Latest / Ridiculous History / The Duke of Portland Hated People and Loved Tunnels

Transcript

The Duke of Portland Hated People and Loved Tunnels · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Quick question, not just for
0:35
Speaker 1: our super producers Casey Pegram and our super producer Max Williams,
0:42
Speaker 1: but a question for all our fellow Ridiculous Historians. What's
0:46
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing you've done to avoid interacting with people? Hi?
0:52
Speaker 1: I'm Ben, and I gotta tell you no, I've I've
0:54
Speaker 1: gone to some cartoonist lengths, the greatest lengths to avoid
0:59
Speaker 1: social inter action. You say, yeah, how weird have you
1:02
Speaker 1: gotten with it? Well? Ben, Uh, and it's mean all
1:05
Speaker 1: by the way, Well you know, the pandemic. I think
1:07
Speaker 1: probably put us all on that boat in many ways.
1:11
Speaker 1: And it really just involved not leaving the house. I
1:14
Speaker 1: was just saying to to you and super producer Max
1:16
Speaker 1: Williams off air, how I've started kind of easy my
1:19
Speaker 1: way back to going into the office a couple of
1:21
Speaker 1: days a week to record, and it has done wonders
1:23
Speaker 1: for my mental state. I'm a people person, Ben, I
1:27
Speaker 1: don't I like I like being around people. I don't
1:29
Speaker 1: typically avoid uh, social interactions if if I can help it,
1:33
Speaker 1: How about you? Yeah, I had a great time during
1:36
Speaker 1: the pandemic because I was going to the office. I
1:40
Speaker 1: loved it when no one else was there. And now
1:43
Speaker 1: you know, my Fortress of Solitude has gone shout out
1:46
Speaker 1: to any DC fans you get that reference, and it's
1:51
Speaker 1: it can be kind of it can be kind of disappointing.
1:53
Speaker 1: You know. I mentioned this often on another show Stuff
1:57
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. But one thing that
1:59
Speaker 1: always baffles me about the human species is how quickly
2:02
Speaker 1: things become normal. Uh, maybe the weirdest thing I did
2:08
Speaker 1: because alone time and hopefully I'm not alone in this
2:12
Speaker 1: alone time is incredibly important to me. I think it's
2:16
Speaker 1: a resource that modern society often sort of avoids or
2:22
Speaker 1: attempts to disincentivize. We're taught now that we have to
2:26
Speaker 1: always be available, that one must always be plugged in,
2:31
Speaker 1: or that you always have to be somehow online, somehow
2:34
Speaker 1: participating in society, and that's simply not the case. It's
2:39
Speaker 1: it's a really weird thing to do. And that's why
2:41
Speaker 1: I have the back of the fifth Duke of Portland's
2:45
Speaker 1: William John Cavendish dash Scott dash Bent. Such a duke
2:51
Speaker 1: ly name, I gotta say, but we're gonna refer to
2:53
Speaker 1: him occasionally in shorthand as the Underground Duke, which also
2:56
Speaker 1: sounds like it could be the name of a really
2:58
Speaker 1: cool like new wave or possibly early nineties uh you
3:02
Speaker 1: know e d M type band. But I gotta just
3:05
Speaker 1: double back with you really quickly. Been I think this
3:07
Speaker 1: expectation that society has of always being on in quote
3:10
Speaker 1: unquote participating in all of this stuff, it's not even participatory.
3:14
Speaker 1: It's really just kind of a weird invisible leash that
3:17
Speaker 1: we're all expected to wear and like be you know,
3:20
Speaker 1: subjected to. Most of it's not even functional, are useful.
3:23
Speaker 1: It's really just this kind of like um, you know,
3:26
Speaker 1: burdens albatross for a lot of us. And you're right, Ben,
3:30
Speaker 1: the Underground Duke um personifies this. We need to take
3:33
Speaker 1: a lesson from the fifth Duke of Portland's I'm gonna
3:36
Speaker 1: give it my best, John Kevin just Scott Bentink. Bentink
3:41
Speaker 1: what a great name. Yeah, I I went Wold Bentink.
3:44
Speaker 1: But because all the male children and his family were
3:48
Speaker 1: named William, uh, this guy was usually called John and
3:52
Speaker 1: and throughout the episode, we're probably gonna call him a
3:54
Speaker 1: bunch of different things, but yeah, like those close to
3:56
Speaker 1: him would would call him John and um he uh he.
4:00
Speaker 1: Essentially it never wanted any of this. Um. He never
4:05
Speaker 1: wanted to be a public figure. He never wanted to
4:08
Speaker 1: be in in politics or in the ruling class. He
4:11
Speaker 1: literally did not want to be a duke. He didn't, no,
4:14
Speaker 1: not at all. In fact, it was supposed to go
4:16
Speaker 1: the honor, I guess or the the what do you
4:18
Speaker 1: call that? The position I was supposed to go to
4:21
Speaker 1: his older brother who died unfortunately very young. And then
4:25
Speaker 1: their father, who was the fourth Duke of Portland, also
4:29
Speaker 1: died in eighteen fifty four, and that's when William John
4:34
Speaker 1: Um became this unlikely and uh, you know, reluctant duke.
4:39
Speaker 1: A couple of great sources we dug into for this episode.
4:42
Speaker 1: An Atlas Obscure article, The Duke who loved tunnels so
4:46
Speaker 1: much he was immortalized as a literary badger, Vintage News,
4:51
Speaker 1: Gordon Blaski, the eccentric Duke who adored missanthropy. I am
4:56
Speaker 1: not going to finish the headline because it has him spoilers. Uh.
5:01
Speaker 1: Shout out as well to Nottinghamshire history. Uh. This comes
5:06
Speaker 1: from the Portland's peerage Romance by Charles j Archard. Right,
5:12
Speaker 1: we've also got Elizabeth London writing for History Things in
5:16
Speaker 1: an article entitled Histories Nutcases. The Prince of Silence also
5:21
Speaker 1: a pretty epically cool nickname. Then we have one from
5:24
Speaker 1: OMG facts dot com how an introverted duke pimped out
5:27
Speaker 1: his house to avoid humans. So why don't we get
5:29
Speaker 1: into the early days of William John Cavendish Scott Bentinck.
