A View of London Bridge in the Year 1616/Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Images
Old cities are often full of ghosts—the passage of history leaves traces in the names of streets, in sayings and expressions. Sometimes, these are like scars on one's body: long healed and almost invisible but present when you touch them. Real events fade into legend, and stories grow with fantastic details, while the names of heroes are forgotten. And yet some fragments survive—a grandmother’s tale, an urban legend, a strange monument—enduring through the centuries as reminders of what had once happened.
London, with its 2,000-year history, is a vivid example of this. Even in its most respectable neighborhoods, traces of a dark, terrifying past can still be found.
The Black Dog of Newgate
Amen Court, City of London, EC4M 7BU
Today, the City, containing London’s ancient center, is home to its business district. It is also one of the few places where you can see crowds of professionals in expensive suits filling the streets. The area is famous for its skyscrapers, and on Fridays, the pubs are packed with finance workers gathering together for a pint after a long work week. Here, you’ll find law offices, the central criminal court at Old Bailey, and numerous legal firms.
It’s also where, according to legend, ever since the sixteenth century, a ghostly black dog has appeared as a harbinger of death. The legend is linked to a building that dominated the local skyline for over 700 years and, along with St. Paul’s Cathedral, was one of the two largest structures in the City—the infamous Newgate Prison, where the Old Bailey now stands.
Newgate Prison, Dublin illustration, green street /Wikimedia Commons
Newgate Prison was built in the twelfth century by the order of King Henry II and remained in use until 1902. The prison was originally constructed into the gates of London’s ancient Roman wall (hence the name ‘Newgate’). Behind it lay marshy fields, which still live on in the name of the nearby Moorgate Station. Over its long history, the prison was rebuilt many times, including after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Yet, despite all these changes, one thing remained constant: horrific conditions for prisoners.
Newgate Prison was so filthy that the floors seemed to crackle underfoot from lice, fleas, and bedbugs. Hundreds were crammed together in halls filled with starving men and women dressed in rags, some visibly insane, others occasionally in shackles, and often holding their children. In the early nineteenth century, the renowned philanthropist Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) was so shocked by the conditions for women and children that she compiled a report that shook the House of Commons. Her efforts led to the decision to divide the large halls into individual cells, becoming one of the first steps toward prison reform.
Engraving by Gustave Doré (coloured version), from «London, a Pilgrimage». Victorian London, Newgate prison. Prisoners in the exercise yard/Alamy
The legend of the Black Dog of Newgate has its origins in a tragic story about an unfortunate scholar. Storytellers disagree about the facts right from the start, unable to decide whether the tale was first heard during the famine of 1258, under King Henry III, or the Great Famine of 1315–17, under King Edward II, who was later deposed. Some suggest that it started during the reign of King James I, a monarch famously obsessed with witchcraft who initiated witch hunts in Scotland and England.
But regardless of the timeline, legend has it that a scholar was accused of witchcraft and imprisoned in Newgate to await trial.
However, the prison’s conditions were dreadful and famine raged. The guards hardly cared about feeding the prisoners, struggling as they were to survive themselves. So, the starving inmates killed and ate the scholar before he could be tried.
Drawing of the Black Dog of Newgate, from the book The Discovery of a London Monster Called the Black Dog of Newgate' published in 1638/Wikimedia Commons
Afterward, a monstrous black dog with glowing red eyes appeared and devoured those who had eaten the scholar. Terrified out of their minds, the inmates killed the guards and tried to escape, but none survived.
The first written account of the Black Dog of Newgate dates to the early seventeenth century. For several centuries after, inmates claimed to see the Black Dog on the eve of executions.
An execution in front of the Debtor's door at Newgate prison, London. 1st December 1809/Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images
And even today, they say that if you overindulge in the City’s pubs on a Friday night, the ghostly black dog may still appear near Amen Court, the only remnant of the prison, which was demolished in 1904. Witnesses describe it as a shapeless black figure that glides along walls, emits a putrid odor, and vanishes into the garden between buildings.
Amen Court is a private street, closed to the public, but if you peek through the gate, you can see a gray stone wall in the distance. Long ago, this wall marked the boundary of Newgate Prison’s graveyard, home to all its restless souls.
Newgate prison courtyard/Alamy
The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard
Crossbones Graveyard and Garden of Remembrance, Union Street, London SE1 1TA
On the south bank of the Thames in Southwark, not far from London Bridge Station, lies the Crossbones Graveyard, a burial ground in one of London’s oldest and once dirtiest and poorest districts. In earlier times, it was known as the ‘cemetery of single women’. Here, in unmarked graves, lie the bodies of sex workers and the destitute, who had no one to pay for their burials. Poor residents were buried here as early as the fourteenth century, with the last burials taking place in 1853.
Gates of the Cross Bones graveyard, Southwark, London/Wikimedia Commons
Ironically, during the Middle Ages, sex workers interred here were required to be licensed to work in the brothels of the Liberty of the Clink in Bankside. These licenses were issued by the Bishop of Winchester, following an order signed by Thomas Becket in 1161. This district was originally outside of London as ‘London’ referred to only that part of the city which fell within the city walls on the river’s northern bank. The Liberty of the Clink fell under the jurisdiction of Surrey, managed by the powerful Bishop of Winchester instead of the king. Many businesses banned in London, such as bull and bear baiting or brothels, were allowed to operate here. As a result, sex workers earned the ironic nickname ‘Winchester Geese’ and were somewhat protected by the Church as long as they generated income. Yet, upon their death, the women who brought additional revenue to the Bishop of Winchester were denied Christian burials. Their children, however, were interred here formally as Christians, but their chances of survival were grim. London’s frequent epidemics, coupled with the impoverished conditions of their mothers, left them with little chance.
