Spaniards Inn
Encyclopedia
The Spaniards Inn is a historic pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 on Spaniards Road between Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

 and Highgate
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It lies on the edge of Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London clay...

 near Kenwood House
Kenwood House
Kenwood House is a former stately home, in Hampstead, London, on the northern boundary of Hampstead Heath. It is managed by English Heritage.-History:...

.

Built in 1585 as a tollgate inn on the Finchley boundary, the Spaniards formed the entrance to the Bishop of London
Bishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...

's estate - an original boundary stone from 1755 can still be seen in the front garden. These boundaries are still relevant today - the pub is in Barnet
London Borough of Barnet
The London Borough of Barnet is a London borough in North London and forms part of Outer London. It has a population of 331,500 and covers . It borders Hertfordshire to the north and five other London boroughs: Harrow and Brent to the west, Camden and Haringey to the south-east and Enfield to the...

 and the tollhouse is in Camden
London Borough of Camden
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...

, both are now listed buildings and traffic is reduced to one lane between the two. A proposal to demolish the tollhouse opposite the Spaniards in 1961 was successfully resisted, partly on the grounds that it would lead to more and faster traffic.

The Inn remains a quaint, oak panelled and atmospheric pub with one of the best pub gardens in London which were originally created as pleasure gardens, with an artificial mound from which one could see views over London and even as far as Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...

.

Dick Turpin
Dick Turpin
Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...

 is thought to have been a regular at the Inn and his father is rumoured to have been a previous landlord. What is certain is that highwaymen
Highwayman
A highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...

 frequented this area and likely used the Inn to watch the road; at that time the Inn was around two hours from London by coach and the area had its fair share of wealthy travellers. Records from the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

 show that on 16 October 1751 Samuel Bacon was indicted for robbery on the Kings Highway and was caught 200 yards from the Spaniards. A tree (now gone) at the end of the road was a famous site where highwaymen were hanged when caught.

The pub also has a great literary heritage. Not only has it been mentioned in Dickens's The Pickwick Papers and Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it can count among its previous frequenters the artist Joshua Reynolds and the poets Byron and Keats. If you believe the Inn's spiel, Keats allegedly wrote his Ode to a Nightingale in the gardens, and Stoker borrowed one of their resident ghost stories to furnish the plot of Dracula.

Food

In 2006/7 it won "Best Food Pub: London" in the Morning Advertiser
Morning Advertiser
Morning Advertiser is the only weekly pub trade publication in the UK. It currently has a circulation of more than 32,500 that reaches the key decision-makers in England and Wales. In March 2011, William Reed Business Media, bought The Publican from United Business Media and merged the two titles...

Awards. It has a selection of over 40 beers and is widely respected for the quality of its ales.

It was also listed by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

as one of Britain's Best Pubs in 2009.

External links

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