Louisa Cornell – Page 10 – Number One London

HISTORIC PUB CRAWL – The Spaniards Inn

THE SPANIARDS INN

HAMPSTEAD HEATH

Photo by: Jacob Surland,
www.caughtinpixels.com

Spaniards Road – London

Louisa Cornell

The Spaniards Inn was built around 1585. The tavern formed the entrance to the Bishop of London’s estate and there is even a boundary stone from 1755 that can still be seen in the pub’s garden. The toll house opposite the tavern was built in 1710. The lane between the two buildings forms the perfect toll road and it served as the last toll booth leading into London for hundreds of years.

The narrow lane between the Inn and toll keeper’s cottage funneled all traffic on the road into London. The present road is not any wider, but an effort to knock down the keeper’s cottage to widen the road met with widespread protest in 1961 so it remains a single lane.

Originally an inn in addition to a tavern, there are a few theories as to how the establishment got its name. One theory is that the inn was named after a Spanish ambassador reputed to have an almost hypnotic control over King James I. The ambassador is said to have stayed at the inn to avoid the plague in London during a number of years of James I’s reign.

The other popular theory about the inn’s name has to do with two of its earliest landlords, Spanish brothers Juan and Francesco Porero. There is an even more logical tie connecting the inn’s name to these two proprietors. Apparently Juan and Francesco both fell in love with the same woman. It ended badly, as these things so often do. The brothers fought a duel, which resulted in Juan’s burial in what is now the pub’s beer garden.

The Spaniards Inn was a two hours drive by coach from London. That drive was across Hampstead Heath, a lonely open area frequented by highwaymen. It is said the Spaniards Inn was the perfect place for these gentlemen of the road to watch out for wealthy travelers to rob. Records from Old Bailey show numerous arrests of men who plied the highwayman’s trade between the Spaniards Inn and London. On 16 October, 1751 one Samuel Bacon was indicted for robbery on the King’s Highway after he was caught less than two hundred yards from the inn. There was even a tree (gone now) at the end of the road where highwaymen were hanged and left as a warning to others of their ilk.

Of course the most famous highwayman associated with the Spaniards Inn is one Richard Turpin (1705 – 7 April, 1739.) His father was rumored to be the landlord at the Spaniards and many say Dick Turpin was born there, though it was more likely he was born in Essex. He did, however, spend a great deal of time at the inn, watching for coaches to rob. It is said he stabled his favorite horse, Black Bess, at the toll keeper’s cottage. There is still a horse trough at the cottage to this day.

The Spaniards Inn definitely played a part in saving Lord Mansfield’s Kenwood House during the Gordon Riots in 1780. Prior to 1780 the rights of Catholics to move freely or to participate in other aspects of British life, such as joining the army, were restricted. In 1780 these restrictions were relaxed. Protestants in Britain reacted badly to these new laws and showed their displeasure in the time-honored practice of riots and ransacking the homes of the wealthy.

Kenwood House is located across Hampstead Heath from the Spaniards Inn. When the rioters came for Lord Mansfield’s home, the inn’s landlord, Giles Thomas, thwarted their blood lust with a rather interesting tactic. He offered them free booze. He persuaded the mob to quench their thirsts before continuing their rampage and whilst they did he sent for the Horse Guards. The militia showed up and convinced the now inebriated mob to lay down their weapons and go back to London.

The Spaniards Inn was a popular spot for London’s creative artists during the nineteenth century. John Keats (1795-1821) is said to have enjoyed an ale or two in the inn’s gardens. Rumor has it he wrote Ode to a Nightingale there, although it is more likely he wrote it at his house a mere mile and a half away.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) frequented the tavern and sometimes stayed at the inn. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) is said to have visited the tavern with his friends, like Mary Shelley (1797-1851,) on his way to and from London. William Hogarth (1697-1764) stopped at the inn for food and drink when he visited the Heath. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) and John Constable (1776-1837) spent time at the Spaniards after wandering the Heath and enjoying the inspiring views of London from the area.

The Spaniards Inn also makes an appearance in Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers and in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In fact, Stoker is said to have pilfered one of the inn’s ghost stories for part of the plot of Dracula.

Ghost stories, you say?

