Forgotten Urban Histories Keep

The Bourbon Tunnel

The Bourbon Tunnel: The King Who Dug Himself an Escape Beneath the lively streets of Naples lies a tunnel built out of royal nerves and Neapolitan stone. In this episode, we follow the curious story of King Ferdinand II, who ordered a secret escape route carved straight through centuries of underground history — Roman aqueducts, Renaissance quarries, and everything in between. The plan was simple: if the people revolted (again), he’d slip out of the palace and vanish into a private subterranean highway. The tunnel was dug, the engineering was impressive… and Ferdinand never used it once. Instead, the Bourbon Tunnel went on to have a far more interesting life — as a wartime shelter, an underground garage, an air-raid hospital, and eventually a hidden archive of rusted cars, abandoned statues, and stories left behind by the people who relied on it. Join us as we explore the layers, the legends, and the sheer Neapolitan character of a tunnel that began as one man’s escape plan and ended up becoming part of the city’s soul.

The Catacombs of Paris: The Unnamed Dead.

Beneath the bright boulevards of Paris lies another city — silent, cold, and built entirely of human bone. In this episode, we explore how overflowing cemeteries, disease, revolution, and empire all led to the creation of a vast ossuary beneath the French capital — a labyrinth that holds the remains of over six million people. We walk through the history that placed them there, and then shine a light on four of the countless unnamed Parisians whose lives and deaths now form the foundations of the modern city. From plague in the Middle Ages, to a washerwoman in the Enlightenment, to a young clerk caught in the Revolution, to a Napoleonic soldier who never made it home — their stories are still present in the stone. This is the forgotten Paris: not the monuments above, but the silent world below.

The Mole of Edge Hill: Liverpool's Mysterious Tunnels

Beneath the quiet streets of Liverpool lies a labyrinth carved by hand over two centuries ago — a network of tunnels with no clear purpose and no surviving plans.  In this debut episode, Mark Kerrigan explores the mystery of Joseph Williamson, the eccentric visionary known as The Mole of Edge Hill. From vast underground chambers to the strange relics left behind, discover the story of one man’s hidden world — and the secrets still buried beneath the city.