Alexander Meddings
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Flexible TravelBritain’s historic capital has endured its fair share of drama. Notwithstanding the great fires that have torn through the city, the devastating civil wars that have toppled kings, and the riots that have brought the city to its knees, London has borne witness to scores of plagues, pestilences, and public executions. Yet, somehow, London has withstood all of this, keeping calm and carrying on to become a global capital of culture and commerce.
Today’s city might not show it, but London was built on shaky foundations. Even in the ancient world, the city was the site of some horrendous violence. Even as far back as 60 CE, the city was sacked, when Queen Boudicca stormed the city and put thousands of its inhabitants to the sword (a historical episode that makes the statue of her at the end of Westminster Bridge somewhat problematic).
With over 2,000 years of continuous inhabitation, London is bursting with history. And this history isn’t just confined to its hundreds of museums, churches, and galleries. Wander the streets of Whitechapel, for example, as you follow in the Ripper’s footsteps, and you sometimes catch a glimpse. But even beneath the very streets you walk are countless stories of London’s dark and violent past. Here are our favourite sinister facts about London.
Like their compatriots on the European continent, Londoners have suffered through (too) many plague outbreaks. The first major pestilence, known to history as the Black Death, came in 1348 with the arrival of some unwanted fleas on Genovese cargo ships. The Black Death claimed some 40,000 lives before finally dissipating in 1350. The city would have to wait 300 years for the next major outbreak. But there were many minor ones in between: around 40 between the Black Death and the Great Plague.
One of the most sinister facts about London is that it stands upon more than a dozen plague pits. Image credit: City AM
The Great Plague — which by all accounts wasn’t that great at all — flourished in the putrid conditions of London’s streets. Between 1665 and 1666 it claimed well over 100,000 lives, some 15% of the city’s population, leaving the dead littering the streets or rotting away at home. The problem the survivors found themselves faced with was what to do with their dead.
Church graveyards were the most obvious port of call, but it wasn’t long before god’s terrestrial waiting rooms became a little overcrowded. Deciding to “bring out your dead wasn’t an option since leaving bodies out in the open would only spread disease, and so London’s residents set about hastily digging out plague pits in which to throw the victims. Dozens of these have been discovered as various construction projects have forced us to scratch beneath the surface of this millennia-old city.
Illustrations of London’s Great Plague 1665-1666. The National Archives
What’s more, more plague pits are still being discovered. In 2013, an enormous pit was discovered under Farringdon’s Charterhouse Square, just 8 feet (2.5 metres) below the ground. It’s cramped all right: the resting place of up to 50,000 victims of the Black Death. In 2017, another was discovered at the site of the 17th-century Bedlam cemetery, and after DNA testing, scientists were able to identify the bacteria that caused this plague for the first time.
Wherever you go in London, you’re likely to be walking above some grave or another. As the author of Necropolis: London and its Dead recently put it, London is essentially one giant burial ground. But if you happen to be riding the London Underground, be aware that during your commute you’re likely to be skirting past thousands upon thousands of human remains.
The idea that the dead had a say in the design of the underground is, however, a myth. The most common anecdote is that between the stations of Knightsbridge and South Kensington, the underground line curves to circumvent an enormous plague pit hidden beneath Hyde Park. Filling this pit are the remains of thousands of victims of the Great Plague (1665 – 1666), hurriedly thrown in by friends, family, or strangers all desperately hoping they wouldn’t soon be following behind.
When constructing the London Underground, the authorities decided to drill around — rather than through (or rather 40 – 80 feet under) — the plague pit beneath Hyde Park. But it wasn’t because this pit is such a densely packed impermeable mass of twisted, tangled human bones that, even with the tools at their disposal in the nineteenth century, the workmen simply couldn’t drill through. It was because, where possible, line planners decided to follow the course of publicly owned roads (Brompton Road in this case) to avoid undermining housing foundations.
