The Spaniards Inn: Highwayman's Haunt on Hampstead Heath

On the edge of Hampstead Heath, where the wild parkland meets the ancient toll road to Highgate, stands a pub that has watched over travelers for nearly five centuries. The Spaniards Inn, dating from 1585, occupies a position steeped in danger—for hundreds of years, this stretch of road was notorious as the hunting ground of highwaymen who preyed on wealthy travelers crossing the Heath. The most infamous of these road agents was Dick Turpin himself, and The Spaniards Inn was his headquarters, his stable, his refuge between robberies. He watered his legendary horse Black Bess here, planned his crimes in its dark corners, and escaped the law through its back passages time and again. When he was finally caught and hanged in 1739, his body was taken to York, but his spirit returned to the heath he knew so well. The ghost of Dick Turpin still rides the roads around The Spaniards Inn, still watches from the shadows where the stables once stood, still lingers in the bar where he once drank the proceeds of his crimes. But Turpin is not the only ghost at The Spaniards. A murdered landlord haunts the upper floors, killed in a domestic tragedy of jealousy and revenge, his rage bleeding through the centuries to terrify staff and guests alike. A woman in white drifts through the garden. The spirits of the Gordon Riots dead hover near. The Spaniards Inn is a confluence of hauntings, a place where multiple tragedies and dark histories have left their imprint, creating one of London’s most intensely haunted locations.

The History

The Spaniards Inn was established in 1585, during the reign of Elizabeth I, likely as a tollgate keeper’s cottage—though some accounts suggest it began as a Spanish ambassador’s retreat, which may explain the name. Whatever its precise origins, the age of the building is not in dispute: nearly 450 years of continuous operation make it one of London’s oldest pubs.

Its location on Spaniards Road, the route connecting Hampstead and Highgate across open heathland, placed it far from the city’s protections. Travelers were vulnerable here, exposed to weather and bandits alike, and the highwaymen who made the Heath infamous found no shortage of wealthy prey. The inn sat at a toll point where the narrow road forced travelers to stop, making them easy targets for those who watched from the darkness of the Heath. The Spaniards’ position served both legitimate and criminal business with equal efficiency.

Before its haunted reputation grew, the pub attracted a remarkable roster of famous visitors. Byron, Keats, and Shelley all drank within its walls, and Dickens featured the inn in his novels. Writers found inspiration here—and perhaps left something of themselves behind.

Dick Turpin

Richard Turpin, born in 1705, was a butcher turned horse thief and robber who became one of England’s most notorious criminals. His legend exceeds his reality, but his reality was dark enough: a violent man and a killer who terrorized the roads around London until his hanging at York in 1739.

Turpin used the Spaniards Inn as his base of operations. The Heath was his territory, and the pub was his refuge. He stabled his legendary mare Black Bess here and rode out on robbery expeditions through the heathland darkness. The inn offered him critical advantages—back passages, hidden routes, and connections to the Heath that allowed him to vanish when pursuit came too close. He would disappear through the pub’s secrets, gone into the night before the law arrived.

His end came not for highway robbery but for horse theft. He was caught in 1739, hanged at York, and his body displayed as a warning. But his spirit returned south, drawn back to the Heath he knew and the inn he had haunted in life.

The Turpin Haunting

Turpin’s ghost appears near the old stables as a shadowy figure in 18th-century riding clothes—tricorn hat, dark cloak—watching the road. He sometimes materializes at the bar, appearing solid until you look directly at him, at which point he vanishes. He is never quite there when confronted.

The sound of galloping hooves thunders along Spaniards Road, particularly on foggy nights when the Heath is wrapped in mist. Witnesses hear Black Bess approaching at tremendous speed, but nothing passes—only the hoofbeats fading into silence. The area near the old stables carries a persistent feeling of being watched by something calculating, something that remembers the old trade.

Turpin manifests most often at night, when darkness covers the Heath as it did during his robberies. Foggy evenings are particularly active. The conditions that once favored his crimes still seem to favor his ghost, as though he returns in the very weather he worked in during life.

The Murdered Landlord

Sometime during the 18th century, a landlord of the Spaniards discovered his wife’s infidelity. In a rage, he killed her lover—but the dead man’s friends returned for vengeance and murdered the landlord in turn. His spirit has never found peace.

The murdered landlord haunts the upper floors, where accommodation rooms now stand. His presence is anything but restful. The emotions that caused his violence and led to his death—anger, jealousy, bitter rage—persist beyond the grave. Staff have been pushed on the stairs by invisible hands, struck by sudden, inexplicable violence from nowhere. Guests in the upper rooms report sudden headaches and overwhelming feelings of jealousy that are clearly not their own, as if the landlord’s emotions are bleeding through the centuries.

His apparition appears at the foot of beds in the upper rooms: a man with a bloodied chest, staring silently at the living. He does not speak, does not acknowledge his observers. He simply watches, then fades into nothing.

The Woman in White

A woman dressed in white walks the pub’s garden on summer evenings, moving among the tables in period clothing that glows faintly before dissolving into the dusk. Her identity is unknown—her history entirely unrecorded. Was she connected to the landlord’s tragedy? A victim of the Heath’s dangers? Or someone else entirely? Her ghost offers no answers.

She walks among the garden furniture as if checking on guests, or perhaps seeking someone she can never find. She never makes contact, never speaks. She simply moves through the space, then dissolves into twilight—a gentle, mysterious presence among the pub’s more violent hauntings. She appears when the garden is busy with living patrons, not quite solid, not quite there, a fleeting vision of someone long dead.

