Wall Crawler

and even people throughout time that defy explanation. For example, it was once believed that the Freemasons were tied to the Knights Templar, hiding clues to the location of an immense treasure in the symbols they built into their buildings. Many Ivy League schools are home to secret societies that help shape wealthy elites into titans of industry and world leaders. And then there are places spots in the world that continued to inspire curiosity, sites like Stonehenge and the Great

Pyramid of Giza. And in the modern world we might find such mystery in a place like Shugborough Hall, located in Staffordshire, England. Shugborough Hall is a massive four hundred year old estate that was passed down from the British Diocese to a man named William Anson. In sixty four, Williams grandson had the original house demolished and erected a three story mansion in its place. But it was his son Thomas that had the most profound effect on the home.

Yet Thomas had grand plans for Shugborough Hall. He added two new structures to either side of the main house, as well as a monument on the grounds well. He commissioned the monument, but like everything else, it was paid for by his younger brother, Admiral George Anson. The monument was designed and carved by Flemish sculptor Peter Shemaker and depicts a relief copy of a painting known as The

Arcadian Shepherds by Nicholas Poussan. Beneath the relief, there is an inscription of several letters on the monument, Oh you, oh, S V A v V, which sits elevated between the letters D and M, and no one as any idea what they mean. However, that doesn't mean that people haven't tried figuring it out. Most assumptions tie the letters back to Latin, where each character represents a word in a phrase,

like an acronym or initialism. For example, one theory suggests that it's a dedication to George Asen's late wife, each letter representing the Latin words that translate loosely into best of wives, best of sisters, most devoted widower, dedicates this to your virtues. Others, though disagree. A former n s a linguist, thought the letters might mean I pray that all may know the way of true life, a reference to a biblical verse in the Book of John. One

author in two thousand fourteen went a different route. Rather than a Latin phrase hiding within an inscription, Dave Ramsden interpreted the entire monument as a funerary dedication letters and all that meant the inscription wasn't an initialism, but a secret code intended for one person, someone known as the Shepherdess. Using a complicated decryption cipher, Ramsden was able to decode the letters into the name Magdalen. And that's not the

only religious association with the piece either. A painter of the original work, Nicholas Poussan, was alleged to have been a member of the Priory of Scion, a secret society dedicated to preserving the truth about the Holy Grail. That it wasn't a cup at all, but rather Mary Magdalen's

womb and the bloodline that descended from it. It was believed that Poussan had hidden numerous symbols and secret messages within his painting, which were then copied into the monument at Schagboro Hall, But the additional letter is under the relief, only added to the mystery. Despite the countless theories, translations, and interpretations, we may never know the meaning of those letters.

For one very important reason. While Peter she Maakers may have carved the monuments himself, it turns out that the letters were actually added later by someone else entirely, and nobody knows who. In the musical Gypsy, a trio of performers tell young Gypsy rose Lee that if she wants to be successful on stage, she needs a gimmick, something to make her unique and memorable in the eyes of the audience. A gimmick, they told her, would mean recognition,

and that meant longevity and legacy. Harry Gardner had a gimmick as well. It didn't require special equipment or a fancy costume, though he did it all over town, with onlookers often stopping to watch him perform, holding their hands over their mouths and terror. Harry, you see like to climb? He started doing it in nineteen o five and never stopped. Any building he saw became a potential place to show off, thanks in part to lacks public performance laws at the time.

The turn of the century saw the birth of the skyscraper. Tall majestic buildings that turned flat skylines into living e k g readouts, and big buildings meant big business. In order to drum up that business, companies needed ways to capture public attention. That's how Harry made a name for himself and earned much of his living as a climber for hire. He started off with flagpoles and smaller structures

before moving on to larger office buildings. In nineteen sixteen, his small town exploits took him all the way to Omaha, Nebraska, were more than thirty thousand people watched from the street below as he climbed to the top of the Omaha World Herald building. He saw his talent as nothing more than a series of steps, a mechanical set of instructions he had to follow to ensure success. On the day of his climb in Omaha, he was quoted as saying,

it seems all a part of a day's work. To me, there's the wall with little projections, ledges and places to which I must hold, and there's the top of the building where I'm going to stop. However, while Harry didn't talk up his skills that much, word got around about what he could do, and other cities wanted in on the act. Months after his feet at the Omaha World Herald, the Detroit News hired him to scale their building as

a marketing stunt for their ad department. The following year, he climbed up sixteen stories to the top of the Empire Building in Birmingham, Alabama. Is work took him all over North America and Europe, working his way up and down skyscrapers wearing only his street clothes. In West Virginia, he scaled the north wall of the Logan County Courthouse, where he hoisted the U. S. Flag. In British Columbia, he climbed to the top of the seventeen story World Building,

where the Vancouver World newspaper was being published. Over a span of almost two decades, Harry Gardner managed to climb over seven hundred buildings. However, it wasn't until nineteen eighteen that he had an idea. World War one had just ended, and Harry wanted to celebrate the only way he knew how. There were only two problems. First, he had to choose which building he should climb, and second, he'd been operating

without any kind of insurance policy in place. No company would back him given his line of work, and he was too much of a risk. But if anything happened to him, his loved ones would be without the help they needed. So Harry formed a l On November eleventh of nineteen, he went into the Bank of Hamilton's in Ontario, Canada,

and purchased a one thou dollar bond. While he was there, he also managed to secure for himself an insurance policy, and once he'd finished signing the papers, he left and continued on his way, all to great applause from the crowd. And no, he didn't take an audience with him inside the bank. They were still on the ground outside, and Harry well he decided to take a less direct route to the bank's insurance offices. He climbed up the side of the building and poked in through one of the

open windows, where an employee handed him a pen. It's no wonder that former President Grover Cleveland once referred to Harry by such an unusual nickname, the Human Fly. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosity these podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with

how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.