The True Crime Lover's Guide to London

TREASON

William FitzOzbert (1196)

St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside, EC2V 6AU

William FitzOzbert or ‘Longbeard’ was known for challenging authority, and during a siege following his public denouncement of the throne he killed a Kingsman. In his panic he fled and sought sanctuary in St Mary-le-Bow church and hid with nine of his conspirators.

The King’s Men went against protocol and started a fire in the grounds of the church in order to ‘smoke’ the conspirators out so they could be arrested.

Tyburn (Marble Arch), W1C 1LX

William FitzOzbert was then the first person sentenced to death at Tyburn on April 6, 1196.

He was dragged behind a horse for the five miles from the Tower of London before he was hanged. FitzOzbert was not only the first to be executed at Tyburn, but also the first to become a martyr.

The junction between Edgware Road and Oxford Street marks Tyburn which between 1196 and 1783 was used as a place of execution. At the time it was open country and was on the main route to Oxford, which is why Tyburn Road was renamed as Oxford Street.

William Wallace (1305)

Westminster Hall, 3 St Margaret Street, SW1P 3JX

William Wallace, the Scottish patriot, went on trial at Westminster Hall in 1305 for treason against the king and the ‘people of England and Scotland’.

He was forced to wear a crown of laurels as a means of mocking him. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for ‘robberies, homicides and felonies’ and to be beheaded as an outlaw … and afterwards for your burning churches and relics your heart, liver, lungs and entrails from which your wicked thoughts come shall be burned.

Smithfield, Grand Avenue, EC1A 9PS

In 1305 William Wallace was executed here for treason.

The market which currently sits on the site was designed by Sir Horace Jones in the later nineteenth century.

Westminster Hall, 3 St Margaret Street, SW1P 3JX

Oliver Cromwell (1658)

Westminster Abbey, Dean’s Yard, SW1P 3PA

Oliver Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1658 and was given the equivalent of a state funeral which cost in the region of £60,000 at the time. However, in 1661 he had been posthumously tried for regicide for his role in the death of Charles I and found guilty. His body was dug up and placed in a gibbet which was hung outside the Abbey. His head was put onto a spike outside Westminster Hall and remained there for 20 years.

After that it was removed and displayed in numerous local pubs.

Wig and Pen, 229-230 Strand, Temple, WC2R 1BF

Oliver Cromwell’s skull was displayed at the Wig and Pen Pub and was eventually treated to forensic tests which showed it to be genuine. The skull was returned to his Cambridge College and has since been reburied.

Cato Street Conspiracy (1820)

1a Cato Street, W1H 5HG

1a Cato Street, W1H 5HG

Following the death of George III in January 1820, Arthur Thistlewood and his fellow conspirators hatched a plan to use this time to unseat the current government by charging into the house of Lord Harrowby, the Lord President of the Council, during a Cabinet Meeting and assassinate the entire cabinet in one go.

Their headquarters was a disused stable, which is now 1a Cato Street (with the black frontage). They accidently recruited a police spy into their gang as well as approaching a random cow-keeper, Thomas Hidon, who reported everything to Lord Harrowby leading to their capture.

On February 23, 1820, the Bow Street Runners charged the stable in order to arrest the gang. Thistlewood murdered one officer, but the other conspirators were using low-quality gunpowder causing the guns to backfire. Thistlewood and three conspirators escaped but the others were arrested. Thistlewood was arrested a few days later. Eleven conspirators were charged and hanged for their part in the plot.

There is a blue plaque on the building commemorating that the conspiracy was uncovered at this site.

Old Bailey, EC4M 7EH

The conspirators were tried at the Old Bailey on March 23, 1820. They were found guilty of treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. This was carried out at Newgate Prison.

SMUGGLING

The Gun Tavern, Docklands, 27 Coldharbour, E14 9NS

www.thegundocklands.com

Within this pub there is an enclosed staircase which has a smugglers’ spy hole cut into the wall for those landing contraband on the dock and distributing it via a hidden tunnel. This was used as a means to evade the revenue officers.

This pub dates back to the early eighteenth century but took its current name from the cannon which was fired to celebrate the opening of the West India Import Docks in 1802.

This pub was also used by Lord Horatio Nelson to meet Emma Hamilton in what is now the River Room. There is also a rumour that there was a tunnel between the pub and her lodgings in Cold Harbour. In the late eighteenth century, Nelson acquired a property just up the road (still known as Nelson’s House).

Berry Bros. & Rudd, 3 St James’s Street, SW1A 1EG

In the 1920s, an American, Jack ‘Legs’ Diamond, walked into Berry Bros & Rudd and ordered several hundred cases of whisky. In itself not a crime, except that at the time America was in the middle of prohibition.

Evidence shows that Berry Bros. & Rudd delivered a large order of Cutty Sark whisky to the Bahamas, at the time a British colony. It is thought that from there it was smuggled into the US at the New Jersey coast.

This seemed to be a common ‘crime’ as in 1918, before prohibition the Bahamas drank 944 gallons of whisky. This rose by 1922 to 386,000 gallons a year! Although the US government raised the issue of British imports to the Caribbean there was nothing that could be done as it was all legal and above board.

Berry Bros. & Rudd opened in 1698 and sells more than 5,000 wines selected by five Masters of Wine, with two royal warrants.