5:35
Speaker 1: So there were a few things the duke did like though,
5:39
Speaker 1: right we said he didn't want to be duke. He
5:41
Speaker 1: kind of due to the tricky laws of what's called primogeniture.
5:47
Speaker 1: His life didn't go the way he had planned. He
5:51
Speaker 1: didn't really like talking to people, but he did like
5:54
Speaker 1: some things. He liked watching horse races, he liked gardening,
5:59
Speaker 1: and he was super into digging tunnels, like cartoonishly a
6:04
Speaker 1: million percent into digging tunnels around his huge compounds. You know,
6:10
Speaker 1: we're calling a state if you want to be classy
6:12
Speaker 1: about it, if you will, sure, yes, Yeah. The seat
6:17
Speaker 1: of his land he was located in an area of
6:22
Speaker 1: the Midlands which is called the Dukeries. Yeah, and we'll
6:26
Speaker 1: get into his life in depth. You know, spoiler alert.
6:31
Speaker 1: I guess we should say the spoiler alert. Well, uh,
6:33
Speaker 1: this guy was so done with social expectations that he
6:40
Speaker 1: like he went. He literally went underground to avoid having
6:44
Speaker 1: to hang with people he did. I think I threw
6:46
Speaker 1: a little too early to his his youth, but there's
6:49
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that lead to his eccentricities
6:53
Speaker 1: and these badger like labyrinthine tunnels that he dug I
6:56
Speaker 1: think happened in his youth. In his early days, he
7:00
Speaker 1: is he was jilted by the love of his life,
7:03
Speaker 1: at least in his mind. The love of his life
7:05
Speaker 1: didn't seem like she reciprocated those feelings. But he was
7:09
Speaker 1: in fact born William John Kavanish Scott Bentinck on September
7:14
Speaker 1: dred in London. His mother was Henrietta Scott and his
7:18
Speaker 1: father was It was Senior William Bentinck. He was the
7:21
Speaker 1: fourth Duke of Portland, as we mentioned, and was very
7:26
Speaker 1: much entrenched in politics. Uh, something that the young William
7:31
Speaker 1: would look at as being pretty dull and not up
7:34
Speaker 1: his street at all. The protagonist of our story, we'll
7:38
Speaker 1: call him the young William, or the underground Duke. Um
7:41
Speaker 1: was the second of nine children. He received his baptism
7:46
Speaker 1: at St. George's Church in Hannover Square on September and
7:50
Speaker 1: received a very high level education at home with the
7:55
Speaker 1: best that that money could buy, the best tutelage that
7:57
Speaker 1: money could buy. Yeah, yeah, Well also, you know at
8:01
Speaker 1: this time, being from the noble class gets gets you
8:06
Speaker 1: ahead of the game right in the military, and he
8:11
Speaker 1: he starts off as an incident in the foot Guards.
8:14
Speaker 1: He eventually becomes a captain just three years later of
8:19
Speaker 1: the seventh Light Dragoon Guards. He didn't like the military.
8:25
Speaker 1: There are several reports that youphemistically, you mystically say he's
8:32
Speaker 1: not cut out for it, that he has quote lethargy,
8:36
Speaker 1: and that his health is quote delicate, which means that
8:39
Speaker 1: this guy was maybe more of an indoors cat. It's
8:43
Speaker 1: almost like opinion of the military. It's almost like a
8:46
Speaker 1: diplomatic way of saying he was lazy and weak. Right.
8:50
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty four, one of his elder brothers, also
8:54
Speaker 1: named William, unfortunately passes away. So this is what we're
9:00
Speaker 1: being too. At the top, John gets is elder brother's position.
9:05
Speaker 1: He becomes the Marquess of Titchfield and then he takes up,
9:09
Speaker 1: you know, everything that that entails, including becoming a Tory MP.
9:16
Speaker 1: Uh in King's Lynn and King's Lynn l y N
9:20
Speaker 1: is actually one of their traditional family seats. So he's
9:25
Speaker 1: there for just like about two years, and he doesn't
9:30
Speaker 1: talk much. He doesn't like he doesn't like doing politics either,
9:35
Speaker 1: so he doesn't talk very much. He's never super active. Uh.
9:39
Speaker 1: And then he's around twenty six when he says to
9:43
Speaker 1: one of his uncle's here, I just I just can't.
9:47
Speaker 1: I don't feel like doing it. Can you be the
9:50
Speaker 1: Tory MP here and his uncle His uncle gladly agrees.
9:55
Speaker 1: And now, now lest we seem that we're painting Will
10:00
Speaker 1: as a you know, a wil Team lily of some sort,
10:05
Speaker 1: we should note that he was an outdoorsman, right. He
10:09
Speaker 1: really was a good hunter. People respected his opinion on horses. Uh.
10:15
Speaker 1: He also, you know, he he also was a gentleman
10:20
Speaker 1: of culture. He loved a good opera. He had some crushes.
10:24
Speaker 1: He even proposed to one. And uh, this is where
10:28
Speaker 1: things started to get real weird for him. Apparently that's
10:31
Speaker 1: right at the time, one of the most famous opera
10:33
Speaker 1: singers on the planet was Adelaide Kimball. I'm surprised I
10:38
Speaker 1: haven't heard her. I think I maybe mentioned on the
10:40
Speaker 1: show before that both of my parents were in the opera. Uh.
10:43
Speaker 1: And my mother is a very interesting character. She's exactly
10:47
Speaker 1: what she would think a retired, kind of aged diva
10:51
Speaker 1: might be. She is also quite fond of fine things.
10:55
Speaker 1: Not such a great judge of horses though. But Adelaide
10:58
Speaker 1: Kimball absolutely ingenue, and he was totally smitten with her.
11:04
Speaker 1: I mean, from what we understand from the research that
11:06
Speaker 1: we've looked at for this story, I think he was
11:09
Speaker 1: like a fan, but he was also wealthy and in
11:13
Speaker 1: the upper class, which maybe there was a little entitlement there. Ben,
11:17
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, because he was in love with her
11:20
Speaker 1: and he proposed to her, but it's not like they
11:23
Speaker 1: might have, you know, somewhat known each other socially. But
11:28
Speaker 1: it seems very forward for him to have proposed to her.
