Sleep No More by L T C Rolt
Happy Halloween everyone.
I hope you are all doing well. So, I may be going on a bit of a break for a couple of weeks. Mainly because I need to catch up on my reading so I can do more reviews for you all. I’m not sure how many people get to read these reviews, I’m one of many thousands I’m sure. However, I am enjoying doing these, so will continue.
This special Halloween review is for a collection I always tell people to read ( including Mike Mignola, hope he got a copy, it would be right up his street!) If you do manage to read it, please let me know what you think. I would love to know.
Halloween needs a good selection of short stories. M R James, Edgar Allen Poe, and others. Rolt only published a handful of supernatural stories, but his unique style and setting have made Sleep No More, in my opinion, a unsung classic in the genre of British ghost stories. I read this collection every Halloween. It is my favourite collection of Ghost Stories. It’s also a book very special to me.
It was introduced to me by Bill, my much-missed friend. Not coming from any kind of technical or engineering background, he introduced me to steam fairs, old cars, Narrowboats, and the importance of our industrial past. This was only something that I had been taught in very dry history classes at school. Bill opened up a whole new world to me, discussed over a few pints of beer in the local pub. I spent many a time picking up classic cars, old pitch pine furniture, old tools, steam engine parts and even on one occasion a Victorian safe with him. I even went to Monaco with him to watch the Historic Grand Prix. His two big heroes were Isambard Kingdom Brunel ( his son’s hero as well ) and LTC Rolt. Rolt wrote the book Narrowboat about his life on the canals which was Bill’s favourite book of all time. He and another supernatural writer Robert Aickman were integral to the rebirth of the canal system in the UK.
As you can probably tell, I miss him very much. He always had sage advice as a parent with a young family and had a wonderful laugh sitting in the sun at the back of our cottage drinking cheap French lager. He was a man of the seasons and celebrated some of the old festival days and ways of Albion. We always celebrated the summer and winter solstice with an evening in the pub. I’ll be raising a glass to him on 21 December again.
Bill never really understood my fascination with horror books and movies. So when, one day he told me about the book and managed to find me a copy I was as surprised as anyone. The copy in the photo is the very on he gave me. He said it was the only supernatural book he had ever read and thoroughly enjoyed. I cannot thank him enough for introducing me to it. It’s a standout collection of creepy stories, especially for fans of traditional ghost tales and those fascinated by the industrial landscapes of mid-20th century Britain.
L.T.C. Rolt was an engineer, historian, and prolific writer who dedicated much of his life to preserving Britain’s industrial and transportation heritage. He authored well-known works on British railways, canals, and engineering, and was instrumental in founding the Inland Waterways Association and the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, which helped save heritage railways and waterways. This deep involvement in British industrial history set him apart from other ghost story writers, such as M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood, who focused more on rural or antiquarian settings.
Sleep No More was first published in 1948, Rolt’s technical knowledge and love for machinery profoundly influenced his ghost stories. He was fascinated by the intersections of modernity and the supernatural, and he brought a strong sense of authenticity to his ghost stories by setting them in industrial locations — canals, railways, foundries, and mines — where the presence of restless spirits clashed with the harsh, practical world of machinery and labour. This made his tales hauntingly original; in Rolt’s world, industrial progress itself becomes haunted, and the ghosts seem to emerge as a kind of backlash against modern encroachment.
The stories are notable for their sense of unease and restrained atmosphere. Rather than relying on overt horror or gore, Rolt uses a creeping sense of dread and builds tension slowly, often leaving the supernatural elements ambiguous. This technique echoes M.R. James, but Rolt’s approach is distinct because he ties his stories so closely to the industrial landscapes he knew well. His work captures the idea that modern engineering, no matter how advanced, cannot entirely erase ancient fears and supernatural mysteries. These stories suggest that the human drive to conquer nature and industrialize may awaken something eerie or malevolent.
His choice of settings reflects a sense of mystery within seemingly ordinary or pragmatic places. For Rolt, an old railway tunnel or an abandoned foundry holds just as much terror as an ancient mansion or isolated village. The one thing that always stood out about these stories was that they were ghost stories for the working man. These are Urban Ghost stories. Not the academies of professors, learned scholars, ancient libraries, or cursed religious buildings. These are Car Drivers, Mineworkers, train tracks, and factories This choice of backdrop also serves to highlight an uneasy relationship between the past and the present, suggesting that the spirits haunting his industrial settings are reminders of those who suffered or were neglected in the march of progress.
The full list of stories :
The Mine
The Cat Returns
Bosworth Summit Pound
New Corner
Cwm Garon
A Visitor at Ashcombe
The Garside Fell Disaster
World’s End
Hear Not My Steps
Agony of Flame
Hawley Bank Foundry
Music Hath Charms
The Shouting
The House of Vengeance
The Passing of the Ghost Story
The first story, The Mine, I think Niel Marshall’s The Descent lifted heavily from it. I read this a few years after I saw the film. Have a read, see what you think.
Other notable ones are:
“Hawley Bank Foundry”
This story tells of a foundry plagued by supernatural occurrences. Workers report ghostly figures and strange sounds, blending the mundanity of factory work with an overwhelming sense of dread. It has almost Lovecraft elements.
“New Corner”
Considering this is a story about a car driving race and starts quite technical, it becomes an unsettling tale of ancient landscapes and cursed histories that have stuck with me for a long time.
“Cwm Garon”
Rolt taps into Welsh mythology and folklore, setting the story in a remote, wild valley. While the location is more rural, the engineer protagonist encounters eerie forces in this isolated area. The story suggests that even the most remote places, untouched by machinery, have their own secrets that resist human understanding. The last line of this tale is one of the most terrifying I have ever read.
However, they are all bloody excellent. They need a Radio series for sure. Any of these tales read next to an open fire on a winters night will chill you to the bone.
Sometimes I wish Rolt had written more ghost tales, but maybe that would have watered down the impact of this collection. I think it is a significant work in British supernatural fiction. He taps into how industrialization affects both physical landscapes and human psyches in a way other authors have not. In Rolt’s hands, modern machinery and supernatural elements coexist uneasily, with the latter almost acting as a form of nature’s revenge. The stories imply that by building machines and infrastructures that challenge natural landscapes, humans may inadvertently summon ancient forces that modern engineering cannot control. They are in the tradition of supernatural fiction but they explore the haunting effects of industrialization on human lives, blending engineering expertise with a classic, restrained horror style.
This book has a history to me because of who it was introduced to me by, so I suppose I’m going to be biased. I am a massive fan of M R James, Lovecraft Blackwood, etc. However, if you have never heard of Rolt or read these stories, I urge you to find a copy or read it online. These are an absolute must for anyone who appreciates ghost stories that are subtle, atmospheric, and rooted in the rich yet sometimes chilling history of Britain’s industrial era. If I ever see a copy in the wild , I always pick it up. That way, I can pass it onto someone else. Most recently Andy , host of the Breakfast In The Ruins podcast .
Rolt was a wonderful industrial history author outside of his one foray into supernatural fiction and well regarded. I do recommend Narrowboat, probably Rolt’s most famous book. A fascinating glimpse into Britain's industrial history. No ghosts in that one though.
Happy Halloween. Be safe. Be Spooky. Be good.
