The Moorland Letters Podcast
A new ten-part podcast will use documentary techniques to tell a fictional rural true crime story set on the Derbyshire moors.
The Moorland Letters will launch later this year, featuring investigative storytelling with folklore in a serialised format designed to mirror long-form true crime reporting.
Set between 1978 and 1983, the series centres on six unexplained deaths initially ruled as accidents or misadventure. The tone shifts when a local newspaper receives a typed letter claiming responsibility, signed only as “The Surveyor”.
The anonymous writer includes cryptic symbols, coordinates and coded messages, challenging police and press to follow a pattern across the landscape.
Across ten 20-minute episodes, the production combines narrated investigation, reconstructed interviews, archival-style recordings and expert commentary.
Although the case is fictional, the series is made with documentary realism and draws inspiration from established investigative podcasts and procedural reporting.
The narrative explores how stories are recorded and how some disappear, examining the relationship between documentation and mythology.
As the investigation develops, it also considers the role of media in amplifying criminal voices and the fragility of archival evidence.
Creator Stuart Wheeldon said: “A story about landscape, memory, and the danger of turning violence into narrative. The moor becomes both setting and character — a place where boundaries matter, and where the act of mapping can become something darker.”
The Moorland Letters will be available on all major podcast platforms.
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