11:32
Speaker 1: You know, it checks out because she totally turned him down,
11:35
Speaker 1: and this event or this um you know, heartbreak, seems
11:40
Speaker 1: to have triggered his tunnel digging, you know, mindset. He
11:52
Speaker 1: was already not the most talkative guy, and after this
11:56
Speaker 1: opera singer turns him down, he becomes a known eccentric.
12:02
Speaker 1: He is refusing to see people, including medical professionals. The
12:07
Speaker 1: only person who is quote unquote allowed to see him
12:11
Speaker 1: is his valet, so his like man servant. Basically, he
12:17
Speaker 1: retreats to his home at Whelbeck Abbey, and he has
12:21
Speaker 1: two letter boxes outside of his I guess, his suite,
12:26
Speaker 1: his rooms, you know, and these two letter boxes are
12:31
Speaker 1: his primary means of communication with other people. While this
12:37
Speaker 1: is all happening, his father passes away March fifty four
12:43
Speaker 1: and William becomes very much non consensually. The fifth Duke
12:49
Speaker 1: of Portland's becoming duke. Right, you you enter into this
12:55
Speaker 1: world of privilege, right, you are one of the elite
12:59
Speaker 1: of this society, and you have a lot of agency
13:04
Speaker 1: to do things that the average person could not do.
13:07
Speaker 1: And so for William, when he becomes duke, he gets
13:12
Speaker 1: more uh, he gets more room socially to be even
13:17
Speaker 1: more reclusive. Now he doesn't have to go do stuff.
13:21
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many obligations that our fellow ridiculous
13:25
Speaker 1: historians or Max or me or you would have to
13:29
Speaker 1: do that you just don't have to do if you're
13:32
Speaker 1: no ability. So he just stops doing it. He just
13:34
Speaker 1: stops doing it. He I can't recommend highly enough this
13:38
Speaker 1: history things article. There's some really great photos of his uh,
13:44
Speaker 1: his kind of cavernous a state, so highly recommend checking
13:47
Speaker 1: that one out. But it's true. He um he has
13:50
Speaker 1: been spurned by the love of his life. He essentially
13:53
Speaker 1: goes underground in a very very real way. He takes
13:58
Speaker 1: this a state, this the family seat, it's sort of
14:02
Speaker 1: in the country, and he begins to undergo massive, massive,
14:07
Speaker 1: massive construction projects. And it was lucky because the previous
14:12
Speaker 1: Duke had been concerned that England was going to see
14:16
Speaker 1: in the future a wood shortage, so he planted these
14:20
Speaker 1: massive forests of oak uh and they, thankfully, we're just
14:25
Speaker 1: starting to, you know, come into maturity when William became
14:28
Speaker 1: the Duke himself. So he had just this this awesome
14:32
Speaker 1: surplus of building materials um that he was able to
14:35
Speaker 1: use to reinforce these tunnels and and build all of
14:39
Speaker 1: these additions. And it gets a little bit nuts and
14:42
Speaker 1: we don't quite know exactly, you know, what the timeline
14:48
Speaker 1: was for some of these projects, but we do know
14:50
Speaker 1: that during the eighteen years that he was in charge
14:52
Speaker 1: of this estate, Wellbeck Abbey, he oversaw he didn't do
14:56
Speaker 1: it himself. He basically, you know, higher these massive team
15:00
Speaker 1: of people to dig around twelve miles of tunnels and
15:05
Speaker 1: and and they weren't like deep belie the earth. At least,
15:08
Speaker 1: they weren't deep beneath the earth. They were really just
15:10
Speaker 1: kind of right under the surface of of the estate. Um.
15:14
Speaker 1: But yeah, he they were big though exactly. He even
15:18
Speaker 1: dug these tunnels that were topped with glass that were
15:21
Speaker 1: large enough for fruit trees to grow. Yeah. Yeah, And
15:25
Speaker 1: he also dug tunnels that well, he had tunnels dug
15:30
Speaker 1: due to his delicate health. He had tunnels dug that
15:33
Speaker 1: were wide enough for horses. He still loved animals. And
15:39
Speaker 1: he had a hierarchy to his tunnels, like some tunnels
15:43
Speaker 1: were for the working man, and then there were nicer
15:47
Speaker 1: tunnels for the upper class, like the dukes and so on.
15:51
Speaker 1: And he had he creates an underground compounds. We're talking
15:56
Speaker 1: about a ballroom that's more than a hundred and fifty
15:59
Speaker 1: eight beat long, and observatory of course, a billiards haul,
16:04
Speaker 1: because what's the point otherwise, right, why would you have
16:08
Speaker 1: a tunnel complex without a billiard's haul. He also had
16:12
Speaker 1: plans that he didn't quite get to, so he wanted
16:16
Speaker 1: to have this gargantlin kitchen, a riding house, and stables,
16:21
Speaker 1: all underground, and a personal this is one of my favorites,
16:25
Speaker 1: a personal roller skating rink, not just for him but
16:29
Speaker 1: for the staff, because he was he was a good
16:32
Speaker 1: boss in his opinion. He did have a underground library.
16:37
Speaker 1: He tried to go under the estate had a lake
16:40
Speaker 1: right on the grounds, and he tried to dig under there.
16:44
Speaker 1: But you know, due to any number of problems you
16:48
Speaker 1: can easily imagine, he eventually abandoned that. This was not
16:52
Speaker 1: a dirty place. All the underground rooms where he did
16:55
Speaker 1: they had gas lighting. This guy hung out there all
16:59
Speaker 1: the time, like the way that the teenage mutant ninja
17:02
Speaker 1: turtles hang out in the sewers of New York City.
17:05
Speaker 1: This guy was always under a manhole and he was
17:09
Speaker 1: kicking it. And it was a pretty nice place. Nice tunnels,
17:12
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so nice. I mean, this really was
17:14
Speaker 1: like the most bespoke, luxurioust like clubhouse. And you know,
17:19
Speaker 1: he seemed like he was surrounded by more horses than
17:22
Speaker 1: he was people. Um. I mean, he did have a staff,
17:25
Speaker 1: but it didn't seem like he was much of an entertainer.
