L ONDON – The cobblestone street is dark and slick from rain; the clouds are heavy and low.
But light spills from Ten Bells pub. Inside, lagers and ales are poured, and a dozen patrons are drinking and laughing at the dark-wood bar.
More than 100 years ago, during what came to be called the Autumn of Terror, serial killer Jack the Ripper stalked this small pub in London’s East End. Two of his victims were thought to have walked out its door.
Today, the pub has become the centerpiece of one of London’s most popular walking tours, the Jack the Ripper Walk.
“I’ve tried to figure out why the tour’s so popular,” said author and guide Richard Jones, who leads nightly walks through the area where the 19th-century Ripper murders occurred.
“It’s a very sordid story: five women brutally murdered,” Jones said. “You know what’s really strange? The majority of the people who take the tour are women.”
With its long history of murder, mayhem and macabre incidents, London has the daunting distinction of being the most haunted capital city in the world.
I explored the city’s sinister streets one night last spring on a Haunted London tour. With London’s dark, narrow streets and ancient alleyways as a backdrop, it didn’t take much imagination to hear ghosts wailing in the wind, see headless soldiers in the shadows and feel a chill down my spine when I heard tales of haunted palaces, theaters, prisons and cathedrals.
Not to mention the Tower of London, the grim scene of executions and torture and the source of many legends and ghost stories.
Almost a millennium old, Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress – its full title – is a symbol of the nation, looming over the London skyline for centuries. Its checkered history, combined with the British crown jewels displayed there, draws nearly 2.5 million visitors each year.
Most want to hear stories about the Tower’s famous prisoners, such as Anne Boleyn, Guy Fawkes and Sir Walter Raleigh, and the beheadings that took place.
“Head chopping is what it was called,” said Tower Beefeater Chris Morton, Morton is the Yeoman sergeant in charge of the warders, or Beefeaters, who guard the Tower at night.
“Heads were chopped off with a block and an ax,” he said. “Head chopping continued until 1747, when it was thought to be barbaric. Then hanging became the favorite method of execution.”
London is one of the world’s best cities to explore on foot. The walking tours add the expertise of a guide and the security of visiting the area in a group – the East End of London still can be a dicey place to walk at night, as it was in the Ripper’s era. The tours generally last about two hours and cost about $12.
On one tour, we started at dusk in Southwark, across the Thames River from the City of London. The area boasts the resurrected Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
At Clink Street, we walked beneath a model of a gibbet and a decomposing body. Unfamiliar with “gibbets”? It’s a gallows with a crossbeam: Criminals were hung from it in chains, and their bodies were left to decompose.
This gibbet marked the location of Clink Prison. The Clink – hence the origin of the phrase “in the clink” – was a notorious prison that burned down in the late 18th century. A prison museum marks the site.
We also stopped at the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. Founded in 1123, it is London’s oldest parish church and is said to be haunted by a monk who is seen in his cowled robe sometimes in the pulpit, at other times lurking in the shadows.
Even without the legend, the dimly lighted church is eerie. It’s a setting filmmakers appreciate: St. Bart’s was the location of the fourth wedding in the film “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and of some scenes in “Shakespeare in Love.”
Our final stop was in the East End, site of the Ripper’s five murders. I wondered why Jack the Ripper’s crimes had become so well-known.
Jones’ theory: Jack the Ripper was the first mass-media killer. His murders were reported by newspapers around the world. For 10 weeks in 1888, terror reigned, wrought by the knife of Jack the Ripper.
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