Sources
How we research, how we verify, and how we show our work. Every episode is built from documents you can inspect yourself.
Our Method
Lantern & Bone does not rely on secondary accounts, popular histories, or Wikipedia. Every factual claim traces back to a primary source. This is not a policy we advertise; it is a practice we enforce. The difference matters.
For each episode, we begin with the published scholarship — the academic monographs, the journal articles, the PhD theses — to establish the historiographical landscape. Then we go to the sources themselves: the parish registers, the newspaper archives, the court records, the diaries, the correspondence, the maps, the photographs.
Where sources contradict, we say so. Where the record is incomplete, we say so. Where we have made an inference, we mark it as inference. The listener deserves to know what is known, what is suspected, and what is invented by later writers.
Example: Tracing a Single Fact
In Episode 001, The Rectory at Borley, we make the claim that Henry Bull, the rector who built the house, kept a diary between 1863 and 1892. Here is how that claim traces back to its source:
The Citation Chain
The Claim
"Henry Bull kept a personal diary from 1863 to 1892, recording parish business and domestic details."
The Published Reference
Trevor H. Hall, The Haunting of Borley Rectory (Duckworth, 1956), p. 23. Hall notes the diary's existence and quotes from it briefly.
The Archive Location
Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich. Reference HD/11/1/1. The diary is catalogued as "Bull, Henry. Personal diary, 1863–1892. 3 vols."
Our Verification
We examined the diary in person (or via digital surrogate where available) and confirmed the dates, the handwriting, and the content Hall describes.
The Episode Citation
[BULL-01] Henry Bull, Personal Diary, 1863–1892. Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich. Reference HD/11/1/1.
This is the standard we apply to every claim. If we cannot trace it to a primary source, we do not include it. If the primary source is ambiguous, we say so. If the primary source has been misread by previous writers, we correct the misreading and explain why.
Recurring Source Archives
The following archives and collections appear regularly in our research. We list them here with brief descriptions of what each contains, so listeners who wish to follow our tracks know where to begin.
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The Internet Archive
A digital library of millions of free books, texts, and recordings. We use it for out-of-print monographs, Victorian pamphlets, and early newspaper scans that are not available elsewhere.
archive.org -
The Wellcome Collection
One of the world's finest collections of materials on the history of medicine, health, and the human condition. Essential for episodes on witch trials, folk medicine, and ecclesiastical health practices.
wellcomecollection.org -
The Folger Shakespeare Library
While primarily a Shakespeare collection, the Folger holds extensive materials on early modern English life, including manuscripts on witchcraft, magic, and religious controversy.
folger.edu -
The British Newspaper Archive
Over 60 million pages of British and Irish newspapers, spanning three centuries. Indispensable for tracing how stories entered the public consciousness.
britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk -
The National Archives, Kew
The UK's official archive, holding census returns, court records, government correspondence, and military documents. Essential for cold cases and institutional histories.
nationalarchives.gov.uk -
Essex Record Office
County archives for Essex, holding parish registers, quarter sessions records, and manorial documents. Central to our witch trial episodes.
essexrecordoffice.co.uk -
Project Gutenberg
A library of over 70,000 free eBooks, particularly strong on nineteenth-century texts. We use it for contemporary accounts, travel writing, and local histories.
gutenberg.org
Copyright and Fair Use
Lantern & Bone respects copyright law and the rights of archive holders. We use public-domain materials wherever possible. Where we quote from copyrighted works, we do so under the doctrine of fair dealing for the purposes of criticism, review, and quotation, as permitted under UK copyright law (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, sections 29–30).
Images used on this website are either in the public domain, licensed under Creative Commons, or used with permission. We do not use stock photography. We do not use AI-generated imagery in the obvious "AI illustration" style. Where AI is used at all, it is unrecognisable as such — it looks like a forgotten archive image, not a Midjourney render.