17:28
Speaker 1: He had this massive kitchen that he had designed. He
17:31
Speaker 1: even like he participated in the designs of these things,
17:33
Speaker 1: by the way, as well, he was always sketching designs
17:36
Speaker 1: or at least the kind of like early ideas for
17:38
Speaker 1: designs for various rooms and and creations around this this uh,
17:43
Speaker 1: this compound. And he wasn't without style, you know, he
17:46
Speaker 1: had his own kind of aesthetic. Um. It turns out
17:49
Speaker 1: that every single wall in this underground cavern uh and
17:54
Speaker 1: it was a cavern. Makes it sound like it's dank
17:55
Speaker 1: and and and spooky, but it seems like it was
17:58
Speaker 1: pretty bright, especially since all the walls were at a
18:00
Speaker 1: pink um. And it's not something that really comes up
18:03
Speaker 1: in the history of this dude, Like he was a
18:05
Speaker 1: massive fan of the color pink. There is in this
18:09
Speaker 1: OMG Facts article about the introverted duke who pimped out
18:13
Speaker 1: his house to avoid humans, which also has some excellent pictures.
18:15
Speaker 1: Kathor Jensen was also unable to find any indication that
18:21
Speaker 1: this was a thing over a running theme, this fondness
18:24
Speaker 1: of the color pink. So it's it's a little bit odd, right,
18:28
Speaker 1: but there was like every single room in the underground
18:32
Speaker 1: portion of his estate had this pale rose or like
18:35
Speaker 1: pink color. And like I said it before, the tunnels
18:38
Speaker 1: weren't incredibly deep. Some of them even had skylights, right.
18:42
Speaker 1: We talked about some of the glass top tunnels that
18:44
Speaker 1: would allow sun to come in so that the fruit
18:46
Speaker 1: trees could grow underground, because obviously without sunlight they would
18:49
Speaker 1: be toast. But uh, he just wanted to make sure
18:53
Speaker 1: that he had essentially what amounted to like the most
18:56
Speaker 1: expensive privacy fence ever created. He just didn't want to
19:01
Speaker 1: be snooped upon any of his neighbors. Yeah, yeah, that's
19:06
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. He's not trying to journey to
19:08
Speaker 1: the center of the earth. This is not for scientific purposes.
19:12
Speaker 1: He just doesn't want to feel like other people are
19:17
Speaker 1: watching him. He also had, you know, earlier I mentioned
19:21
Speaker 1: this kind of hierarchy of tunnels, some for the common folk,
19:25
Speaker 1: some for uh, the fancier folk. He had in addition
19:30
Speaker 1: to this, his own set of small tunnels that were
19:34
Speaker 1: just for him and would go through a trapdoor. The
19:38
Speaker 1: point of this was to keep everyone, including his servants,
19:42
Speaker 1: from knowing exactly where he was at any given point
19:45
Speaker 1: in time, so he could make trips to his other
19:49
Speaker 1: estate without anybody knowing one of the tunnels stretched all
19:56
Speaker 1: the way to the local train station, so the duke
20:00
Speaker 1: may have just popped down his trap door and disappeared.
20:04
Speaker 1: It's strange because there are so many like rumors or
20:08
Speaker 1: anecdotes about this guy, and you have to search kind
20:12
Speaker 1: of carefully for some proven stories. So we know for
20:17
Speaker 1: a fact that we know for a fact that Will
20:20
Speaker 1: liked to ride alone in a specially constructed carriage that
20:26
Speaker 1: was like windows tented kind of style for the time.
20:31
Speaker 1: And the more that people knew this guy wanted to
20:35
Speaker 1: avoid scrutiny, the more they wanted to see him. And
20:40
Speaker 1: so he kind of created his own problem by attempting
20:45
Speaker 1: to solve it. By by being perceived as mysterious and
20:50
Speaker 1: retreating from the public eye, he sort of enticed the
20:54
Speaker 1: public and people wanted to like catch a glimpse of
20:58
Speaker 1: the weird duke. But anyway, the carriage was made so
21:02
Speaker 1: that you can't see inside of it, and he had
21:04
Speaker 1: spy holes so he can look out like all over
21:07
Speaker 1: the carriage he could look out and see people. It's
21:09
Speaker 1: it's very weird. It's almost it's almost like a like
21:12
Speaker 1: a shoe box for your pet. Frau we have like
21:14
Speaker 1: holes poked in it or something like that. Odd dude.
21:17
Speaker 1: And people knew that he was an odd dude because,
21:19
Speaker 1: like you know, a lot of the looky lose that
21:20
Speaker 1: were kind of trying to catch a glimpse of him,
21:22
Speaker 1: they were not in his employee necessarily, whereas like the
21:25
Speaker 1: staff at his London state, they didn't want to be
21:28
Speaker 1: seen when he arrived because they knew that that would
21:31
Speaker 1: like freak him out or that would maybe even put
21:32
Speaker 1: their jobs in jeopardy, so they would like dart, you
21:35
Speaker 1: know into darkened corners or you know, like when they
21:38
Speaker 1: saw him coming, they probably there's probably like a call
21:40
Speaker 1: of life easier. I Yeah, like like how Max, when
21:44
Speaker 1: Max joined on this show, you know his MAXI no offense,
21:48
Speaker 1: but your contract is crazy. We had to side to
21:50
Speaker 1: things saying we wouldn't make eye contact with Max. Yeah.
21:54
Speaker 1: It's definitely very strange and awkward at times, but I
21:57
Speaker 1: think we've figured it out. Something we have, We've we've
22:00
Speaker 1: navigated these strange waters. We wouldn't have any other way, Max,
22:04
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have it any other way. But he um,
22:07
Speaker 1: so let's see what's next. Um. Hardcourt House was his
22:11
Speaker 1: other estate in London, and he started to kind of
22:16
Speaker 1: incorporate some of these weird designs into that estate as
22:20
Speaker 1: well eventually, Right, not exactly the underground kind, but certainly
22:24
Speaker 1: the very very over the top privacy measures. Yeah, it's
22:29
Speaker 1: weird because he One of the things he did at
22:34
Speaker 1: Hardcourt House, probably the most extreme example of his eccentricity,
22:39
Speaker 1: was that he created a gigantic screen, a glass screen
22:45
Speaker 1: that was eighty feet high, two something feet on each side.
