The Old Red Lion: Six Centuries of Theatre, Murder, and Ghosts

In Islington, north of the City of London, stands a pub whose documented history stretches back to 1415—the year of Agincourt, when Henry V led his English army to victory in France. The Old Red Lion has served London for over six centuries, witnessing the rise and fall of dynasties, surviving plague and fire, adapting and enduring while the city transformed around it. For more than a century, it has also functioned as a theatre, hosting countless performances in the intimate space above the pub. This dual identity—pub and playhouse—has attracted ghosts from both worlds, creating one of London’s most complexly haunted locations. The most frequently encountered spirit is the murdered girl, a young woman in 19th-century dress who appears throughout the building with an expression of fear and confusion. She watches performances from the wings, sits in empty seats during rehearsals, and fills corridors with the sound of her weeping when no living child is present. Her murder is undocumented but her presence is undeniable. The theatrical ghosts are equally persistent—actors who cannot leave the stage, audience members who applaud performances they attended centuries ago, hands that adjust costumes when no dresser is near, footsteps that cross empty stages, lights that flicker with no electrical explanation. The Old Red Lion is a haunted monument to six centuries of entertainment, tragedy, and death, where the show never truly ends and the audience includes both the living and the dead.

The History

The Old Red Lion dates to 1415, the year of Agincourt, during the reign of Henry V. It was established before the Wars of the Roses, before printing even reached England, at the height of medieval London. In those early centuries, Islington was still a village north of London’s walls, situated on the road heading northward out of the city. Travelers stopped here before or after their journey into the metropolis, and the pub served them faithfully for generation after generation.

Over six centuries the building has been rebuilt, expanded, and modified many times. Different structures have occupied the same site, but the name and purpose have endured through every era of London’s history, serving locals and travelers alike. In the early twentieth century, the upstairs space was converted into a theatre—a fringe venue hosting new works and experimental performance. This transformation added a new layer to the ancient pub, one that would prove to have profound consequences for its haunting. The theatrical world brought with it a different kind of spirit, and the Old Red Lion became home to ghosts from both the pub and the playhouse.

The Murdered Girl

The most tragic ghost of the Old Red Lion is a young girl who appears in 19th-century dress. Her age is uncertain—somewhere between child and young woman—and her expression shows fear and confusion, as if she cannot understand what happened to her. She manifests throughout the building, appearing in the theatre space most often, where she watches from the wings and sits in empty seats, but she also frequents the corridors, the stairs, and the shadowed corners of both pub and theatre.

No records survive of her death. The details of the murder are unknown, lost to time and perhaps deliberately obscured. But the violence of her end has imprinted itself on the building in a way that centuries cannot erase. She was killed here, and here she remains, appearing confused and lost, as if she does not know she is dead or cannot understand why she lingers. Her confusion only deepens the tragedy of her presence.

The crying is perhaps the most heartbreaking manifestation associated with her spirit. A young girl’s soft, persistent sobbing fills certain areas of the building when no child is present, the sound seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Staff who investigate find nothing—no crying child, no identifiable source. The sound stops when approached or continues from elsewhere, as though the crying moves through the building. It is accompanied by sudden, intense temperature drops that mark her presence; to follow the cold is to follow the grief she trails behind her. Those who hear the crying report feeling profound sadness, an empathic response to her sorrow that some find unbearable. They must leave the area, unable to withstand the way her grief transmits itself to the living.

The Theatrical Ghosts

Multiple theatrical ghosts inhabit the Old Red Lion, actors from different eras who cannot leave the stage that was their world. Their final performances continue eternally in the empty theatre, and their presence manifests in ways both subtle and startling.

Performers preparing for shows report invisible hands adjusting their costumes—collars straightened, hems corrected—when no dresser is anywhere nearby. The backstage crew, it seems, is still working. Applause rises sometimes from the empty auditorium during rehearsals when no living audience is present, as though the audiences of the past still appreciate a fine performance, their approval echoing through time. Scripts and books move on their own, placed carefully in one location only to be found in another, pages turned by invisible hands as the actors study their eternal roles.

Footsteps cross the stage when it is supposedly empty—measured, deliberate steps, as of an actor walking their marks or pacing nervously before a performance. The boards creak under invisible weight. These footsteps follow the patterns and blocking of performances long forgotten, moving downstage and upstage, crossing and recrossing, as if performing a play no one remembers for an audience long dead. Staff who check the stage find it empty, but the footsteps continue when they leave, or resume moments later. The theatrical timing is unmistakable: the pause before a line, the cross to a mark, the rhythms of performance repeated endlessly by actors who refuse to take their final bow.

The Dressing Room Haunting

Performers at the Old Red Lion know about the dressing rooms. The stories pass down through generations of actors: do not be alone there, do not linger after dark. Something watches and something waits. An overwhelming sense of being observed fills the small spaces, an attention that cannot be seen but cannot be ignored. Something studies the performers as they prepare.

The dressing room mirrors are particularly unsettling. They show things that should not be there—figures standing behind the actor who vanish the moment one turns to face them. The mirrors remember everyone who ever looked into them, and some of those faces still appear. Many performers refuse to be alone in the dressing rooms as a result. They dress with partners, leave lights blazing, and talk constantly to break the silence and the watching that fills it.

