They didn't stop public hangings because people found them distasteful. They stopped them because the crowds kept rioting.
Johnny and Gav on Britain's strangest spectator sport, and the few years when you could have taken in an execution and a football match on the same day.
The Extra Legendary Bit is where Johnny Vaughan and Gavin "The Woodman" Woods dive into your messages and uncover the gloriously unhinged tales sent in by the Bloomin' Legends nation.
What You'll Hear in This Episode:
⚖️ The correction, and the pedantry it unleashed – Johnny owns the Thackeray error, explains how Peter Ackroyd's biography of London tripped him up, and discovers that being slightly wrong is the most engaging thing you can possibly do
🪢 Why executions went indoors – not public taste, but public order. The crowds rioted, every single time
⚽ Hanging and football, the same era – the last public execution in London was 1868. The Cambridge rules of football arrived in 1863. For a brief window you could genuinely have gone to a hanging and then on to watch Notts County
💨 Roland the Farter – James nominates a genuine 12th century court entertainer who performed an annual jump, whistle and fart for Henry II, and was rewarded with a manor in Suffolk. His heirs inherited both the estate and the obligation to keep doing it
👮 Where "copper" really comes from – a serving Met sergeant writes in to correct the record: it predates Peel and the Met entirely, and comes from the copper band around the Bow Street Runners' truncheons
If you love funny true stories, listener tales, dark British history, odd facts and comedy podcasts, this bonus episode of Bloomin' Legends is for you.
Got a story that can top this week's madness?
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Bloomin' Legends is a Global production
Produced by Ben Fairclough
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