"Opening the Door" by Arthur Machen

Edward VII was king from 1901 to 1910, so 20th century

Charles Spurgeon was a notable 19th century Baptist preacher in the UK

Canonbury is an area in Islington, North London

It appears there was a historical Secretan Jones, born in Wales, who was a clergyman, and who lived in the 19th and early 20th century. Not easy for me to get any useful information about him from google, but if anybody happens to live in south Wales, it might be fun to try to track down the real information about him and see how much it lines up with what is presented here.

Mozarabs: a modern historical term for the Iberian Christians, including Christianized Iberian Jews, who lived under Muslim rule in Al-Andalus following the conquest of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom by the Umayyad Caliphate.

sennight: a week

Tollit Square: Not a real place at the present day. It's possible it was a hundred years ago and has since been demolished or renamed. Or it might be completely fictional. Considering he gives a very specific address (39 Tollit Square), I'm guessing it is fictional.

Angel, Islington: A tube station on Islington High Street, opened in 1901

"Car chou est li sanc di ma nouviele loy, li miens meismes" - google translate couldn't even figure out what language this was supposed to be. I mean, it did guess French, but then couldn't actually translate it based on that guess. A search for the phrase only produces this work, it appears nowhere else. It seems obvious enough it is trying to be a Romance language, but since we don't know which one, I don't know what type of pronunciation to give it. If you have a guess as to what it is supposed to be, leave a comment below.

The picture used is of a garden of a home on St. Pauls Road in Islington, which should be in Canonbury (which is not a strictly defined area). It does have that overrun feel mentioned in this story.

To follow along: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0607681h.html#3

Well, that was a rather fast reading pace. It was a late night recording session and I must have been unusually tired, which is when I revert to my more natural speaking pace, which is fast fast fast.