Four geese memorial to the Winchester Geese at the Cross Bones Burial Site in South London/Alamy
By the mid-nineteenth century, the Crossbones Graveyard was closed because it was ‘overloaded with the dead’. By then, approximately 15,000 people had been buried here, a significant portion of whom were children.
It’s said that the ghosts of deceased infants and children still wander the former cemetery, lamenting their untimely fates. At night, distant cries and sobs can reportedly be heard, and an overwhelming sadness is said to envelop anyone approaching the memorial near the cemetery. Even this writer can attest to this feeling, though they are unsure whether it is a result of ghostly influence or the tragic fates of those buried here.
Cross Bones Graveyard and Memorial Garden - a disused post-medieval burial ground on Redcross Way in Southwark, London, UK/Alamy
Saint Ghastly Grim
8 Hart St, London EC3R 7NA
It all began with a legendary battle over London Bridge in 1014 between the Anglo-Norwegian forces and the Danish fleet led by Sweyn Forkbeard. The Norwegian king Olaf II supported the Saxon king Æthelred the Unready, who, like Olaf, was Christian, unlike the pagan Danes. According to the saga, Olaf, who was not yet sainted and still a mere warrior, brought down London Bridge, effectively opening the city to Æthelred’s forces. This daring maneuver on the Thames, a notoriously dangerous tidal river, created a deadly natural barrier. The powerful current of the river can drag even the strongest swimmer under in seconds, making the bridge destruction a brilliant and ruthless tactic.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge, from The Life of King Edward the Confessor by Matthew Paris. 13th century. Cambridge, Cambridge University Library/Wikimedia Commons
This daring maneuver on the Thames, a notoriously dangerous tidal river, created a deadly natural barrier. The powerful current of the river can drag even the strongest swimmer under in seconds, making the bridge destruction a brilliant and ruthless tactic. In The Legendary Saga of St. Olaf, Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson wrote about how Olaf’s forces chained the bridge’s piers to their boats, rowed downstream, and tore the bridge down from below, sending Danish defenders plunging into the freezing river.
The death of the Norwegian king Olaf the Saint in the battle of Stiklastadir. Painting of the altar of the church in Trøndelag. First half of the 14th century/Wikimedia Commons
Some historians believe that the battle inspired the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’. However, the first recorded reference to the rhyme dates back only to the seventeenth century, with the first printed version appearing in the eighteenth century.
Claude de Jongh. View of London Bridge/Google Art Project
Rebuilt several times over the centuries, London Bridge remained the only crossing over the Thames within the city until the eighteenth century. A wider version of the bridge was opened in 1831, showcasing the engineering advancements of the time. However, this was eventually replaced in the 1970s with today’s more modest concrete structure, and it is noteworthy that the original medieval bridge was originally located about 100 meters east of the current one. Interestingly, the stones of the 1831 bridge were sold and reassembled in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where it now stands as a monument of sorts.
Edward William Cooke. Old and New London Bridge. Yale Center for British Art/Wikimedia Commons
After he died in 1030, Olaf was canonized and became Norway’s patron saint. In gratitude, eleventh-century Londoners dedicated several churches to him, including one that still stands today: St. Olave’s Church on Hart Street.
It’s believed that St. Olave’s was founded in 1056, soon after the canonization. Originally a wooden structure, it was rebuilt in stone in the thirteenth century, undergoing further renovations over the centuries. In 1658, new gates decorated with stone skulls, typical of the macabre memento mori style, were added to the churchyard. These skulls later inspired Charles Dickens to nickname the church and graveyard ‘Saint Ghastly Grim’:
William Archer Clark. St Olave's Church, Gateway, Hart Street, City of London, Greater London Authority, 1910-1950/Historic England Archive/Heritage Images via Getty Images
One of my best beloved churchyards, I call the churchyard of Saint Ghastly Grim; [. . .] This gate is ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, larger than the life, wrought in stone; but it likewise came into the mind of Saint Ghastly Grim, that to stick iron spikes on of the stone skulls, as though they were impaled, would be a pleasant device […] seeming, as the lightning flashed, to wink and grin with the pain of the spikes.
Charles Dickens in ‘The City of the Absent’ in The Uncommercial Traveller, 1860
Around 300 victims of the Great Plague of 1665, including a woman accused of bringing the disease to the city, are buried here. In the parish register, plague victims’ names are humbly marked with a ‘p’. Just a year later, the Great Fire of London came within 30 meters of St. Olave’s but was diverted by a change in the wind. The church might owe its survival to Samuel Pepys, who arranged for nearby wooden structures to be demolished as firebreaks.
Philip James de Loutherbourg. The Great Fire of London. Circa 1797/Wikimedia Commons
Pepys, a noted seventeenth-century diarist and regular attendee, wrote about winter services, noting his preference for snow, which softened his dread of the graveyard. Upon his death in 1703, he was buried at St. Olave’s beside his wife, Elizabeth.
During the Second World War, St. Olave’s suffered bombing damage, but in the 1950s, King Haakon VII of Norway attended its rededication in honor of St. Olave. Known now as Saint Ghastly Grim, it’s a popular final stop on ghost tours through London’s most haunted sites.