Hampstead Heath

The Inn was built around 1585 and gets its name either from the fact that it was the country retreat of the Spanish Ambassador to James I of England and VI of Scotland, or it was named after a Spanish landlord, Francis Porrero.

Legend has it that the highwayman Dick Turpin was born here on 21 September, 1705. This may or may not be true, but what is known is that his father was a landlord of the Inn during the 18th Century. It's a great romantic notion to think that the mighty Dick Turpin used to watch the horse and carts loaded with the gentry rolling past his window, giving him the inspiration to lead his life of crime. Romantic, but more than likely complete tosh.

The Inn also played a vital role in saving the life of one Lord Mansfield. In 1780, Lord Gordon (a rampant Protestant) led a group of hoodlums to attack Lord Mansfield (pro-Catholic) at Kenwood House, his home. They would have succeeded had they not stopped at the Inn to quench their thirst. The landlord, Giles Thomas, alerted the army. After an initial skirmish with the army, the surviving members of Lord Gordon's gang surrendered, were taken to Newgate prison and promptly hanged.

The pub also has a great literary heritage. Not only has it been mentioned in Dickens's The Pickwick Papers and Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it can count among its previous frequenters the artist Joshua Reynolds and the poets Byron and Keats. If you believe the Inn's spiel, Keats allegedly wrote his Ode to a Nightingale in the gardens.

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