Very crooked inns: The bloody history of Britain's pubs and hotels

Sixty years ago Ruth Ellis gunned down her lover as he left the Magdala pub in North London – and so became the last woman to go to the gallows in Britain.

But the killing of David Blakely, 25, on Easter Sunday, 1955, wasn’t the only murderous episode in the bloody history of our nation’s pubs and hotels.

A new book, Murder at the Inn, reveals how the nation’s taverns and inns have been linked to crime from as far back as Roman times through to Jack the Ripper and the Krays.

Here are just some of the fascinating facts to be found in the UK’s first ever pub crime guide…

1. The first documented case of a pub murder was from the 4th century AD.

In the 1930s archaeologists working at Housesteads Fort on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland found a body that appeared to have been stabbed to death and buried under the floor of what was once a Roman tavern.

2. For centuries criminals condemned to be executed at Tyburn in London were allowed a last drink at an alehouse on their way by cart from prison to face the noose.

The phrase ‘on the wagon’ is thought to date from this time.

3. Dick Turpin, the highwayman, was the son of the innkeeper of The Bluebell in Hempstead, Essex.

When he was executed at York in 1739 Turpin’s corpse was displayed for public view at the Blue Boar tavern.

4. In the 19th century pubs were used for murder inquests.

The author Charles Dickens was one of the critics pointing out that juries hearing the evidence in the pubs were often tipsy.

5. Infamous bodysnatchers William Burke and William Hare would haunt taverns like The White Hart in Edinburgh looking for many of their 16 known victims.

6. A Medieval landlord called Jarman is said to have killed 60 people at The Ostrich in Colnbrook, Berkshire by tipping them from their beds through a trapdoor and into a boiling cauldron.

7. A human skull was once displayed behind the The Crown and Dolphin pub in London’s Shadwell.

It belonged to John Williams, thought to have slain seven people in the Ratcliff Highway murders of 1811.

8. The origin of the saying ‘What’s your poison?’ is reckoned to stem from the case of serial murder Dr William Palmer.

He poisoned his friend John Cook at The Talbot Arms, now the Shrew, in Rugeley, Staffordshire.

9. When notorious gangster Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell dead at the Blind Beggar pub in London’s Whitechapel in 1966 the bar’s jukebox was playing the song ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More’ by the Walker brothers.

10. The Krays owned The Carpenters pub nearby where the bar is alleged to have been made from coffin lids.

11. The Ten Bells in Spitalfi elds, East London was once called the Jack the Ripper.

Two of the 19th century serial killer’s victims, Mary Kelly and Annie Chapman used to drink there.

12. One of the chief Ripper suspects, Michael Ostrog, was earlier arrested for theft at The Fox and Goose pub in Burton-on-Trent, now The Burton Bridge Inn.

Police were never able to pin the Ripper murders on him.

13. The Gardeners Arms in Norwich, Norfolk has been nicknamed ‘The Murderers’ ever since Frank Miles bludgeoned his estranged wife Millie to death there with a brewer’s tool in 1895.

14. The Gunpowder plot of 1605, aimed at blowing up parliament and King James I was planned in a tavern called the Duck and Drake in London.

15. In 1913 two police offi cers and a new pub manager were shot at The Sun Inn, at Bedlington in Northumberland, by licensee John Amos in a row over missing money.

16. It’s believed that criminals were once hanged from a beam at The Skirrid Inn, Llanvihangel Crucorney in Wales, after being tried and convicted there.

17. The Lord Lucan case first came to light when a bloodied Lady Lucan burst into the Plumber’s Arms in London’s Belgravia, crying out: “Help me, help me, I’ve just escaped from being murdered.”

Lucan is believed to have killed 29-year-old nanny Sandra Rivett but disappeared without trace.

18. Famous hangman Albert Pierrepoint was also a publican running the Help the Poor Struggler in Oldham, Lancashire.

He once had to hang one of his own customers.

19. After the landlady of the Lantern Pike inn at Little Hayfield in Derbyshire was murdered in 1927 for just £40 in takings the lead pipe used to kill her was found in the pub’s toilet cistern.

A police officer had noticed some disturbed cobwebs.

20. The Sixteen String Jack pub in Theydon Bois, Essex recalls Jack Rann a highwayman tried and acquitted six times for robbery before being hanged in 1774.

21. The Bucket of Blood pub in Phillack, Cornwall got its name when a former landlord went to the nearby well and pulled up blood with the bucket.

A murdered corpse was found at the bottom.

22. Sir Jock Delves Broughton committed suicide in the Adelphi Hotel in December 1942.

Despite being acquitted many believe he was responsible for the 1941 murder of the Earl of Erroll in Kenya, a case made into the film White Mischief starring Greta Scacchi.

23. When a mob chased suspected poisoner Mary Blandy through the streets of Henley on Thames in 1751 she escaped into the Little Angel pub where she ordered a ‘pint of wine and toast.’

Mary was later hanged for killing her father.

24. The butler really did do it! In 1876 butler Henry Tremble murdered his boss John Johnes in a row over the tenancy of the Dolaucothi Arms in Carmarthenshire.

25. In 1943 the Acid Bath Murderer, John George Haigh, lured his first victim from the Goat pub in Kensington, London.

Then, at his nearby flat, he bashed in his victim’s head before putting the body in a vat of sulphuric acid.

26. During the 18th century the Hawkhurst smuggling gang terrorised the South Coast using pubs as their headquarters including the Mermaid Inn at Rye in Sussex.

27. There was a dramatic shoot-out at The Crown pub in Kingsclere, Berkshire in1944 when a group of disgruntled American soldiers went on the rampage resulting in the deaths of three people including the landlady, Rose Napper.

28. The Savoy Hotel on London’s Strand was the scene of a shooting in 1923, when a rich Egyptian, Prince Ali Fahmy, was gunned down by his own wife, Marguerite.

Amazingly she was found not guilty.

29. Planning for The Great Train Robbery of 1963, which saw £2.6million stolen from a Royal Mail train, was done in the Star Tavern in West London.

30. Serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least 12 young men in the 1970s and 1980s, would scour pubs in the capital like The Salisbury in Covent Garden for his victims.

• To order Murder at the Inn: A History of Crime in Britain’s Pubs and Hotels by James Moore published by History Press £9.99 on March 10th Please call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562310. Alternatively please send a cheque or postal order to:- Murder at the Inn offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall, TR11 4WJ or visit expressbookshop.com. UK delivery is free.