Today’s episode of Professor Amanda Vickery’s Voices from the Old Bailey can be accessed here. The second of four episodes it deals with Wicked Women ( or some women who weren’t very wicked at all, just rather unlucky in life.) Fascinating radio. It was recorded at one of my favourite places, the Denis Severs House Museum, 18 Folgate Street, in Spitalfields. As Amanda notes-if only these walls could talk. Professor Peter King- one of my favourite writers on 18th century crime EVER!-is on today’s programme, giving his usual clear explanation of the workings of the 18th century criminal justice system. Discover the 1790s equivalent of today’s chat-up line, “Do you come here often” and listen to songs from The Beggar’s Opera…..how can you resist it?

And today’s edition of Cash in the Attic on BBC1 has some lovely scenes of Lyme Regis and a surprise link to Jane Austen. One of the items the family sold was a legal deed,  and one of the parties to the deed was  Catheine Knight, kindly adoptive mother of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward. The deed  dated from 1799. (The important part is approximately  20 minutes into the programme). It eventually went to auction and was sold for £160 – normally, in my experience, these deeds are commonplace and sell for  betwwen£10-30 each, so the Austen effect was well in evidence here. Sadly, this is not available to view to overseas visitors to this site, but is available for another 6 days on the I-Player here.