The Last Lamp on Marlowe Lane — by Hana Ridgewell

The Last Lamp on Marlowe Lane — A Sleep Story
By Hana Ridgewell

Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.
→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com
→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound

Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:
→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts
→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts

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Tonight, down at the bend of Marlowe Lane, a small brass lamplighter named Pim climbs his ladder at dusk — as he has for longer than anyone remembers — to tend the last warm lamp in a town gone cold and grey.

"He keeps the lamp alight, and the lamp, in its turn, keeps him going. Each tends the other. Neither could carry on alone."

Pim is the kind of character you want to carry home: small, steadfast, worn in the right places. Hana Ridgewell narrated children's audiobooks in London for years before writing sleep stories of her own — and you can feel that care in every line. Pour something warm. Let the cobblestones go honey-gold around you.

Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams.

— Ian & Alex

Includes mentions of: Mention of Loss, Memory.

What is Sleepbound Nights (free)?

Original bedtime stories for grown-ups — cosy serial fiction, written and narrated by us, slow enough to fall asleep to.

Quiet villages and kitchen tables: a toast maker on a Sunday, a bookshop cat who won't settle, a family farm in 1953, a garden almanac kept through the year. Low stakes on purpose. Nothing bad happens. That's deliberate.

Each episode is a whole evening — four hours or so — so you can put it on, settle in, and not be woken by the end of it.

Every series has its own writer: Eliza Hartley writes The Toast Maker, Margery Cole writes Green Hollow, Cecily Ash keeps the Elderwick Almanac.

More of it, ad-free, with new members-only episodes every week:

→ Supercast — all three Sleepbound shows in one app. Free for 7 days, cancel any time:
https://sleepboundstudios.supercast.com
→ Patreon — the same readings, plus the community:
https://www.patreon.com/c/SleepBound

Just me and Ian and the writers. Recorded gently, for sleep.