On the edge of Hampstead Heath is a handsome inn called The Spaniards, so named because it was built by two Spanish brothers, in the year 1585. Our old friend Charles Dickens, who seems to pop up with uncanny frequency in these ‘literary pubs’, was one writer who frequented The Spaniards, which provided inspiration for ‘The Pickwick Papers’, but he was not the only one.
The attractive garden is said to have been where the poet John Keats wrote ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. There is a Keats Room in the inn to commemorate the fact. His contemporary Lord Byron also visited. The inn also appears in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. As a non-literary aside, the father of the highwayman Dick Turpin was once the landlord of the inn, and it was where Dick came into the world.
 |
| The Spaniards Inn 1585 AD and outbuilding - geograph.org.uk - 1131521. Photo by Mike Quinn, via Wikimedia Commons. |
No comments:
Post a Comment