Noreen Harbord (1946)

61 Harrington Gardens, SW7 4JZ

Noreen Harbord, Queen of the Contraband Coast, lived here in 1939. She had married Arthur Harold Harvard, son of a brigadier in 1936 but by the time she lived here in 1946 they were separated.

She led ships smuggling contraband goods like cigarettes, nylons, alcohol or penicillin into the UK at a time when rationing was still in place. She then moved onto gold strips, and finally Swiss watches in 1949.

She was an ex-debutante and society hostess and at 18 had been presented at Buckingham Palace.

61 Harrington Gardens, SW7 4JZ

HIGHWAY ROBBERY

Shooters Hill, SE18 4LG

Shooters Hill was once lined with woodland making a perfect location for highwaymen. If they were captured and executed their bodies were often hung in gibbets along the road as a deterrent. Samuel Pepys, writing in 1661, said:

Mrs Anne and I rose under the man that hangs upon Shooters Hill and a filthy site it was to see how his flesh had shrunk to his bones.

This is hard to imagine when looking up this leafy suburban street.

Wimbledon Common, SW15 3SB

In 1795 the body of hanged highwayman, Lewis Avershaw/Abershaw was displayed on Wimbledon Common, on the place known as Jerry’s Hill. The Sunday after it was gibbeted, London was empty as people flocked to see it. It was there for four months and was a big draw for tourists.

Claude Du Vall (1670)

The Marquis, (was The Hole in the Wall) 51-52 Chandos Place, WC2N 4HS

The Marquis, (was The Hole in the Wall) 51-52 Chandos Place, WC2N 4HS

This pub dates back to 1765 and is thought by some to be on the site of the Hole in the Wall pub where notorious highwayman Claude Du Vall (Duvall/Duval) was arrested in 1670.

Tyburn (Marble Arch), W1C 1LX

On January 21, 1670 Du Vall was hanged at Tyburn.

St Paul’s Church, Bedford Street, WC2E 9ED

Claude Du Vall was apparently buried in the Chancel at St Paul’s, Covent Garden. As a popular celebrity his funeral was attended by thousands of women from the aristocracy to prostitutes. He was reported as never using violence and was a very popular romantic figure. On his gravestone there was an inscription which read:

Here lies Duval: reader, if male thou art, Look to thy purse: if female to thy heart. Much havoc hath he made of both: for all. Men made me stand, and women made me fall. The second conqueror of the Norman Race, Knights to his arms die yield, and ladies to his face. Old Tyburn’s Glory, England’s bravest thief: Duval the ladies joy, Duval the ladies grief.

St Paul’s Church, Bedford Street, WC2E 9ED

PROSTITUTION

In the nineteenth century prostitution was vilified, meaning sex workers were criminalised as were their patrons. However in earlier centuries prostitution was accepted to a certain extent as a legitimate occupation.

In the twelfth century for example, the Bishop of Winchester and the church made a lot of money from prostitution, and in Southwark prostitutes were known as Bishop of Winchester’s Geese.

Despite this, they were unable to be buried in consecrated land, and were considered lower class citizens. The only exception to this were high class prostitutes or concubines and mistresses who slept with kings and princes.

Burlington Arcade, 51 Piccadilly, W1J 0QJ

In the nineteenth century, prostitutes rented many of the rooms above the shops in the Burlington Arcade. They had a great view of the entire arcade, and when they saw a beadle they whistled a warning to the pickpockets below. It was at this time that whistling was banned in the arcade and is a rule upheld today by the beadles who are still policing the area. Only two people have permission to whistle in the arcade: Paul McCartney and a young lad called Jaden from the East End who was given dispensation by the beadles.

Burlington Arcade, 51 Piccadilly, W1J 0QJ

The beadles are a private security force introduced by Lord George Cavendish, owner of Burlington House on Piccadilly, and were originally pulled from the 10th Hussars. He built the arcade in 1819 to protect his property from oyster shells being lobbed over his garden wall (the equivalent of McD wrappers).

Crossbones Cemetery, Union Street, SE1 1SD

www.crossbones.org.uk

Between the sixteenth century and 1853, this unconsecrated burial ground was used for the interment of the low women who frequented the neighbourhood and then for the paupers and those who were forbidden to be buried in a churchyard.

There were so many burials here that in the 1850s the bodies were buried close enough to the surface, that hands and feet were often seen poking through the sod.

It was closed as a burial ground in 1853 due to the overcrowding and the land sold in 1883 as a building site.

In the 1920s, during building work forty bodies were uncovered and reburied in Brockwood Cemetery in Woking. In the 1990s and the extension of the Jubilee Line, 148 further bodies were uncovered. In 2014 it was set up as a memorial garden.

Catherine Walters (1860s)

15 South Street, W1K 2XB

This was the home of Catherine Walters, who was nicknamed ‘Skittles’ as she had once worked in a bowling alley. She has been lauded as one of the ‘last great courtesans of London.’ Amongst her ‘clients’ were rumoured to be Edward VII, Napoleon III and William Gladstone.

15 South Street, W1K 2XB

She received enough money from Lord Hartington whom she called ‘Harty Tarty’ to rent this house in Mayfair. He caused a society scandal by openly escorting Catherine to the Epsom Derby.

She was able to purchase the house in 1872 when she returned some love letters to Bertie, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) who gave her a lot of money in gratitude. She lived here until her death in 1920 leaving everything to her lover, Gerald Le Marchant Saumerez who was 21 years her