that display
Speaker 1: specific time times of the day, such as the sunrise
Speaker 1: and the sunset, and in the middle of it all
Speaker 1: an image of a globe. Now Surrounding the clock are
Speaker 1: wooden figures representing death, Vanity, the astronomer, the chronicler, and
Speaker 1: the philosopher. Some of these figurines move every hour, while
Speaker 1: others remain stationary. Meanwhile, inside the clock are another set
Speaker 1: of wooden figures, twelve in total, which are supposed to
Speaker 1: be the twelve Apostles who rotate past two windows at
Speaker 1: the top of the structure. They look down on the
Speaker 1: townspeople that come to watch their hourly performance. The clock
Speaker 1: is a marvel of technology, but it wasn't built all
Speaker 1: at once. Its origins can be traced back to fourteen ten,
Speaker 1: when the astronomical dial and the mechanical clock portion inside
Speaker 1: were first constructed. They were the work of clockmaker Mikaelus
Speaker 1: of Kadania and math professor Jan Shindel, although for a
Speaker 1: long time it was believed that clockmaster Jan of Ruche
Speaker 1: had been the original creator, and that misattribution led to
Speaker 1: several dark legends and a curse that have round of
Speaker 1: the clock's history for the past six hundred years. According
Speaker 1: to one story, the work done by Jan of Rouge
Speaker 1: had been admired by others outside of Prague, but he
Speaker 1: wouldn't let anyone see his plans. A rumor began to
Speaker 1: spread that he'd been hired to build another more advanced
Speaker 1: clock for one of those other nations, while the Prague
Speaker 1: counselors couldn't have that, so they blinded him, preventing him
Speaker 1: from finishing their clock and from ever building another one
Speaker 1: for anyone else. And Yan was enraged by their actions,
Speaker 1: so he damaged the astronomical clock as revenge. Since he
Speaker 1: was the one who had built it, he was the
Speaker 1: only one who could fix it. In another version of
Speaker 1: the story, they had the counselor's blind Michelus of Kadana instead,
Speaker 1: but he didn't just break the clock. In retaliation, he
Speaker 1: threw his body into the gears, destroying both himself and
Speaker 1: the mechanism. At the same time, his suicide led to
Speaker 1: the belief in a curse that anyone who tried to
Speaker 1: fix the clock would lose their mind just as he had.
Speaker 1: Now Could either story be true, possibly, although it's more
Speaker 1: like that the clock simply broke down over time. What
Speaker 1: we do know is that the calendar dial was added,
Speaker 1: presumably by Janavrush, around fourteen ninety. The clock also underwent
Speaker 1: a series of repairs during the mid fifteen hundreds, as
Speaker 1: it would often stop turning for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: The exterior wooden statues, such as those of death and Vanity,
Speaker 1: were added during the mid seventeenth century, while the apostles
Speaker 1: were incorporated sometime during the late seventeen hundreds. In the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, the calendar doll was updated by a check painter,
Speaker 1: Joseph Mannus, with twelve or eight discs made to represent
Speaker 1: the months. That face was taken down and replaced with
Speaker 1: a copy in eighteen eighty, while the original was put
Speaker 1: on display in the Prague City Museum. In other words,
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years the clock was either being fixed
Speaker 1: or upgraded. It also underwent serious renovations after the Nazis
Speaker 1: attacked Prague, during World War II. I've been to Prague myself,
Speaker 1: but only once, and the week that I was there,
Speaker 1: the clock was covered up for yet more repairs. That
Speaker 1: said I have, I've been told that to see the
Speaker 1: astronomical clock is to time travel in a way. It's
Speaker 1: a glimpse back through hundreds of years of innovation and engineering.
Speaker 1: And if you can pay it a visit on the hour,
Speaker 1: you'll be treated to a delightful twenty seven second show
Speaker 1: put on by the clockswooden characters. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: in Prague and you have a little time on your hands,
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.