22:51
Speaker 1: He made this screen entirely so that his neighbors could
22:56
Speaker 1: not see into the garden. This was specifically round glass,
23:01
Speaker 1: so it's a glass wall, but it wasn't transparent, you
23:05
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It was like speak of like
23:06
Speaker 1: frosted glass, right, And this was entirely just to keep
23:12
Speaker 1: his neighbors from knowing what was going on, which, again
23:17
Speaker 1: I argue, just makes it more enticing for people to
23:21
Speaker 1: try to catch a glimpse of this guy. And everybody's
23:25
Speaker 1: everybody's treating him like that Tom Waite's song. They're like,
23:28
Speaker 1: what's he building in there? You know, like, what is
23:31
Speaker 1: he up to? Why is he hiding? There must be
23:34
Speaker 1: a reason. He becomes the butt of a lot of
23:37
Speaker 1: jokes and some people call him the mad Duke of
23:41
Speaker 1: Portland's According to a Worshop resident quoted on worshop web
23:48
Speaker 1: dot co dot uk t k S, who grew up
23:52
Speaker 1: hearing stories about how weird this dude is, and people
23:56
Speaker 1: tried to make reasons. They like tried to explain where
24:00
Speaker 1: this guy was coming from or what his motivation was.
24:03
Speaker 1: They said, you know, he's probably he's probably a bit
24:06
Speaker 1: of a litario. You know, he's got a bunch of
24:09
Speaker 1: different lovers sneaking through the tunnels. Other people say, no, no,
24:14
Speaker 1: he makes secret trips, sure, but they're to church, not
24:18
Speaker 1: two dalliances. He's he's going to pray in peace and
24:22
Speaker 1: you guys gotta stop bugging him about it. That's why
24:25
Speaker 1: he went underground. Literally, other people are like, no, he's disfigured,
24:29
Speaker 1: he's got a weird face. He's got a face thing
24:31
Speaker 1: going on. And then you know, he's he's got to
24:34
Speaker 1: use the tunnels so that you jerks will stop laughing
24:37
Speaker 1: at him. Or maybe he's got a disease and he's contagious.
24:40
Speaker 1: Like people were just throwing stuff out there. Yeah, none
24:50
Speaker 1: of this was backed up by literally anything. Yeah, that
24:53
Speaker 1: he was having dalliances with God though. That's that's a
24:55
Speaker 1: fun one for me. Yeah, yeah, but it was it
24:59
Speaker 1: wasn't that at all. He was just shy. He wasn't
25:02
Speaker 1: even like a monster or anything, right, Like, I mean,
25:04
Speaker 1: all of our all indications, like, I mean, he certainly
25:06
Speaker 1: had to have been a bit of a stern taskmaster
25:08
Speaker 1: if he was commanding these you know, legions of like
25:11
Speaker 1: workers to dig these crazy tunnels, and he certainly had
25:14
Speaker 1: a vision, but he really just wanted to be left alone.
25:17
Speaker 1: We don't really have any indication that he was ever
25:20
Speaker 1: cruel to any of his staff. I think he was
25:23
Speaker 1: just kind of a sad, like heartbroken dude that kind
25:26
Speaker 1: of just didn't want to mix with society. And I
25:29
Speaker 1: mean I think we all have moments where we can
25:30
Speaker 1: understand that, right yeah, I mean have you seen society lately?
25:35
Speaker 1: Can you really blame people for not wanting to be
25:37
Speaker 1: tintoes down on that concept? I I get it. I'm
25:41
Speaker 1: just saying I I I get it. And you know,
25:44
Speaker 1: honestly a lot of people then and probably now, I
25:49
Speaker 1: I think and see the appeal right of solitude, But
25:54
Speaker 1: this person is coming from enormous privilege. They can make
25:58
Speaker 1: that desire real because they have the money and the
26:02
Speaker 1: power in the position to do so. And there's nothing
26:05
Speaker 1: wrong with being shy, you know, you don't again, you
26:09
Speaker 1: the moral of the stories. You don't always have to
26:12
Speaker 1: interact with people. You don't have to feel obligated to.
26:16
Speaker 1: He just took it so much further than the average
26:19
Speaker 1: person could. He when when he first tried to kind
26:25
Speaker 1: of occlude himself from society, he tried to close the
26:31
Speaker 1: what are called the public rights of way across his estate.
26:35
Speaker 1: So a public right of way means, you know, hey,
26:38
Speaker 1: you might not be the duke who owns you know,
26:42
Speaker 1: uh Schroppenham, fart sure on Sandwich or whatever the name
26:46
Speaker 1: of the estate is, but you have the right to
26:49
Speaker 1: cross at certain points because you have to get from
26:52
Speaker 1: point A to point B. He tried to shut that down.
26:54
Speaker 1: He was like, I don't no new friends, as Drake
26:57
Speaker 1: would say. And this is what led him to creating
27:00
Speaker 1: his Warring of tunnels, because the other the other members
27:05
Speaker 1: of the ruling class were like, hey, can't you can't
27:08
Speaker 1: stop people from walking here, And then he responded, you know,
27:13
Speaker 1: by going subterranean totally. I mean it's like any you know,
27:16
Speaker 1: super wealthy area in in whatever city. I mean, you
27:20
Speaker 1: don't have the right to pull into someone's driveway. I
27:23
Speaker 1: mean maybe he could flip a uie or something like that,
27:26
Speaker 1: but they could probably still yell at you, and rightfully so.
27:28
Speaker 1: But it's not like they're gonna be able to close
27:30
Speaker 1: Mulholland Drive, you know, in in Hollywood. Um, that would
27:34
Speaker 1: be a nightmare because it's like one road in, one
27:36
Speaker 1: road out. Um, So this totally makes sense. There would
27:39
Speaker 1: be some beef behind that, and it's kind of funny
27:41
Speaker 1: indication of his slight out of touchness that he was
27:45
Speaker 1: so in his own head and just wanted to be
27:46
Speaker 1: alone that he didn't even really think of others. So
27:48
Speaker 1: while he doesn't seem like he was a monster, he
27:51
Speaker 1: probably was a little bit self involved. Let's just say that.
