Forgotten Urban Histories: The extraordinary secrets of ordinary cities.
Forgotten Urban Histories
Forgotten Urban Histories is a sharp, atmospheric, and beautifully immersive journey through the magnificent architectural layers hidden right beneath our feet. The premise is simple: while modern cities must constantly build, modernise, and push forward, we are incredibly fortunate that they rarely erase where they have been. Instead of demolishing their history, they preserve it in layers—sealing obsolete infrastructure beneath the tarmac, padlocking the gates to frozen time capsules, and creating a parallel, subterranean world where the past continues to exist directly alongside the present.
This podcast is a detail-driven exploration of those incredible spatial anomalies. We bypass the polished tourist landmarks to uncover the spectacular omissions that most people walk straight past every day: abandoned subway networks untouched for decades, secret wartime headquarters, buried waterways, and hidden structures waiting silently in the dark just out of view.
Combining rigorous historical research with a lightly witty, observational eye, Forgotten Urban Histories treats the world’s great metropolises as living, breathing archaeological marvels. From the deep blue clay of London to the restricted, silent ruins of the Venetian Lagoon, we pull back the curtain on the everyday landscape to find the awe and amazement buried just out of sight. This isn't a lecture on where a city has been; it's a celebration of the extraordinary, forgotten spaces we are lucky enough to still be able to rediscover and explore.
About the Host
Mark Kerrigan holds a Bachelor of Education and a Master’s degree in Theological Studies. With over twenty years of experience as an educator, Mark excels at breaking down complex, rigorous academic research into engaging, accessible, and fascinating narratives. He is a multi-disciplinary creator under the Narranimate Studios banner, hosting both The B-Side Bible and the Forgotten Urban Histories podcast.
Mark is also a versatile author, having written two speculative fiction novels as well as two children's novels. Across all his projects, he combines his background in education, narrative world-building, and historical criticism to strip the varnish off the past—delivering it exactly as it was: loud, accurate, and completely off the record.
Forgotten Urban Histories: The extraordinary secrets of ordinary cities.
The Catacombs of Paris: The Unnamed Dead.
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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.