Construction of the Metropolitan Railway, the world’s first underground railway. This illustration shows the trench and partially completed cut and cover tunnel close to Kings Cross station, London. The railway eventually opened in 1863. Image credit: Open.edu
This isn’t to say that those working on the lines over the last couple of centuries haven’t come across human remains. Alan Jackson, in his detailed documentation of route digging between Paddington and King’s Cross in 1862, stumbled across the remains of many ex-Londoners. Rather than an impenetrable wall, however, it was a small enough number that he could call the trustworthy London Necropolis Company (basically Ghostbusters for the dead) and have them removed.
Unless you were into robbing graves or attending public executions (in which case this would have been one of the hottest postcodes in London), the area around St. Sepulchre would have been a truly grim place to live.
Most of the action took place around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — still the largest parish church in the city centre — or at scaffolds a couple of miles west at Tyburn, where every six weeks thousands of spectators would assemble to gawk at dozens of condemned men, women, and children being sent to meet their maker.
Exterior of St. Sepulchre today. Image from Wikimedia Commons
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was founded around the middle of the twelfth century. It was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666 (the 1600s truly was a shitter of a century) before being rebuilt in its present form. Its extensive graveyard provided tempting pickings for thieving opportunists, especially when its subterranean population would swell in the wake of one plague outbreak or another.
Grave robbing was, in fact, such a popular seventeenth-century pastime that the government ordered the building of a Watch House to deter potential miscreants. Grave robbers didn’t do it for the love of course. Medical students keen to get together for a good old-fashioned dissection paid handsomely for the bodies of recently deceased murderers (the only ones they would accept): around £50 which is a fortune in today’s money.
The church is still home to its original Execution Bell, the function of which is all too easy to discern. This bell would be rung whenever a public execution was scheduled: partly to announce the spectacle to those living close by, and partly to provide an eerie soundtrack as the condemned made their final journey from nearby Newgate Prison or the Old Bailey to the scaffolds at Tyburn.
The River Thames, often seen as the lifeblood of London, also served as a Styxian final journey for those who met their end at Executions Dock, in modern-day Wapping. It was here, on a creaking wooden scaffold jutting over the river outside today’s Prospect of Whitby pub, that the condemned would face their fate. The dock was not just a place of execution; it was a stage where the drama of crime and punishment played out before a captivated audience. The condemned were typically taken from Newgate Prison and paraded through the city in a sombre procession, before being brought to this windswept spot on the edge of the river.
Pirates were the most notorious of those hanged at Executions Dock. Their crimes were considered so heinous that ordinary execution on dry land was deemed insufficient. Instead, they were subjected to the “maritime gallows,” where they would be hanged with a shortened rope to ensure a slow, agonizing death by strangulation. After, their bodies were often left to dangle in the river’s tidal waters for three tides, a gruesome spectacle that served as a stark deterrent to any who might consider following in their footsteps.
Replica hangman’s noose outside the Prospect of Whitby Pub
One of the most infamous pirates to meet his end at Executions Dock was Captain William Kidd. Convicted of piracy and murder, Kidd was brought to this very spot in 1701, where a massive crowd gathered to witness his demise. His execution was infamously botched; the rope broke on the first attempt, a moment of macabre irony that only added to the legend of Captain Kidd. On the second attempt, the execution was successful, and his body was then tarred and gibbeted—encased in iron and hung further down the Thames as a warning to others.
The scene around Executions Dock during these events would have been one of both horror and morbid fascination. The Prospect of Whitby, a tavern that has stood by the river since the early 16th century, offered a prime vantage point for those who wished to witness the spectacle. Patrons could sip their ale and look out over the water as the bodies of the condemned swayed in the breeze—a chilling juxtaposition of life and death, revelry and retribution.
Today, the Prospect of Whitby still stands, its ancient timbers steeped in the history of London’s darker past. Inside, you can find a replica of the gallows, a nod to the pub’s grim heritage. The cobblestone streets outside and the views across the Thames give visitors a sense of the eerie atmosphere that once pervaded this place. But while the executions have long since ceased, the stories remain, etched into the very fabric of Wapping.