27:54
Speaker 1: That's just my guess. But he has a quote as
27:57
Speaker 1: to We have a quote from him from Notts History
28:00
Speaker 1: uh dot org dot uk that sort of sums up
28:04
Speaker 1: his attitude about all this, and that is how he
28:06
Speaker 1: describes his precious underground dwellings. Uh quote. Here have I
28:10
Speaker 1: provided for you, at enormous expense, a clean pathway underground,
28:14
Speaker 1: lighted with gas too, and you will persist in walking
28:17
Speaker 1: above ground. Uh, that is what he would say to
28:22
Speaker 1: visitors when they came to his estate. And it's almost
28:27
Speaker 1: like he was doing them a solid right because he
28:30
Speaker 1: was like, you know what the above ground is for
28:31
Speaker 1: you enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the gardens, enjoy the lovely woodland,
28:37
Speaker 1: scenic views and all of the flowers and all of that,
28:40
Speaker 1: while he all the while stayed undergrown in what likely
28:45
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we're talking about gas lamp span.
28:47
Speaker 1: I want to ask your opinion here underground like that.
28:50
Speaker 1: I know, when they burn, it burns off the gas,
28:53
Speaker 1: but one, if one one was left on, wouldn't it
28:55
Speaker 1: be a fire hazard. I can kind of imagine like
28:57
Speaker 1: just a pillar, like backdraft style, a flame just filling
29:01
Speaker 1: these tunnels. If there was a mishap with some of
29:03
Speaker 1: these gas lamps. Yeah, it goes back to what I
29:06
Speaker 1: was saying earlier regarding the concept of privilege. This guy
29:11
Speaker 1: was able to do this because he wasn't doing a
29:15
Speaker 1: lot of the work, a lot of the maintenance. So
29:17
Speaker 1: there were people monitoring these gas lamps. There was someone
29:22
Speaker 1: continually checking on these things, cleaning the tunnels, making sure
29:27
Speaker 1: that they were in good repair. So when he says, here,
29:32
Speaker 1: I have provided for you at enormous expense. He probably
29:36
Speaker 1: paid for it. But it's not like he was digging
29:39
Speaker 1: these holes. It's not like he was lighting these lamps.
29:42
Speaker 1: He did get a kick ass nickname out of it, though,
29:45
Speaker 1: the Invisible Prince. He also This is something I was
29:49
Speaker 1: wondering for a while. I wondered if he was the
29:53
Speaker 1: type of person to jump out and try to spook people,
29:56
Speaker 1: you know, like in Um Tim and Eric, where there's
29:59
Speaker 1: the spaghett guy who just jumps out of spaghett. He
30:03
Speaker 1: he was. He. I would I proposally cast Tim Hidecker
30:08
Speaker 1: as the Invisible Prince or the underground Duke, because Will
30:13
Speaker 1: liked to jump out and surprise people, and he liked
30:20
Speaker 1: to make the environment increasingly off putting for folks. He
30:26
Speaker 1: you know, he was. He was called a misanthrope, but
30:29
Speaker 1: perhaps that's unfair in a way because he primarily just
30:34
Speaker 1: didn't want to have to interact with people. I don't think.
30:38
Speaker 1: I don't think not feeling obligated to hang out with
30:42
Speaker 1: everyone all the time makes you a hater of humanity. No,
30:46
Speaker 1: but I do feel like he could be like the
30:48
Speaker 1: patron saint of Zenniel's you know who will do everything
30:51
Speaker 1: in their power to avoid human interaction outside of like
30:54
Speaker 1: the Internet, And I think that's why things like food
30:56
Speaker 1: ordering apps are so popular. Like my kid and some
30:58
Speaker 1: of her friends will do absolutely anything they can to
31:01
Speaker 1: avoid having to speak to someone they don't know super well.
31:05
Speaker 1: And I think this is this checks out, This tracks
31:07
Speaker 1: with the duke here. Um. Yeah, it's almost like there's
31:10
Speaker 1: the accounts, like I've been kind of indicating, like we
31:13
Speaker 1: don't really have accounts of him being cruel to workers,
31:16
Speaker 1: but some of the accounts, like there's there's sort of
31:18
Speaker 1: a divide, right and in the way that he's described
31:21
Speaker 1: as treating his workers, like he definitely did the thing
31:25
Speaker 1: where you like to jump out and spooked them, you know,
31:27
Speaker 1: I am assuming for his own amusement a little bit.
31:31
Speaker 1: It's it's not clear if he was trying to catch them,
31:34
Speaker 1: you know, not working and and punish them in some way. Uh.
31:38
Speaker 1: It could certainly have been that at times, but it
31:41
Speaker 1: really feels more like you described to been like the
31:43
Speaker 1: Spaghette kind of vibes. Um. But historians disagree a little
31:48
Speaker 1: bit on whether he was a very forward thinking duke
31:51
Speaker 1: and that he housed his workers, you know, on his property.
31:55
Speaker 1: He gave them access to what could be considered now
31:58
Speaker 1: like an employer health plan. Uh, they gave them regular
32:01
Speaker 1: doctor visits and all that. But then there are other
32:04
Speaker 1: um also he fed them of course, and provided them
32:07
Speaker 1: with all of the amenities they needed to live, and
32:10
Speaker 1: also made sure their families were comfortable as well, and
32:12
Speaker 1: also would continue to house the widows of workers who
32:17
Speaker 1: had passed away, whether through imagine there had to have
32:20
Speaker 1: been We don't have stories of this been, but I
32:22
Speaker 1: can't imagine this. All these tunnels were dug without some
32:25
Speaker 1: calamitous cavan at some point. Luck Yeah, luckily they were
32:29
Speaker 1: just under the surface. That's that's another big part of it.
32:33
Speaker 1: That's a very good point also, glad to report as
32:36
Speaker 1: far as we know, there wasn't a specific like widow tunnel.
32:40
Speaker 1: I don'tunderstand, but we have the other accounts been the
32:44
Speaker 1: of of him not of these things being largely exaggerated,
32:49
Speaker 1: and that perhaps these you know, housing for his workers
32:54
Speaker 1: were not all they were cracked up to be. Yeah,
32:56
Speaker 1: there's there's there's this image that it can't stop dragging
33:03
Speaker 1: myself up about, which is imagined, Like you said, imagine
33:07
Speaker 1: you're working on this the state. You're digging a tunnel,
33:10
Speaker 1: and this guy pops out. He's like, spaghett I'm just
33:13
Speaker 1: kidding you. Guys. Keep keep digging. You guys are killing it.
