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Episode details

Sounds,19 Jan 2026,57 mins

A Haunting at the Higgins

Weird in the Wade

Available for over a year

The Higgins Bedford (a museum and art gallery.) has a long history of unexplained and supernatural phenomena witnessed by customers and staff alike. It became so infamous that from the 1980s until 2010 ghost tours and investigations were held at the museum. The site includes an old brewery, beautiful town house, munitions tower, and the mound of Bedford castle. Can this history shed any light on the paranormal activity reported and recorded in a ghost dossier. Why did the haunting activity cease in 2011? Nat investigates with the help of The Higgins curators, Victoria Partridge and Lydia MacDonald. One museum item, a doll named Queenie comes under some scrutiny so Nat also speaks with Fiona Dodwell author of A Cursed Collection of Haunted Dolls. Special thanks to The Higgins Bedford and Victoria and Lydia in particular. Thank you also to Fiona Dodwell for her insight into haunted dolls and why so many of us find these childhood items so creepy. More information, images and links can be found on the show blog weirdinthewade.blog Do you have a memory of Bedford Museum and the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery from the last 40 years? You can get in touch with Nat about this or anything else weird in the wade related at: [email protected] Weird in the Wade will be on a short break during February returning with an episode celebrating women who haunt, are haunted or investigate the paranormal with special guests Evelyn Hollow and Deborah Hyde of Uncanny fame, and Bethan Briggs Miller of Eerie Essex, and Steph Lay from the City of Secrets project Weird in the Wade is researched, written, presented and produced by Nat Doig. Additional editing on this episode by Tess Savigear. Theme music and the creepy doll theme by Tess Savigear.

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