by Candlelight.kk Fri 5 May 2017 - 1:11
Looks to be a very interesting site, although I can't see mention of a regular "haunt" of mine (as they say) well known not only for its delicious cuisine, but also for its interesting history.. Very popular with tourists and locals alike; the place is never empty, and if you read this you can see why ...
Here's a write-up I've kept from there:
THE SPANIARDS INN - Hampstead Heath
The Inn was built in 1585 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 and later it became a residence and used as a retreat from the plague in town by the Count of Gondomar. The Count was a prime player in the arrest and execution of Sir Walter Raleigh who had captured his brother in an earlier raid on the new world. Gondomar was Spanish Ambassador to King James 1 since 1613 and they were great friends. James 1 was the author of a book on withcraft which led to the great witch trials by the Witch-finders. The house was converted into an inn at hte end of the 17th century and was named after the landlords two famous duelling Spanish brothers. Francesco Porero and his brother Juan fought a duel in 1721 over a woman. Francesco killed his brother. Juan, (one of our active ghosts) is uried in the garden and the lady was not too happy with the outcome, by all accounts.
Hampstead has been the haunt of many literary figures who visited the Spaniards. Charles Dickens featured the Spaniards' pleasure garden as a setting in Pickwick Papers. In about 1820 John Keats wrote the "Ode to a Nightingale" from a session sitting in the garden. The Spaniards was also frequented by playwrights Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick, and the poets Lord Byron, Shelly and his sister Mary, Coleridge and the writer Lamb. The inn was patronised by the artists John Constable, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, William Blake and William Hogarth. Incredily the pu was used by three major Gothic horror writers Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Bram Stoker the author of Dracula and Mary Shelly creator of Frankenstein were both customers of the Spaniars Inn. The Spaniards Inn is featured in Dracula the novel. The poet A.E. Houseman and novelist Evelyn Waugh were locals.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY HIGHWAYMEN AND ROBBERS
In the beginning of the 18th Century the pub as we know it today was a very different place. Most taverns or inns such as The Spaniards had their back rooms and upper rooms, where in the smoky sweaty candle-lit atmosphere the whoring and drinking and gambling went on all night.
Inn-keeping was profitable in the early 1700's in an age when to be a publican at all in London was a near admission of corrupt if not criminal tendencies. By the late 1730's England was the greatest commercial nation in the world. Its public culture stressed the importance of civilised behaviour and polite manners. But there was a popular admiration for armed robbers which go back to stories of Robin Hood. The English have always held a sort of strange pride in their robbers especially bold ones such as Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard.
Dick Turpin bored at being an apprentice butcher craved more excitement than his father, John a butcher also and previous pub landlord. Turpin soon took to robbing the rich to indulge in his passion of strong ale and gambling on local cock fights. Turpin used The Spaniards on many occasions to watch passing coaches and made good use of the cellars and secret passageways in evading the magistrates men. The landlord let him hold the spare keys to the stables and toll gate house for his share of the robberies.
Dick by then a famous highwayman with a heavy price hanging over his head was on his return to The Spaniards from Marylebone Gardens when the following incident took place. Turpin held up a coach carrying Mrs Fountayne who was by all accounts a beautiful woman. He raised his mask and kissed the lady. The lady struggled and Turpin remarked "Don't be alarmed madam; you can now let everyone know that you have had the good fortune to have been kissed by Dick Turpin, the famous highwayman". Perhaps this is the lady, who is often seen wandering the garden late at night searching for another stolen kiss.
THE HAUNTING OF THE SPANIARDS PAST AND PRESENT
There are several old and new accounts of strange happenings at the Spaniards and on the Heath beyond. The Inn has been trading here for 350 years and we believe the spirits or energies are comfortable in making themselves known to us who come here. There is a really positive energy source upstairs in the Turpin Room and here dwells an invisible hand. The spectral hand likes to tug your sleeve mischievously while you are eating or drinking, or the shadow that silently passes by in the Ladies lavatory. Living upstairs there are rooms that get cold unexpectedly, invisible smothering forces pinning you down on the shaking bed.
The Car Park - Ther is the sound of an invisible horse galloping over the car park in the evenings or the glimpse of a horse. Some say it is Dick Turpin on Black Bess roaming the Heath still or it is another restless highwayman who ended up on the gibbet between the elm trees on Gibbet Hill that survived until 1907 when it was blown down by a gale, along the road back towards Hampstead.
The Garden - The Beer Garden has its ghost - a lady. The garden was bigger then and the stables were over the car park side. The lady appears in a fine white translucent dress of the 1750's with a light foggy aura that turns to blue as she moves towards the pub and then disappears below the steps. The Turpin story says she is the lady looking for the kiss - Mrs Fountayne.
The ghost who walks through walls - There are three interpretations on the ghost in the bar - a shadowy male figure strides across the bar and then disappears in the wall next to the end of the bar. The first is that it is reputed to be Dick Turpin himself. The second version is that of Black Dick the moneylender who was a friend and lender to the notorious Earl of Barrymore 1769-1793 who lived fast and died young and loved it. He was shot through the eye at the age of 24 when theloaded rifle he carried in his coach went off by accident. Barrymore belonged to a club called the Four Horse Club where the young wild regency bucks would bribe any coachman to give them the reins and drive at breakneck speed.
Black Dick the moneylender was crushed outside the pub by a speeding coach and four. The landlord of the pub was paid hush-money over the incident and Black Dick has been haunting the downstairs ever since.
The third and oldest verion of the ghost is that of the Spaniard, Juan Porero who is buried in the garden who ws killed y his brother Francesco in the duel over the affections of the same woman, after they set up the Inn. This is more likely as the strong passions involved make a classic ghost story of unfinished business over the centuries. The pub appears to replay old images from the past.
Ghostly goings on today:
The staff upstairs have over the years seen and felt scary and strange activities, such as cold rooms, getting smothered by an unseen body and witnessing moving objects. The most recent case was of a poltergeist balancing a picture frame corner on a bedside table at an angle. Somebody wants to make contact. Poor Juan ...
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