33:16
Speaker 1: You know. Don't look at me, No one look at me.
33:18
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going back in the tunnel. The thing is,
33:22
Speaker 1: the issues surrounding employment at this time are many and varied,
33:29
Speaker 1: not just with this duke. This duke in particular had,
33:33
Speaker 1: you know, like he had some good stuff going on
33:37
Speaker 1: in comparison to other employers at the time. And it's
33:40
Speaker 1: true that he did build a roller skating rink. That
33:45
Speaker 1: actually happened for his employees. They all got outfitted with
33:49
Speaker 1: certain stuff. Everybody got a nice suit of clothing and
33:53
Speaker 1: a donkey so they could move across the state easily.
33:58
Speaker 1: He even this kind of avier, and these standards earned
34:02
Speaker 1: him the moniker, the worker's friend. But in addition to
34:07
Speaker 1: that we see a bit of an authoritarian streak, which
34:10
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprising, right, because this guy is a member
34:13
Speaker 1: of a monarchical society. His employees eventually go on strike
34:20
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, you're having us dig these great hauls.
34:25
Speaker 1: That's ten thou square feet out of solid clay. We're
34:29
Speaker 1: doing all of this tunneling for you. We deserve to
34:34
Speaker 1: be treated better and we at least want more money.
34:38
Speaker 1: So when they go on strike, the Duke tells them, quote,
34:43
Speaker 1: you can strike as long as you like. It does
34:46
Speaker 1: not matter to me if the work is never done.
34:50
Speaker 1: And then like he like, he called their bluff and eventually, no, Max,
34:57
Speaker 1: they started digging again. They were like, Okay, he's kidding.
35:00
Speaker 1: He doesn't care. This guy is unreasonable. We cannot reason
35:04
Speaker 1: with him. And so the Duke can avoid other people, right,
35:09
Speaker 1: But the question is can he avoid aging? Can he
35:13
Speaker 1: avoid mortality? That's the one stranger he can't run from. Yeah, exactly.
35:18
Speaker 1: But look, it's not like he seemed to care about
35:22
Speaker 1: having friends or family. Um, his solitude was really his
35:26
Speaker 1: kind of stock in trade, and there are some accounts
35:28
Speaker 1: of him kind of buddying it up with some of
35:30
Speaker 1: the workers and sharing kind of you know, talking shop
35:33
Speaker 1: or or sharing gardening secret tricks or whatever, because he
35:37
Speaker 1: was into this stuff. But like we said, you can
35:39
Speaker 1: barricade yourself away from you know, humanity, but at the
35:42
Speaker 1: end of the day, you are still human, whether you
35:46
Speaker 1: want to be or not, and humans die. So he
35:50
Speaker 1: began to age, and with aging that eccentricity can kind
35:54
Speaker 1: of ramp up a little bit. So his construction projects
35:57
Speaker 1: started to get more and more weird and less and
36:00
Speaker 1: less functional. He even had a few natural lakes that
36:04
Speaker 1: existed on the grounds drained and cemented over. Like. I mean,
36:10
Speaker 1: this guy had some undiagnosed mental illness. I'm gonna go
36:14
Speaker 1: so far as to say, in my armchair psychiatrist position here,
36:18
Speaker 1: it certainly seems like there would be a name for this,
36:20
Speaker 1: and I would want to know. I would be very
36:21
Speaker 1: interested to dig a little deeper and find out what
36:24
Speaker 1: that is. I mean, antisocial personality disorder, perhaps agoraphobia, any
36:28
Speaker 1: of this combination of these things. But yeah, when you
36:31
Speaker 1: start like cementing over lakes, you're getting dangerously into like
36:35
Speaker 1: Howard Hughes territory, right, I mean, what the fish to see?
36:41
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, who knows, who knows what? What's
36:43
Speaker 1: what's going on there? Um. He also was very very
36:47
Speaker 1: close to having the servants quarters like demolished in order
36:51
Speaker 1: to build a glasslined path to the chapel. So he
36:55
Speaker 1: was somewhat of a religious man. I mean he wasn't
36:58
Speaker 1: necessarily taking this secret soldiers to church like some of
37:01
Speaker 1: the townspeople maybe you know, made up in their minds.
37:04
Speaker 1: But he did possibly want to have a secret glass
37:09
Speaker 1: you know, tunnel path to his chapel. Like. He didn't
37:12
Speaker 1: do that. He decided not to do that. Yeah, but
37:15
Speaker 1: he did decide to reduce the just the floor space
37:19
Speaker 1: that he was active in in his estate. So even
37:23
Speaker 1: though he had all these tunnels, as he got on
37:26
Speaker 1: an age, he started living in just five rooms of
37:33
Speaker 1: this compound. And just like the tunnels, these were all
37:38
Speaker 1: these rooms were painted pink, and he had toilets installed
37:42
Speaker 1: in every room because he's like, you know, I've earned
37:45
Speaker 1: my place in the world. I shall never again be
37:48
Speaker 1: in a room where I can't I don't know, poop
37:53
Speaker 1: if I want to. He was very bothered by that.
37:55
Speaker 1: It was important to him that there would be a
37:57
Speaker 1: toilet in each room. He also never left those five
38:00
Speaker 1: rooms as he as he grew older, except to go
38:04
Speaker 1: out on night walks. I'm a fan of night walks,
38:08
Speaker 1: I get you. So when John was on these night walks,
38:13
Speaker 1: he would have a servant walked exactly forty yards in
38:18
Speaker 1: front of him holding a lantern so he could kind
38:22
Speaker 1: to see where he was going. And when he absolutely
38:26
Speaker 1: had to go outside during the day, he wore like
38:31
Speaker 1: it was like the sun would burn him or something.
38:34
Speaker 1: You know, maybe he was a vampire. Null, maybe he
38:36
Speaker 1: was a vampire. He had two big coats, like overcoats,
38:40
Speaker 1: and they would wear a tall hat and he would
38:42
Speaker 1: hide behind an umbrella if people tried to talk to him.