Why yes, there are several associated with the Spaniards. One is cautioned not to walk across the Heath from Kenwood House to the inn, especially at night, as one might be overtaken by Dick Turpin and Black Bess as they race for their favorite safe house. Sometimes, if one stands in front of the inn late at night and listens carefully one will Black Bess’s hoof beats on the road. Some even claim to have seen her in the car park on moonlit nights. Of course, the ghost of Juan Porero, killed by his brother in a duel over a woman and buried in the inn’s garden, is said to haunt the tavern as well. The ghost of a devious local money lender named Black Dick, run down by a coach in the inn yard, is said to tug the sleeves of patrons drinking at the bar. And a woman in a flowing white gown is said to have been seen crossing Hampstead Heath to come to the inn in search of her lover, a highwayman who never arrived for their last assignation.

Today the interior of the Spaniards Inn is very much as it was in the days of Dick Turpin.

The food is outstanding, especially the Sunday roast. But be forewarned, make reservations well ahead of your selected Sunday or you may be relegated to a table in the beer garden as Kristine Hughes Patrone, Andrea Stein, Sandra Mettler and I were one rainy Sunday afternoon. We saw no ghosts, but enjoyed a fantastic Sunday roast with all of the trimmings before going on to visit Kenwood House and to stop and gaze across Hampstead Heath at the view of London in the distance.

Next time we’ll venture out further onto the Heath in the hope of meeting a dashing highwayman or two. One never knows!

HISTORIC PUB CRAWL – The Golden Lion

THE GOLDEN LION

ST. JAMES

23 King Street – London

Louisa Cornell

There has been a tavern on this site since “God was a lad,” to quote one patron. The current establishment was originally built in 1762, but there was a tavern there even before the current incarnation. Records show a tavern located here as early as the 1730’s. It was once a smaller structure. In the early 19th century the tavern expanded into the neighboring house and the current frontage was added. The present day decor is from the early Victorian era. Its location in the St. James area of London put it in close proximity to the exclusive gentlemen’s clubs like White’s, Brooks, and Boodles.

Ladies’ voucher for Almack’s – used with kind permission STG Misc. Box 7 (Almack’s Voucher)
© The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

The tavern’s proximity to Almack’s Assembly Rooms no doubt made it the favorite haunt of young Regency gentlemen forced to attend the Society subscription balls designed to “help” them find a wife. The fare at Almack’s left something to be desired, especially in the beverages department. I suspect many a young gentleman nipped out of Almack’s for a quick brandy or three at The Golden Lion before he had to return to dance with whichever young lady his mother deemed worthy of his attentions.

Another attraction of The Golden Lion was the fashionable hotel next to it. The hotel was established by John Nerot in 1776 in a house which had previously been the town residence of Richard Jones, Earl of Ranelagh. The building was probably built during the reign of Charles II. It had a grand, heavy staircase ornately carved in the fashion of the day. The carved panels depicted images of Apollo and Diana from mythology. The hotel sported no fewer than twenty-four windows across the front of the house.

Anyone who was anyone stayed in Nerot’s and very likely frequented The Golden Lion for some relaxation and good company. Patrons of Nerot’s included Edmund Burke in 1795 and Lord Nelson, who met his wife and his father there after his return from the Battle of the Nile in 1800. In 1811 the hotel was moved to Clifford Street. In 1830 the house was known as a ware room.

In 1835 the building was purchased by the renowned tenor, John Braham. He demolished the hotel and built a theatre designed to showcase his talents as a singer. In addition to Braham, The St. James’ Theatre featured works by Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, and eventually plays by Oscar Wilde and even a farce by Charles Dickens. There was also a popular show featuring performing lions, monkeys, dogs, and goats.

Once the theatre opened in 1835, The Golden Lion enjoyed a booming business from its patrons. In fact, the pub’s upstairs bar was connected to the theatre by a walkway across the alley. The walkway led directly into the establishment’s Circle. And as the theatre catered not only to the wealthiest of London’s society but to anyone who had a the price of a ticket, it would not have been unusual for Society bucks, the theatre’s thespians and crew, and even the lowest of London’s citizens to rub elbows at The Golden Lion. Some well-known patrons of The Golden Lion include Napoleon III and Oscar Wilde.

Among The St. James’ later attendees were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Interesting as one of the later managers of the theatre was the actress Lillie Langtry, Edward VII’s mistress. The last managers of the theatre were Sir Lawrence Olivier and Vivian Leigh. They took over in 1950, but unfortunately a developer obtained the freehold on the building and after an extended public battle that ranged from the newspapers to the Houses of Parliament the theatre closed for the last time in 1957. The theatre was demolished as was the walkway between it and The Golden Lion.

The pub, however, has endured. Nestled amongst large, cold, modern architecture The Golden Lion is a step back in time. The upstairs theatre bar is a monument to the St. James’ Theatre decorated with photos, clippings, and posters from the theatre’s past.