As you stand by the river, it’s not difficult to imagine the cries of the condemned carried on the wind, or the hushed murmurs of the crowd as they watched justice—however brutal—being served. Executions Dock, now a quiet corner of London, was once a place where the law meted out its harshest penalties, and where the Thames carried away the souls of the damned, leaving only their legends behind.
In many ways, the site is a reminder of how close the line is between civilization and barbarism, between order and chaos. The gallows may be gone, but the spectre of Executions Dock lingers, a haunting reminder of London’s past where justice was swift, and usually fatal.
The dead of ancient Greece would have coins placed over their eyes so they could pay the infernal boatman Charon to ferry them across the River Styx to their final resting place. The dead of nineteenth-century London would be brought a train ticket and ferried from Waterloo’s Necropolis Station to a purpose-built cemetery 23 miles southwest in Brookwood, Surrey.
The thought of free rail travel (for the dead, never mind the living) might sound like the stuff of sheer fantasy today. But in nineteenth-century London, there was a dire need owing to a worrying lack of burial space. Just 218 acres y had to accommodate around 50,000 deaths every year. The situation was getting so critical that it was becoming common practice to exhume rotting corpses at night and illegally cremate them to save up room for newcomers. Lovely. Parliament eventually voted to ban new burials in the centre and divert funds to building necropolises in green spaces surrounding the city.
Brookwood Cemetery opened in 1854 with its station opening 10 years later. The latter provided a service to friends and family; unlike the journey across the Styx they had the option of going with them without also having to shuffle off their mortal coil. Typically in keeping with the British class system, first, second, or third class tickets were available both for the living and the dead (god forbid corpses of different classes should have to ride together)
Not everybody felt comfortable with the idea though. In 1842, the Bishop of London described the whole as “improper” and at odds with the solemnity that should characterise a Christian funeral. In 1902, a new railway station opened on Westminster Bridge Road to replace the old one. However, it wouldn’t stay in service for long. To a large extent, the mass influx of automobiles made trains redundant when it came to shipping the dead off for burial.
Necropolis Station arrived at its final destination during the London Blitz. In 1941a German bomb went and tore right through it, marking the end of what a 1904 edition of Railway Magazine described as “the most peaceful railway service in the three corners of the kingdom.” What we can say for sure is that for 87 years, London ran the only service in the city’s history in which none of its passengers submitted a single complaint.
Built between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, the Tower of London has hosted a fair few famous residents over the centuries. Rather than serving as a battlement, however, its most famous function has been that of a holding place for the condemned, featuring such big names as Henry VIII’s wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the Scottish king John Balliol, Elizabeth I’s favourite, Sir Walter Raleigh.
The Tower’s association with death is so strong, in fact, that it has given the British their idiom “to be sent to the tower” — meaning to be imprisoned or punished (or indeed both). It saw its heyday of executions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most of the condemned wouldn’t meet their end within the tower walls, however, but would be taken to Tower Hill, just north of the castle.
But although over the last few centuries, the Tower has gradually lost its function as a place of execution, it may surprise you to learn that the last one didn’t take place that long ago.
In early February 1941, Joseph Jakobs, a 43-year-old German dentist-turned-spy, was apprehended shortly after parachuting into England. He had raised the suspicion of local farmers when he was seen limping around the countryside (it would later transpire that he had broken his ankle upon landing) and firing his pistol. Their suspicions that he was a German spy were confirmed when he was found in possession of forged identity papers, a radio transmitter, and — most bizarrely of all — a German sausage.
Jakobs was tried before a military tribunal between the 4th and 5th of August and was sentenced to death after being found guilty of spying. His execution took place on the morning of 15 August 1941 in the Tower’s miniature rifle range. After being blindfolded, Jakobs was sent before an eight-man firing squad where he was made to sit in a brown Windsor chair. He was shot five times (three men were given blanks) and died instantly. A post-mortem was to reveal, however, that only one of the shots had pierced the heart and therefore proved fatal.
