Our guide to taking up a drinking habit - permanently...
Living in England is all about getting shit faced, always has been,always will be. The only problem with the whole drinking thing is it gets quite a lot harder when you're no longer around. In fact, if I was pushed, I'd say being dead is more of a break on having a good time than living with a parent or being in a long-term relationship.
However, the people of London are an industrious lot. Not only are they building rockets and brewing wine in their sheds, (as well as figuring out new and inventive ways to bypass the bouncers at 333) a few of them have also found ways to get slaughtered even after they've finally bitten the dust.
So, this Halloween, let's salute those brave souls who have decided to take up a drinking habit. Forever.
Ye Olde Cock Tavern
Fleet Street
If a haunting depends on a tortured soul, then poets have to be a group of people doomed to wander the earth for eternity.
When he was alive, Oliver Goldsmith was a writer, poet, physician, gambling addict, and all round unlucky sod. Constantly in debt he worked as a hack writer for the publishers of Fleet Street, before shuffling off the mortal coil after 'ironically' misdiagnosing his own Kidney infection in 1774.
Not content with being dead, his smiling disembodied head is reportedly known to be spotted at the rear entrance of Ye Olde Cock Tavern in Fleet Street, famously scaring the bejesus out of one poor unsuspecting bar maid.
The Old Queens Head
Essex Road
Everyone knows that the Old Queen's Head is good place to stand around guzzling pints and checking out fresh bands, but did you know that it is also a good place to brush shoulders with the supernatural? No, didn't think so.
Believe it or not, this unasuming Islington pub is one of the oldest boozers in North London, with one Sir Walter Raleigh, beheaded discover of tobacco rumoured to be amongst its previous owners. A pub this old attracts spooks like one of those blue lamps attracts flies, and the Old Queen's Head boasts several good stories. The one about the little girl who runs ahead of people on the stairs, slams doors and generally mopes about crying seems to be everyone favourite.
Think about that next time you're checking out Vampire Weekend...
The Grenadier
Wilton Row
The Grenadier pub in Belgravia may look on the outside to be a normal, rather charming boozer, but it is in fact the scene of a tragic altercation that would have lasting consequences.
Way, way back (no one's really certain) the pub was once part of the barracks of the Duke's of Wellington regiment, and as you'd imagine for a pub full of squaddies, was a place of high tempers. Anyway, one day some Guardsmen were drinking and playing cards, when one of their number was caught cheating. Not content with just giving him a bit of a kicking, the unlucky offender was stripped, beaten and chucked down the stairs to his death by his fellow soldiers.
Apparently and perhaps understandably, the deceased guardsman is still a little pissed at how he was treated and is said to hang around the pub to this day, generally making a nuisance of himself by smashing bottles, moving things and jumping out on BBC camera crews.
The Volunteer
Baker Street
The Volunteer prides itself on being the best pub in Baker Street, and it would seem that one former customer seems to agree, he's only been hanging around the place for almost 400 years!
Once the site of a magnificent mansion owned by much feared 17th century noble man Richard Neville until it burned down in 1654, the pubs former owner has been seen on many occassions in the pub's cellar, strolling about in a rather fetching surcoat, breaches and some lavish stockings.
Neville is reportably a pretty active spook, and is your best chance if you actually want to see a ghost. Although he was notably absent when Most Haunted showed up with their cameras a few years ago. Seems old Richard hates Sky Living as much as the rest of us...
The Spaniard's Inn
Hampstead
Why anyone drinks in this place is beyond me, it's so obviously cursed. Built by two Spanish brothers back in the 15th century, the pub got off to an inauspicious start when the two proprietors killed each other in a duel, although they must be the only people who drunk here who don't actually haunt the place - they're probably running a bar in the afterlife instead.
Even though it does a pretty good roast now-a-days, The Spaniard's Inn is so haunted, it's impossible to walk anywhere in its ground and not happen upon a spook. Upstairs was reputedly the lair of Dick Turpin, and the highwayman's ghost is sometimes seen in the bar, possibly avoiding the ghosts of his victims who are rumoured to prowl the surrounding heath looking for their murderer.
If that wasn't enough, downstairs is haunted by the spectral hand of 'Black Dick' - a money lender who was run over by a coach and horses noutside and now tugs patron's sleeves. Jack Sheppard, jail breaker and well-known petty criminal is also known to make an appearance from time-to-time, even though a record 200,000 watched him walk to gallows in 1728.
Even the bleedin' car park isn't safe from encounters with the supernatural. Not only is it haunted by the ghost of a women in white who was also run down by a errant coach (the driving has improved marginally in Hampstead since the 18th century you'll be pleased to know), Turpin's Black Bess is also supposed to dwell there from time to time.
Happy drinking!
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