The interior has changed very little from the early Victorian Era. And the pub even comes with its own ghost, a barmaid murdered there in the early 19th century is said to prowl the stairs to the theatre bar in search of her murderer.

HISTORIC PUB CRAWL – The Coal Hole

THE COAL HOLE

THE STRAND

15 and 16 Fountain Court – London

Louisa Cornell

Originally established in 1815, The Coal Hole was a tavern that had formerly been known as The Unicorn. It was located in a corner of an alley called Fountain Court, just off The Strand. Fountain Court received its name from Fountain Tavern, an eighteenth-century establishment where the opponents of Sir Robert Walpole met.

In its early days, The Coal Hole, appropriately enough, was the haunt of London’s coal heavers. These burly men with strong backs and stronger work ethics saw to the unloading of coal from ships and barges and also delivered coal to the homes of London’s citizens. Which made for a rough and rowdy establishment when the work was done, and the coal heavers did their bit to unwind after a hard day’s labor.

Eventually the famous actor, Edmund Kean (1787-1833) established the Wolf Club at The Coal Hole. The purpose of the club? Drunken orgies and general high jinks. Kean was the chairman of the club and usually called the group to his idea of order around eleven in the evening. Though it had no real platform it was very well attended by celebrities of the day. Songs, soliloquy, limerick composition, and various drinking games were on the program so far as most records show.

After the death of Kean, John Rhodes directed the tavern’s entertainment in the form of a forerunner of the nightclub. He had a passion for silver plate and furnished the establishment with silver tankards, goblets, loving cups, and flagons enough to put many of London’s finest hotels to shame. He is said to have had a fine baritone voice and was one of the most popular singers to take a turn at entertaining The Coal Hole’s patrons. But he went to great lengths to provide every sort of entertainment available.

‘John Rhodes begs to inform his friends and the public they will find every variety of Vocal Entertainment at the above old established house, commencing every evening at Eight o’Clock precisely. Glees, Duets, Solos, Catches, Comic Singing &c., executed by the most numerous and talented company of vocalists in the metropolis, under the direction of the celebrated Mr. Baldwin, for sixteen years Vocal Director at Mr. Rouse’s Grecian Saloon.’

‘The celebrated writer of comic songs, Mr. John Labern, is engaged exclusively for this establishment, where only can his original and humorous productions be heard and obtained.’

The above advertisement appeared in the newspapers to advertise the various amenities available at The Coal Hole. The Judge and Jury Society were performances led by Renton Nicholson (1809 – 1861) an impresario, actor and writer. These acts mocked and satirized members of London society and the preoccupations of the popular press. Though his acts were derided by some for their crudeness, they were attended by many aristocrats, politicians, and other prominent citizens.

Whilst the supper club aspect is gone, The Coal Hole remains one of the few pubs in London to retain its original decor and ambiance. Its proximity to the city’s theatres promises an influx of the after performance crowd and one never knows who might stop in for a pint after the curtain falls.

HISTORIC PUB CRAWL – The Bunch of Grapes

THE BUNCH OF GRAPES

LIMEHOUSE REACH

76, Narrow Street – London

Louisa Cornell

This post is the first in what I intend to be a series of posts on some of the historic pubs in London and throughout the UK. I realize that the phrase “Historic Pub Crawl” could actually have two meanings. I intend it to mean visits to historic pubs. However, it could mean a series of visits to pubs one after another that ends up being a historical event. If you know the motley crew associated with Number One London, you know any trip we take can and usually does end up being a historic event. But I digress.

Although the current name of the pub is simply The Grapes, a tavern of some sort or another has stood on the present site for almost 500 years. And for most of those years it was known as The Bunch of Grapes. The first tavern was built on this spot in 1583, but the current building dates from 1720. Imagine the history it has seen, surviving the Blitz during World War II, and still operating as a pub to this day.

Painting of The Bunch of Grapes in the 19th century.

I will confess I first discovered this fascinating pub whilst I did research for my novel, A Study in Passion. My heroine had to visit a Chinese apothecary in search of aid for her pet pangolin. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Limehouse area of London was home to England’s largest Chinese community. Not surprising when one realizes much of the Chinese community in London was made up of sailors and tradesmen from the many ships bringing in goods from the Far East and their families. They left the East India Company ships coming into the Limehouse Dockyards and established every sort of business from apothecaries to trading and import companies to boarding houses, to yes – opium dens.

Before the pub was built the location was in proximity to lime kilns, customs houses, docks and shipyards. By the Elizabethan Era Limehouse was established as the doorway to world trade in London as most of the ships embarking on trade trips across the British Empire left from these docks. Supposedly, Sir Walter Raleigh set sail on his third voyage to the New World from a spot just below the Bunch of Grapes.