Walking through Whitechapel now, it is almost impossible to imagine the horror that once gripped its streets. The bustling markets and lively multicultural neighbourhoods seem a world away from the foggy maze of narrow streets and labyrinthine back alleys that teemed with the impoverished, the desperate, and the forgotten in the 19th century. It was in this grim theatre that the Ripper's ghastly drama played out, leaving a trail of mutilated bodies and unanswered questions that continue to haunt London to this day.
The murders of Jack the Ripper were not just acts of violence; they were grotesque performances, each one more horrifying than the last. Each of his victims (all women) was brutally slashed and disfigured, their body left in such a state that it seemed the killer had a macabre message to convey. Some allege that he was a man driven by madness; others retrain he was a figure of calculated malevolence. What remains beyond despite is that he instilled fear in the heart of London.
“With the Vigilance Committee in the East End: A Suspicious Character” from The Illustrated London News, 13 October 1888
Despite the many theories and suspects that have emerged over the years, the identity of Jack the Ripper remains one of history's most enduring mysteries. The case files, filled with the grim details of each murder, read like a catalogue of nightmares. The suspects ranged from a local butcher to members of the aristocracy, each theory more tantalizing and elusive than the last. In a city obsessed with class and order, the idea that such a monster could walk among them, unseen and undetected, was almost too much to bear.
The Ripper's legacy has also been shaped by the media of the time, which sensationalized the murders and stoked public fear. Newspapers depicted the killer as a ghostly figure, lurking in the fog, with headlines that screamed of "Fiendish Acts" and "Ghastly Deeds." This was a time when London was expanding rapidly, and the fear of the unknown—of the alien, the foreign, and the unseen—was palpable. The Ripper, whoever he was, became the embodiment of those fears, a symbol of the darkness that lurked just beyond the reach of the streetlights.
Today, the sites of the Ripper's murders have largely been swallowed by the city's relentless march toward modernity. Buildings have been demolished, streets renamed, and new structures erected. Yet, for those who seek it, the spectral presence of the Ripper can still be felt. The Whitechapel of today may be more polished, but its cobblestones still remember the blood that once soaked into their cracks. The Ripper tours, with their mix of history and theatre, draw crowds eager to retrace the steps of a killer who was never caught, whose shadow still looms large over London.
But as you walk these streets, it's worth reflecting on how much of the Ripper's story is real and how much is myth. The truth is often more elusive than we care to admit, and in the case of Jack the Ripper, it seems that the line between history and legend has long since blurred. Whitechapel, with its layers of hidden history, serves as a reminder that sometimes the darkest stories are the ones we can never fully understand, yet can never forget.
London’s pubs may still be famous for their games, but we can be thankful that they’re now a lot less bloody (at least as long as there isn’t an Arsenal vs Spurs match involved). For while Londoners weren’t unique in Europe for deriving a great deal of pleasure from watching animals take part in blood sports, their ingenuity when it came to devising variations of condemning animals to death was really quite something.
The innocuously sounding “Dog and Duck” pub in Soho pays testament to a particularly nasty sport known as duck baiting. Pinioned so it couldn’t fly away, a duck would be released into a shallow pond where a dog would be sent to join it. Bets would be placed on how long it would take the dog to catch the duck (whose only means of prolonging the inevitable was to dive underwater).
Duck baiting. Wikipedia Commons
Duck baiting was participant-friendly too, with spectators often throwing stones in an attempt to disable the duck, and an apparent favourite of King Charles II, whose other hobbies included hiding up trees (whence the “Royal Oak”) and waging war against the Dutch.
Another popular sport—and one much easier to host in a pub as it didn’t require a pond—was rat baiting. Matches (if we can call them such) were widely advertised and well attended with London’s rich and poor rubbing shoulder to see how many rats their terriers, mastiffs, or bulldogs could kill within the confines of a 15 square-foot pit. During the interval, two rival dogs would be made to compete against each other and see how many vermin they could kill within an allotted time.