The Gordon Riots Connection

In June 1780, the Gordon Riots erupted across London as anti-Catholic violence swept the city. Mobs burned and looted for a week, and one such mob headed for Kenwood House on the edge of the Heath, intent on destroying its Catholic owner’s home. The Spaniards’ landlord saw the mob coming and thought quickly: he offered the rioters free ale, drink after drink, while secretly sending word to the militia. By the time soldiers arrived, the mob was too drunk to fight, and Kenwood House was saved.

Local legend holds that the spirits of Kenwood House—or of those who would have died had the mob not been stopped—now protect the Spaniards Inn in gratitude. These benevolent presences are rarely seen, but their influence is felt as a sense of safety and protection, particularly strong in the older sections where the original pub stands. They serve as a counterbalance to the building’s darker ghosts.

The Phenomena

Cold spots manifest throughout the building, particularly on the upper floors where the murdered landlord walks. The cold arrives suddenly and intensely, concentrated in specific areas, then vanishes as quickly as it came—as if something has passed through.

The sounds of the past echo through the inn: hoofbeats on the road outside when no horse rides, the creak of old stables long since demolished, conversation from empty rooms, the sounds of 18th-century revelry, and music that no one plays. The past is audibly present within these walls.

Visitors report sudden emotions that are clearly not their own. Anger, jealousy, and fear wash over people depending on their location in the building. The upper floors bring rage; the stable area brings a sense of heightened vigilance; the garden brings sadness. Each ghost imprints its own emotional signature on the living who enter its domain.

Physical contact is common, particularly on the stairs where the landlord pushes. The sensation of hands on backs and shoulders comes without warning, and the touch is never gentle—always forceful, replicating the violence of his death on the bodies of the living.

The Staff Experiences

Staff who clean after hours experience the most activity: footsteps in empty rooms, the persistent feeling of being watched, and objects moved from where they were placed. The ghosts seem most active when the living have gone and the building belongs to them again.

The upper floors are universally disliked by staff when the pub is closed and dark. The atmosphere is oppressive, the landlord’s presence strong, and some employees refuse to go upstairs alone. The risk of being pushed is too real to ignore, so they work in pairs.

The cellars carry their own distinct energy—older, deeper, connected perhaps to old tunnels and the Heath’s hidden routes. Staff report figures in the darkness, movement at the edge of vision, and a cold that has no business being there, as if something waits below.

Long-term staff learn to adapt. The ghosts become part of the job—Turpin watching from the shadows, the landlord pacing above. Employees learn which areas are most active and which times are worst, accommodating the dead just as they accommodate the living.

The Heath Connection

Hampstead Heath is ancient, wild, exposed land—London’s last truly untamed space—and it carries its own ghosts and its own history of violence. The highwaymen who worked it for centuries left spiritual residue that connects to the pub at its edge.

The Spaniards sits at a junction where roads cross and paths meet, and crossroads have held ancient power in folklore and occult tradition. Spirits are said to gather at crossings, and the pub’s position at such a junction may amplify its activity and concentrate its hauntings.

The Heath saw robbery and murder for centuries, and the Spaniards witnessed its share—travelers attacked, highwaymen caught and killed, a landlord murdered. Violence accumulated in both the land and the building. Even now, the Spaniards feels remote, with the Heath pressing close. In Turpin’s time it was wilderness, a place where law meant nothing and danger was constant. That atmosphere persists in the building’s stones.

Visiting the Spaniards

The Spaniards Inn is a working pub on Spaniards Road in Hampstead, near Kenwood House, open during regular hours with no special permission needed. Visitors can simply walk in and drink among the ghosts of five centuries.

The old stable areas are most connected to Turpin’s spirit, while the upper floors belong to the murdered landlord. The garden, on summer evenings, is the domain of the woman in white. Each ghost has its territory and haunts its own domain.

Those seeking signs of the supernatural should watch for cold spots in warm rooms, the feeling of being watched, sudden emotions that feel foreign, movement at the edge of vision, the sound of hoofbeats from the road outside, and the sensation of hands pushing on the stairs. Evening visits tend to be more active, foggy nights especially—the conditions that once favored highwaymen still favor their ghosts. Summer evenings are best for the garden spirit. The landlord, however, knows no season. His anger is constant, and his presence is permanent.

The Highwayman’s Road

The Spaniards Inn has stood at the edge of Hampstead Heath for nearly five centuries, watching over a road that was once the most dangerous in London. Highwaymen prowled here, waiting for wealthy travelers to cross the wild heath, and the most famous of them all—Dick Turpin—made this pub his headquarters. He stabled his horse here, planned his crimes here, fled from here when pursuit grew too close. When he was finally hanged, his body taken to York, something of him returned to the Heath he knew so well. His ghost still rides the roads around the Spaniards, still watches from where the stables stood, still drinks at the bar where he once spent his stolen gold.

But Turpin is not alone. A murdered landlord haunts the upper floors, killed in a tragedy of jealousy and revenge, his rage still palpable to those who enter his domain. A woman in white walks the garden on summer evenings, her identity unknown, her purpose mysterious. Benevolent presences—perhaps grateful spirits from the Gordon Riots—seem to protect the building from harm.

The Spaniards Inn is a place where multiple hauntings converge, where different eras of tragedy have left their mark on the same ancient stones. Visitors can drink in the same rooms where highwaymen plotted, where a landlord was murdered, where poets sought inspiration. They may feel cold spots that follow them through the building, hear hoofbeats on the road outside, sense the presence of eyes watching from shadows where no one stands.

The Heath is still wild. The road is still there. The Spaniards Inn still watches over it.

And the ghosts still watch from the Spaniards.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “The Spaniards Inn: Highwayman”
• Historic England — Listed Buildings — Register of historic sites