The Spaniards Inn stands at the edge of Hampstead Heath on the ancient road between London and St Albans, in a position it has occupied since at least 1585. In the centuries since, it has served as a toll gate, a highwayman's hideout, a literary salon, and — if a certain Victorian novelist is to be believed — a setting for scenes of vampiric drama.
Dick Turpin
The highwayman Dick Turpin is the Spaniards' most famous associate. The stable block to the rear is said to have housed Black Bess, his legendary horse, and local tradition insists that Turpin used the inn as a base of operations for robberies on the Heath road. The historical record is, as with much of Turpin's story, somewhat elastic, but the association is too good to relinquish.
The Literary Connection
Keats was a regular in the 1810s. Byron drank here. Shelley walked from his house at Vale of Health to the Spaniards for evening conversation. Charles Dickens sets a scene from The Pickwick Papers at the inn. Most remarkably, Bram Stoker places a pivotal scene from Dracula in the Spaniards — Van Helsing and his companions enjoy a repast in the saloon bar while waiting for Mina Harker to arrive. Stoker knew the pub well; he lived in St Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, but spent time in Hampstead researching his novel.
The Building Today
The inn remains largely unchanged. The main bar, with its low beams and uneven floor, is clearly ancient. The garden — one of the largest of any London pub — spreads behind the building in a series of terraced levels. On a summer afternoon, it is one of the finest places to be in North London.
## The pub's plausible history and what survives The Spaniards Inn's claimed founding date is 1585, which would make it one of the oldest pubs in London. The evidence is patchy — the current building is mostly eighteenth-century with Victorian additions — but parts of the foundation and the original low-ceilinged front bar do appear to date from at least the early seventeenth century. The name probably comes from a Spanish ambassador who occupied the building in the reign of James I, though a rival theory has it that two Spanish brothers ran the place in the 1700s. ## The toll house and the narrowing of the road The small octagonal building opposite the pub is the old toll house, built around 1710 when Spaniards Road was a turnpike. The tollkeeper lived on the ground floor; travellers paid sixpence for a horse, a penny per wheel of a cart. The toll was collected until 1885. The road narrows to one lane because of this toll house, which is why traffic between Hampstead and Highgate crawls even in light conditions — you're squeezing past three-hundred-year-old infrastructure. ## The Dickens and the Gordon Riots connection Dickens used the Spaniards twice in Barnaby Rudge. During the Gordon Riots of 1780, anti-Catholic rioters were marching up from central London toward Kenwood House to burn it down; Lord Mansfield, who lived at Kenwood, was a leading judicial liberal and a target. The landlord of the Spaniards, according to contemporary accounts, served the mob free beer until they passed out in his garden, giving troops from Horse Guards time to arrive and disperse them. Kenwood was saved. The landlord's descendants are said to have drunk free on the pub's account for three generations. ## The famous regulars Keats lived in Hampstead from 1818 and walked to the Spaniards regularly. Byron and Shelley both drank here on separate occasions. Dickens, as noted. Bram Stoker is mentioned in Dracula (Lucy Westenra walks up to the pub). In the twentieth century, Dick Turpin's pistol — supposedly his — was displayed behind the bar until it was stolen in the 1990s. ## The beer and the food The pub is currently operated as a free house with a rotating guest-ale programme alongside its regular London Pride and Doom Bar. The kitchen runs until 9:30pm weekdays and 10pm weekends; mains £18 to £26, Sunday roast around £28. The food is decent but not the reason to come. Come for the building, the fires, and the garden. ## The garden One of the largest pub gardens in central London, with about 200 seats when the marquees are up. It gets the afternoon sun until around 5pm in summer and holds remarkable history — the garden wall on the north side dates to the seventeenth century and still has the original mounting block for horses. ## Getting there Not on a tube line. Bus 210 stops directly outside (from Hampstead tube or Golders Green). On foot from Hampstead village, 25 minutes across the Heath via Judges' Walk. Parking is limited and metered.