A terrier called Billy (or perhaps “Billy the Blind” owing to the fact he had just one eye and two teeth) was famous for killing 100 rats in five minutes and thirty seconds — which works out at a rate of one rat every three seconds or so. Billy’s (dubiously prestigious) record wasn’t to last, however. Thirty years later, in 1862, a dog named Jacko beat the record by two seconds; helped in no small part, I imagine, by the simple fact he had more teeth…
Britain isn’t famous for its sweltering summers. But when they do come, we easily find cause to complain. It seems the summer of 1858 was worthy of complaint, especially if you were unfortunate enough to be living in London. For through the haze of heat and pollution, the baking sun toasted the mounds of human excrement piling up on the banks of the River Thames.
A Punch Magazine cartoon from 1858 referencing the cholera outbreak around the time of the Great Stink. Image credit: Hulton Archives/Getty Images
The stench this created was bad enough to drive British parliamentarians out of Westminster, or at least those who hadn’t already fled to their houses in the country through fear of joining the thousands of others who were perishing from cholera. When you consider that in 1858 there were a fair few pressing issues on the parliamentary agenda—not least Britain’s involvement in an opium war over in China and a full-scale mutiny in India—this gives you an idea of just how bad the situation was. Even the lime-soaked curtains parliamentarians hid themselves behind to soften the stench couldn’t persuade them to stay.
Extreme times called for extreme measures, and to ensure that this “evil odour” could never resurface, the government appointed Sir Joseph Bazalgette to revolutionise the city’s sewage system. This was, as you can imagine no easy task. London’s population had more than doubled between 1800 and 1850, and along with it so had the amount of waste the city had to accommodate. Worse still, there was nothing to separate the contaminated water of the Thames from the water London’s citizens were drinking.
As humourist and cleric Sydney Smith once remarked, “He who drinks a tumbler of London water has in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe.”
The former rail engineer, Sir Peter Bazalgette, proved himself up to the job. With the £3 million he had been allocated, he set about building many along the Thames (Victoria, Albert, and Chelsea) as well as constructing an 82-mile network of interconnected sewers, treatment works, and pumping stations, planned with remarkable foresight for future population growth and extreme cases of flooding.
Testament to their efficacy is the fact that they still serve London’s 8.8 million residents today.
If you think life was tough for the average person during the eighteenth century, spare a moment’s thought for the children of one of London’s many workhouses.
Made to live in appalling conditions, children—often orphans—as young as 12 would be sent to work there. Ostensibly as apprentices, but in reality as little more than slave labourers. One such girl was Anne Naylor who, with her sister, was entrusted to the care of Sarah Metyard and her daughter Sally as apprentices in their millinery (or women’s hats) shop.
I say “care” lightly, because the Metyards were complete and utter sociopaths.
They derived great pleasure in inflicting pain upon the girls they employed, dishing out beatings like they were going out of fashion while dishing out considerably of what the girls actually needed: food. Young Anne was a sickly child, and her inability to keep up with the demands of her work singled her out for particularly nasty abuse. This eventually became too much for Anne, and she tried to escape. But she was soon apprehended by a boy who worked there and brought back to face the Metyard’s rage.
Anne was beaten and consigned to the attic, where she was given just enough bread and water to survive. Again she tried to escape, but again she was unsuccessful. Sally caught her roaming London’s streets, and after dragging her home had her tied to the attic door where she was beaten mercilessly with a broom. On the fourth day of Anne’s sadistic ordeal, one of the apprentices noticed she wasn’t moving. Believing she was faking it, Sarah administered another beating (this time with a shoe). Perhaps there’s a small mercy in the fact that Anne could not feel it.
The Metyards tried to cover up the murder. They hid Anne’s body in her room, leaving the door slightly ajar, and continued to bring bread and water. However, Anne’s sister noticed something was amiss and shared her suspicions with a lodger (for which she paid with her life). Two months later, with Anne’s body going putrid, the Meynards disembodied it and dumped it near a sewer on Chick Lane. They would have gotten away with it, but an argument between the two resulted in Sally confessing to the authorities (thinking she wouldn’t be incriminating).