The Lights and the Victorian Theatre-Goers

Lights flicker and malfunction throughout the theatre without any technical explanation. Electricians find nothing wrong—the circuits are sound—but the lights flicker as if something interferes with the flow of power. The flickering often comes at dramatic moments during performances, at emotional peaks, as if the ghosts are responding to the drama and adding their own lighting effects. Sometimes the lights cut out completely for a few seconds, then return with nothing tripped and nothing failed. In those brief moments of darkness, staff report seeing things—shapes and forms that vanish when the lights return. Perhaps the spirits draw energy from the electricity to manifest, or perhaps they simply enjoy affecting the modern theatre with old-fashioned drama of their own.

Figures in Victorian dress appear briefly in the pub itself—formal attire, evening wear, the theatre-going costume of top hats and evening gowns. They manifest near the stairs leading to the theatre above, as if arriving for a performance a century late. These ghosts are brief, glimpsed rather than truly seen, appearing then fading within seconds, but their details are remarkably clear. They move always in the same direction: toward the theatre, heading upward to the performance space, to seats that have waited for them for over a century. These sightings are irregular, with no evident pattern, but they occur throughout the year as the Victorian audiences keep returning to their favorite venue for all eternity.

Phantom Smells and Moving Objects

The smell of old greasepaint and theatrical powder wafts through certain areas of the building, though modern makeup uses nothing of the kind. Victorian theatrical makeup had distinctive, heavy, chemical smells quite unlike modern products, and when witnesses detect it they are smelling the past—actors preparing for shows long concluded. Sometimes the smell of old-fashioned ale, quite different from modern beer, fills the pub areas as well, as though the drinks of centuries past remain somehow present in the atmosphere of the ancient building. These phantom smells suggest that the boundary between past and present is thin at the Old Red Lion, the sensory details of six centuries still perceptible to those attuned to them.

Glasses slide across the bar without visible cause, as if pushed or picked up by invisible hands. The poltergeist activity is persistent but gentle; the ghosts play rather than threaten. Theatre props move between rehearsals, placed in one position and found in another, as though the ghosts rearrange the staging to their preference for their eternal shows. Doors throughout both pub and theatre open and close by themselves—no wind, no mechanical cause—as if admitting invisible customers and invisible audiences. The pattern of all this movement is benign, never violent or threatening. The ghosts seem comfortable in their ancient home, interacting gently with the physical world to make their presence known without menace.

The Staff and the Investigators

Staff at the Old Red Lion have adapted to the haunting over years. The crying girl, the footsteps, the flickering lights—all have become routine, simply part of working in a six-century-old pub with a haunted theatre. Long-term employees advise newcomers not to be alone in the dressing rooms, warning that the watching is too intense and the atmosphere too heavy. Closing time is when the activity peaks, as it so often does with hauntings; when the living leave, the dead emerge, and staff hurry through their duties knowing the pub belongs to the ghosts after hours. There is a respect in how they speak of the spirits, particularly the murdered girl. They acknowledge her presence rather than mock or dismiss it, treating the haunting and the grief it carries as something real and deserving of honor.

Multiple paranormal groups have studied the Old Red Lion, drawn by its age and complex haunting. Electronic voice phenomena recordings have captured multiple voices—a crying child, theatrical dialogue—the voices of different eras layered together, six centuries speaking at once. Photographs show anomalies and figures in the theatre space, shapes that should not be there, the murdered girl perhaps, or the theatrical ghosts. The cameras capture what eyes sometimes miss: the dead watching back. Most investigators conclude that the Old Red Lion is genuinely and complexly haunted by multiple spirits from multiple eras—the murdered girl, the theatrical ghosts, the Victorian audiences—all sharing the same space across time.

Visiting the Old Red Lion

The Old Red Lion stands on St. John Street in Islington, near Angel station, and operates as both a working pub and a theatre venue. No special permission is needed to visit; anyone can drink where medieval travelers once drank and watch theatre where ghosts still perform. The theatre space above is the best place to listen for phantom footsteps and spectral performers, while the dressing rooms carry the heaviest atmosphere of being watched. The pub below is where the murdered girl most frequently appears, though in truth the whole building is haunted and every level has its own character.

Evening performances seem to bring the theatrical ghosts out, as if the energy of live theatre activates them. Late nights in the pub are also active, particularly as the living thin out and the dead emerge. Visitors should watch for temperature drops, the sound of crying, footsteps on empty stages, flickering lights, objects that have moved, figures in Victorian dress, the smell of greasepaint, and the persistent feeling of being watched.

The Show That Never Ends

The Old Red Lion has stood in Islington for over six centuries, serving medieval travelers, Georgian Londoners, Victorian theatre-goers, and modern audiences in equal measure. Its transition from simple pub to theatrical venue added new dimensions to its already complex history, attracting performers and audiences who couldn’t bear to leave, who return eternally to the stage and seats they loved.

The murdered girl is the saddest ghost, her young life cut short by violence that left no record, only her confused and frightened spirit wandering the building, crying in empty corridors, watching performances she never lived to see. The theatrical ghosts are more at peace—actors who loved the stage so much they refuse to leave it, audiences who return for shows that closed centuries ago, dressers who still adjust costumes on performers who don’t see them.

Visitors to the Old Red Lion enter a space where six centuries of life and death have accumulated. The pub served travelers heading to and from London. The theatre hosted performers seeking their moment in the spotlight. Some of those travelers, those performers, those audiences never truly departed. They remain, part of the Old Red Lion’s eternal company, performing for and with the living who still gather in their ancient space.

The footsteps still cross the stage.

The murdered girl still cries.

The audience still applauds.

The show never ends.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “The Old Red Lion: Six Centuries of Theatre, Murder, and Ghosts”
• Historic England — Listed Buildings — Register of historic sites