London Urban Legends Read Online Free PDF

wrestling man. His daughter, Elizabeth I, shimmied out of the Tower of London during her incarceration in 1554 to take wine in the nearby, but now long-gone, Tiger Tavern. She is also said to have stopped at the Tiger for a drink before heading to Tilbury to speak with the troops before they met the Spanish Armada, and to have used a secret passage that runs from the Old Queen’s Head pub in Islington to Canonbury Tower to meet in secret with the Earl of Essex; not that Essex ever lived in Canonbury Tower.
    Pubs are public places, a neutral ground with alcohol and comfy chairs and so are ideal places to meet old friends and new people. If urban legend is to be believed, then the great and good of London history were just as keen on a liaison in the pub as highwaymen and gangsters. The Nell of Old Drury has a secret passage running under the road which Charles II used to visit Nell Gwynne. The pub wasn’t named after her then, being known at the time as The Lamb. The Red Lion at No. 23 Crown Passage has a tunnel, according to legend, running to No. 79 Pall Mall which Nell used to meet Charles in the pub. When Antony Clayton, an expert on underground London, inquired with the landlady in 2007, he was told of two doors in the cellar facing south in the direction of Pall Mall. (Are they ‘his’ and ‘hers’?) When the Pindar of Wakefield on Gray’s Inn Road – now Water Rats – was rebuilt in 1878, an underground tunnel was found heading in the direction of Bagnigge Wells, a pleasure garden where Nell and Charles met up. I’ve heard speculation that nearly every pub in London with the name Nelson in it was either a place Nelson and Emma Hamilton met, or was started by a wounded sailor pensioned out of the Napoleonic Wars with enough money to start a pub. Attentions in the pub are not always welcome: there is a story of Shakespeare being a regular at the George Inn on Borough High Street and catching the attention of a barmaid. One day Will was in the pub with the keys to the Globe on his person, when the barmaid grabbed the keys and placed them in her cleavage along with the key to her own room, asking the bard which set he desired.
    When not meeting for a date in an inn or tavern, the famous did enjoy a drink. Charles Dickens had a reputation for being a furious drinker and countless pubs claim him as a regular, as they do Dr Johnson. Several pubs claim that Christopher Wren ordered them built in order to water the workers building St Paul’s Cathedral: amongst those claiming this association are The Salutation on Newgate Street, now gone, and the Old Bell on Fleet Street. Ye Old Watling on Watling Street also claims to have been built for St Paul’s workers as well as having an upstairs room in which Wren worked during the project.
    Another result of a royal visit is an ordinary place being given a special licence. In the rural areas this could be a passing king with a thirst changing a blacksmiths into a pub so he could get a drink. In London the most famous version is the Castle on Cowcross Street becoming a pawnbroker after George IV found himself at a cock fight at nearby Hockley-in-the-Hole without any cash. The Castle was the nearest pub, so he went in to borrow money from the landlord, using a watch as a deposit. The landlord did not recognise the royal but agreed nonetheless and George won the next bet, redeemed his watch and granted a Royal Warrant to the pub to also trade as a pawnbroker. Three brass balls still hang in the pub as a memorial and a large painting commemorates the event inside. There is another London story of a monarch granting a drinking establishment a special licence after a favour. When Edward III had run out of money, he borrowed some from several City Vintners. Instead of repaying them, he granted them the right to sell wine without a licence. This is why the Boot and Flogger wine bar, tucked down Redcross Way in Borough, can sell wine without a