They were arrested, tried, and executed on July 19, 1768. Sarah Metyard passed out on the way to the gallows at Tyburn but was hanged unconscious to the joyful jeers of the crowd. As for Anne Naylor, her ghost outlived her tormentors, haunting the grounds on which her earthly remains had been unceremoniously dumped. Legend has it that her cries can still be heard by unfortunate commuters taking the underground from Farringdon station.
Coming to the UK? Our London Tours offer the most authentic way to explore the British capital. Our licensed guides are tested and trusted on TripAdvisor, and we’ve selected them because of their passion for their city.
Feeling peckish? Get a real taste of London on our Borough Market Food tour!
Looking to meet other travellers on a fun night out? Check out our London Tipsy tour!
See yourself as something of a detective? Bring Jack to justice on our Jack the Ripper tour!
Visiting London with the kids? Make their trip magical with our Harry Potter Walking tour!
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Happy hour meets history on this unforgettable social adventure through Soho—one of London’s trendiest neighbourhoods. This isn’t your average walking tour—it’s where scandalous stories and delicious drinks come together for a night to remember.
You and a group of fellow travellers will meet with a local guide who will lead you through Soho after dark to discover its red light roots, rebellious spirit, and rock ‘n’ roll legacy. You’ll hear wild tales of icons like Amy Winehouse and The Rolling Stones, stroll past Mozart’s childhood home, and stand in the same spot where Jimi Hendrix played his final gig.
Between tidbits of tales and hidden corners, you’ll dive into British pub culture at four of Soho’s trendiest bars—sipping on a bold Camden beer, a crisp gin & tonic, a cheeky shot, and a surprise cocktail. Not drinking? No worries—we’ve got tasty non-alcoholic options too!
The London Tipsy Tour is where narrative and nightlife collide. Whether you’re flying solo or rolling with friends, this is your ticket to the ultimate night out in the British capital. Book now, and let’s get to feelin’ groovy in Soho!
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By order of the Ministry of Magic, you are hereby summoned to take part in a Harry Potter Walking Tour through London. Friends and family are welcome, but strictly no other Muggles are allowed.
Grab your wand, throw on your cloak, and keep that toad in its cage – we’re off!
This magical journey blends fiction with reality, whisking you and your fellow adventurers into the heart of the wizarding world. Whether you’re a squib, a half-blood or a whizz to rival a Weasley, this tour will awaken your sense of wonder and bring these beloved books to life before your very eyes.
Hold on to your Hallows, because we’re not just visiting filming locations from the movies; we’re also exploring the inspirational places that stirred J.K. Rowling’s imagination as she put quill to parchment. Picture yourself strolling through Diagon Alley, enjoying a butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron, and uncovering the hidden gems of London that inspired one of the most popular series on earth!
Our expert “Potterhead” guide will lead the way, armed with a wealth of wizardry wisdom and a fair few defensive spells (should the need arise). Your knowledge will be tested with a Ministry-approved quiz, and your mind filled with behind-the-scenes insights, secret facts, and captivating tales.
So join us as we create magical memories through London. Or, as Dumbledore might say:
“Let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress: adventure!”
5(490)Explore the dark underbelly of Whitechapel on this purpose-built, immersive experience. With an expert Ripperologist guide and small-group of inquisitive travellers, you’ll retrace the Ripper’s footsteps, visiting real-life crime scenes to discover the bone-chilling stories of his victims and how their circumstances sealed their fate.
This is not your typical tour.
Our Jack the Ripper Walking Tour immerses you in Britain’s oldest and most infamous unsolved mystery. Discover who the Ripper’s victims were, the lives they led, and the impact their tragic deaths had on their community. Along the way, your guide will share theories about the Ripper’s identity and the suspects that have captivated the world for over a century.
With your detective pack filled with case insights and historical details, you’ll follow in the footsteps of Britain’s most notorious serial killer – not to gawk or glorify his crimes, but to better understand the historical context and the horror of his deeds. This offers a unique opportunity to engage with true crime history, exploring the enduring legacy of these tragic events.
Feeling intrigued? Join us for this immersive historical experience in the heart of London, and discover the humans behind the headlines.
Book your spot today.
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