Cwm Garon by L T C Rolt

The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast

Tony Walker

Science Fiction, Fiction, Drama

4.9 • 835 Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sponsored by the generosity of Gavin Critchley. Thanks, Gavin! The valley of Cwm Garon is a place of ancient ruins and emerald meadows, tucked deep within the Welsh Borderland. When John Carfax first arrives, it seems a sanctuary, far from the grime of the city. But the stillness here is deceptive; it is a silence that watches. As the mountain shadows lengthen, the beauty of the landscape begins to distort into something more sinister4 Among the brooding crags and shifting mists, a feeling of unwelcome intrusion takes hold In Cwm Garon, the land itself remembers, and the shadows have never truly been empty. Publication Details "Cwm Garon" was first published in 1948 as part of L.T.C. Rolt’s landmark supernatural collection, Sleep No More. It is frequently anthologized as a masterclass in the "antiquarian" ghost story tradition. Author Biography L.T.C. Rolt (1910–1974) was a prolific English writer and engineer who co-founded the Inland Waterways Association to preserve Britain's canal heritage. While famous for his biographies of industrial icons, he is equally celebrated for his atmospheric weird fiction, often set in the isolated landscapes he encountered during his travels. Don't forget: 24/7 Ad free stream of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast on Internet radio. It goes on and on and on and on. For all you not-so sleepy heads, and better still: it's free! www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Everybody dies, don't think?
0:10.5	Everybody come back.
0:12.6	Isn't that so?
0:14.4	You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you?
0:17.4	How do the dead come back, mother?
0:20.0	What's the secret?
0:23.1	Kumgaron by LTC wrote.
0:27.4	After a long winter spent in the fog and grime of London,
0:31.9	this Welsh borderland was balm to the eye.
0:35.6	Spring had only just touched the soot-blackened trees in the squares with
0:39.9	lightest film of green, but here she had already run riot, dressing the whole countryside in
0:46.1	fresh splendour. So thought John Carfax, as the labouring branch-line train bore him slowly over the last stage of his long journey to Wales.
0:57.3	The map lay disregarded on his knee as he watched the moving panorama of hills stippled with
1:02.9	April cloud shadows, of neat farms buried in the white mist of fruit orchards, and of rich meadows
1:09.7	dotted with sheep or the red cattle of Herefordshire.
1:13.5	He was in that mood of exhilaration and heightened perception which only a well-earned and long-awaited
1:18.6	holiday in new surroundings can awaken, and he sniffed delightedly at the limpid air, crystal-like
1:25.6	as spring water, yet somehow filled with unidentifiable sweetness,
1:31.5	which blew in through the open window. He was alone in the compartment now, but it had evidently
1:37.0	been market day in the town where he had left, the London Express, for the little train
1:42.3	standing at the bay platform had been filled with country folk.
1:45.9	Black gated farmers and their plump basket-laden wives had all gone. But still he seemed to
	...

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