The pub’s greatest claim to fame may well be its thinly veiled description used in the first chapter of the novel Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Again, not a surprise as Dickens was said to be a frequent visitor to the pub in the 1820’s when he visited his godfather who lived in Limehouse.

“A tavern of dropsical appearance… long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. It had outlasted many a sprucer public house, indeed the whole house impended over the water but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver, who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all.”

A rather more sinister aspect of the history of The Bunch of Grapes associates it with the watermen who operated ferry services on the Thames for both passengers and freight. Because of the stringent rules against dissection and obtaining corpses for same, a great deal of supplemental income might be made by providing London’s medical schools, anatomists, and physicians with fresh corpses. Apparently these watermen would lurk about the back stairs of The Bunch of Grapes and drag inebriated customers down said stairs to drown them in the Thames before taking them by boat to their waiting customers.

Back stairs at The Grapes – Current view. Imagine the steps 200 years ago!

Note to the characters in my Regency romances: Do not leave The Bunch of Grapes by the back stairs if you have indulged in too much drink.

Note to those who wish to visit The Grapes today: If at all possible visit on a Monday as the current owner of the pub, Sir Ian McKellen, has been known to run the pub quiz on Mondays from time to time.

PRIDE OF DUTY (Book 2 in the Men of the Squadron Series) More Regency Navy Seals!

Napoleon After Waterloo

Andrea K. Stein

Bellerophon was a famous Greek hero, mostly known for defeating Chimera, a fire-breathing, mythical monster. By some quirk of fate and history, the H.M.S. Bellerophon was also the name of the ship where the monster Napoleon, who bloodied two continents in his obsession to rule the world, turned himself over to the Royal Navy after his defeat at Waterloo.

The Bellerophon (center 74-gun ship) surrounded by sight-seers in Plymouth Sound
Painting by John James Chalon

Stories surrounding the final, decisive battle of Waterloo abound, but have you ever heard an account of what happened to the little megalomaniac emperor in the days following his massive defeat? He somehow thought after all the horrors he’d wrought, everyone would overlook his misdeeds. He variously dreamed of living the life of a country gentleman in England or managing an escape to America.

Napoleon fled to Paris after the June 18, 1815, battle, arriving there on June 21. When he tried to rally what troops he had left, his friends and commanders either abandoned him or turned against him. He had to abdicate two days later. He then fled to Rochefort in the coastal area known as Basque Roads. He’d hoped for a French frigate to take him to asylum in America, but the Royal Navy blockade of the area was too tight for French ships to evade. With French Royalists hot on his heels, he ran out of options, and on July 15, he surrendered to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland on the Bellerophon.

With its famous prisoner aboard, the Bellerophon, heavily guarded by other Royal Navy warships, made its way to Brixham in Devon, arriving the morning of July 24. John Smart, a schoolboy who later wrote a memoir of the day, described rowing out to the 74-gun ship with a baker from the town to sell loaves of bread. They were warned away, but he claimed a sailor aboard the ship secretly threw a corked bottle overboard with a small piece of paper inside rolled up with the message, “We have got Bonaparte on board.” Smart recalled, “in five minutes after we reached shore, there was not a soul in Brixham, except babies, ignorant of the news.”

Ultimately, the allies decided to send him to remote St. Helena, a rocky island about halfway between Africa and South America, owned by the East India Company. Why didn’t they simply execute him? Perhaps this quote from Wellington might shed some light:

The Duke of Wellington to Sir Charles Stuart, Orvillé

28 June 1815—

“I send you my dispatches, which will make you acquainted with the state of affairs. You may show them to Talleyrand if you choose.

General ——— has been here this day to negotiate for Napoleon’s passing to America, to which proposition I have answered that I have no authority. The Prussians think the Jacobins wish to give him over to me, believing that I will save his life. Blücher wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall remonstrate, and shall insist upon his being disposed of by common accord. I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined that if the sovereigns wished to put him to death they should appoint an executioner, which should not be me.”

Napoleon’s charisma, and his effect on the people around him, is legendary, not to mention somewhat hard to fathom. Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon, to whom Napoleon surrendered, wrote this in his memoir of the event:

“It may appear surprising, that a possibility could exist of a British officer, being prejudiced in favour of one who had caused do many calamities to his country; but to such an extent did he possess the power of pleasing, that there are few people who could have sat at the same table with him for nearly a month, as I did, without feeling a sensation of pity, allied perhaps to regret, that a man possessed of so many fascinating qualities, and who had held so high a station in life, should be reduced to the situation in which I saw him.”