38:46
Speaker 1: That is a true story. Yeah, no, it's very true.
38:48
Speaker 1: He's definitely a spooky dude, no question about it. And
38:51
Speaker 1: he did pass away in de Scember six of eighteen
38:53
Speaker 1: seventy nine. He was seventy nine years old and just
38:56
Speaker 1: about six months before his death. He uh he Amost's
39:00
Speaker 1: almost as though he sensed what was coming, because he
39:03
Speaker 1: was able to take one of those one of his
39:05
Speaker 1: famous carriage rides through those tunnels on his way to
39:09
Speaker 1: his other estate where he passed away in the hardcourt House.
39:12
Speaker 1: Kind of interesting that he didn't die in one of
39:14
Speaker 1: those five rooms. I guess he really did seem like
39:17
Speaker 1: he kind of knew what was coming. Interestingly enough, he
39:20
Speaker 1: was immortalized in a character that I think many of
39:24
Speaker 1: us will be familiar with, um Mr Badger from the
39:27
Speaker 1: Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, who is kind
39:31
Speaker 1: of an eccentric underground dweller himself who rules over his
39:35
Speaker 1: kingdom which is known as the wild Wood from his
39:38
Speaker 1: underground you know, kind of heidy hole, sort of a layer,
39:42
Speaker 1: and he is a very important character in in that book,
39:45
Speaker 1: along with Mr Toad and Mole. Uh. And there's a
39:48
Speaker 1: there's a very nice quote um that we found on
39:51
Speaker 1: an Atlas Obscure article that kind of is it's clear
39:55
Speaker 1: that Graham definitely was aware of this guy's legacy, says
39:59
Speaker 1: who can tell? L said? The badger people come, they
40:02
Speaker 1: stay for a while, they flourished, they build, and they go,
40:05
Speaker 1: but we remain. There were badgers here, I've been told
40:08
Speaker 1: long before that same city ever came to be. And
40:11
Speaker 1: now there are badgers here again. We are an enduring lot,
40:14
Speaker 1: and we may move out for a time, but we
40:16
Speaker 1: wait and we are patient, and back we come, and
40:20
Speaker 1: so it will ever be. Today. You can visit well
40:23
Speaker 1: Back Abbey. It is open for tours, but you won't
40:27
Speaker 1: be able to see the underground chambers. A lot of
40:30
Speaker 1: them have not been maintained, so they're probably not safe
40:34
Speaker 1: to enter. Uh. Sort of like a cavern system where
40:37
Speaker 1: you can only go to some parts of the caves.
40:41
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because, as Kaythor Johnson points out, john
40:46
Speaker 1: probably would have been down with this. It would have
40:48
Speaker 1: given him some sort of satisfaction. Maybe he would have
40:52
Speaker 1: felt good knowing that people can't go explore his tunnels
40:59
Speaker 1: to day, and with that his story ends, but his
41:03
Speaker 1: legacy remains. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone.
41:07
Speaker 1: What's the weirdest thing you've done to avoid hanging out with? People?
41:12
Speaker 1: Love to hear from you. Let us know, Let your
41:15
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians know on our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians,
41:20
Speaker 1: And I can ask Max, You've been kind of quiet
41:23
Speaker 1: for this one. What's what's the weirdest thing you've done
41:25
Speaker 1: to avoid people? Oh? Man, weirdest thing I've done to
41:28
Speaker 1: avoid people? That is, um, that's a treat question. I
41:33
Speaker 1: generally like to hide at work, where I'll be like, Oh,
41:36
Speaker 1: I have this really important thing I've to do at work,
41:38
Speaker 1: I can't come hang out, and then I'm like sitting
41:41
Speaker 1: here renaming files a lot. So you gotta actually do
41:45
Speaker 1: the thing or something some semblance of the thing you said,
41:48
Speaker 1: Otherwise you'd be a liar. I I appreciate your commitment
41:53
Speaker 1: to the bit. Max. I just started telling people, folks
41:56
Speaker 1: the listen and stuff they don't want you to know.
41:58
Speaker 1: We'll have maybe heard the moment we discovered this. But
42:02
Speaker 1: I just started telling people I have become strange, and
42:05
Speaker 1: if you say it with a straight face, usually people
42:09
Speaker 1: just vibe with it. It's a process, that's for sure.
42:13
Speaker 1: But this is the story has been a bit of
42:14
Speaker 1: a process to you guys. There's a whole there's there's
42:16
Speaker 1: details we couldn't even fit into the story. Uh. There
42:20
Speaker 1: there was a very weird um lawsuit in Nteno seven
42:24
Speaker 1: where a man named George hell Ambi Drew's claimed that
42:28
Speaker 1: our boy John had actually faked his own death. Um,
42:31
Speaker 1: that might be a story for another day, or even
42:33
Speaker 1: a story for our other show. Stuff they don't want
42:35
Speaker 1: you to know. It turns out it was largely completely bogus,
42:39
Speaker 1: but very very interesting. And that's really what brought him,
42:42
Speaker 1: in his whole story, back into the zeitgeist. And that's
42:45
Speaker 1: what caused Kenneth Graham to become a fan and write
42:49
Speaker 1: him into that that book Wind in the Willows. Um.
42:52
Speaker 1: But this has been a fantastic story and We hope
42:55
Speaker 1: that you've enjoyed it. I certainly have yes, Thanks as
42:58
Speaker 1: always to our number one badger, Max Williams. Thanks to
43:02
Speaker 1: our number two badger, Alex Williams, who composed this track.
43:06
Speaker 1: That's right, Max, Tell tell your brother he's number two
43:09
Speaker 1: now and of course number two. Oh wow, yeah, that's
43:14
Speaker 1: is that technically true? That is so so Also thanks
43:19
Speaker 1: to Gabe Luzier, our research associate. That's right. Thanks to
43:23
Speaker 1: Jonathas Trickland the quist or. Thanks to Christopher Haciota is
43:27
Speaker 1: here in spirit. He's Jeff Cote uh a leak. She's
43:30
Speaker 1: on vacation, so we'll call her here in spirit too.
43:32
Speaker 1: And thanks to you Ben Um this this was This
43:34
Speaker 1: was a fun one. We'll see you next time, Foix.
43:44
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
43:46
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
43:49
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.