Probably the most accurate portrait of Napoleon at his surrender – the Plymouth artist Sir Charles Lock Eastlake was taken to the ship to create this shortly after the ship’s arrival

Captain Maitland was not alone in his apparent fascination. The former French emperor so charmed the ship’s Irish surgeon, Barry Edward O’Meara, that he accompanied Napoleon to St. Helena and became his physician there. After Napoleon’s death in 1821, O’Meara wrote Napoleon in Exile, or A voice from St. Helena in 1822. His allegations of mistreatment of the former emperor by his gaoler, Governor Hudson Lowe, caused a small sensation back in England as well as the rest of Europe.

Letters leaked to newspapers while Napoleon was still alive, about alleged deprivations such as insufficient firewood, caused an uproar among the very people who suffered throughout the Napoleonic Wars. The imprisoned dictator who’d wanted to conquer the world seemed to evoke romantic notions once he’d been exiled.

However, there were also many Britons who voiced strong opposing opinions, as evidenced by this letter published by The Times on July 26:

“What is to be done with him? Is he after all his crimes to be suffered to go unpunished; or in what way is he to be brought to justice?… He has, for a long succession of years, deluged Europe in blood, to gratify his own mad vanity, his insatiable and furious ambition. It is calculated, that every minute he has reigned, has cost the life of a human being…”

A lieutenant taking dispatches to London from Brixham spread the news while changing horses in Exeter. By the next day, the Bellerophon was surrounded by all manner of craft from local ports, and even further away, hired by people trying to catch a glimpse of Napoleon.

Officers going ashore from the ships were treated like celebrities. One Midshipman Home recalled he was asked questions like “Was he really a man? Were his hands and clothes all over blood when he came aboard. Was his voice like thunder? Could I possibly get them a sight of the monster?” The former emperor had been portrayed as the devil incarnate in stories and caricatures in the English papers for years.

Another probably fairly accurate portrayal of him on his evening walk on deck with his loyal officers who followed him into exile – depicts Napoleon watching French shoreline recede – By Sir William Quiller Orchardson

The Admiralty decided the Bellerophon should be moved to Plymouth for extra security against any rescue attempt. On July 31, a letter arrived with the official decision of the British government – exile to St. Helena. The former emperor was to be transferred to the Northumberland, a ship the Admiralty deemed more sea-worthy for the long voyage. On August 4, the Bellerophon set sail from Plymouth along the south coast of Devon where it met the Northumberland off Start Point on August 6 for transfer of Napoleon and his entourage. The next day, he sailed toward his last exile.

After his final imprisonment, there was one cork-brained plan to smuggle him to Chile from St. Helena to try to re-conquer the world from there. That plan never materialized, due to Napoleon’s deteriorating health. An attempt to spirit him off the remote island by submarine was also cut off when British agents seized the invention whilst being tested in the Thames. The submarine, manufactured by Tom Johnson, the smuggler, was ostensibly to be towed all the way to St. Helena by a larger ship.

Sources:

“The War for all the Oceans” by Roy and Lesley Adkins

“Commander” by Stephen Taylor, a biography of Captain Edward Pellew

“Cochrane – Britannia’s Sea Wolf” by Donald Thomas

“The Command of the Ocean” by N.A.M. Rodger

“Narrative of the Surrender of Buonaparte and of his residence on Baord H.M.S. Bellerophon” by Captain F.L. Maitland, C.B.

AUTHOR – ANDREA K. STEIN

Andrea K. Stein is the daughter of a trucker and an artist. She grew up a scribbler. The stories just spilled out.

After writing and editing at newspapers for twenty-five years and then a short, boring stint as a consultant to commercial printers, she ran away to sea for three years to deliver yachts up and down the Caribbean.

She earned her USCG offshore captain’s license, but perversely, now writes romance set at sea while wrapped in sweaters and PJs in her writing room in Canon City, CO.

She has multiple published romance novels available on Amazon. Three of those titles have been honored with awards. “Secret Harbor” earned a first place in the Pikes Peak Writers Fiction Contest in the romance category; “Fortune’s Horizon” finaled in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Romance category; and the latest novel, “Pride of Honor,” finaled in the national 2018 Beau Monde Royal Ascot Contest.

Book Three in The Men of the Squadron Series – PRIDE OF VALOR – Debuted on February 23, 2021. Visit your favorite purveyors of fine books and spend some time with the Men of the Squadron!