The Pub That Stopped a London Riot With a Round of Free Drinks

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In June 1780, thousands of rioters marched across Hampstead Heath, torches in hand, heading for Kenwood House. The innkeeper at The Spaniards Inn watched them come. Then he opened the taps and told everyone the drinks were free.

It sounds like the setup to a joke. It was, in fact, one of the most audacious acts of civilian nerve in London history. And it saved a building that still stands today.

The Spaniards Inn has been doing extraordinary things quietly, for over four hundred years.

The Night a Pub Landlord Outsmarted a Riot

The Gordon Riots of June 1780 were the bloodiest civil disorder London had ever seen. Sparked by anti-Catholic sentiment, they left hundreds dead across the city over five days of violence. When the mob reached Hampstead, they were heading for Kenwood House — the home of Lord Chief Justice William Murray, who they blamed for pro-Catholic legal rulings.

The only thing between them and Kenwood was The Spaniards Inn and its narrow gate across Spaniards Road.

The innkeeper, Thomas Gillon, made a decision. He threw open the doors and announced free beer for all. The rioters accepted enthusiastically. While they drank, Gillon quietly sent word to the Bow Street Runners and the Kentish Town militia. By the time the crowd thought to continue their march, the soldiers had arrived. Kenwood House was saved without a single wall being touched.

Kenwood today holds one of the finest small art collections in London — Rembrandt, Vermeer, Gainsborough. It exists because a pub landlord knew his trade.

A Highwayman’s Reputation

Long before the Gordon Riots, The Spaniards Inn already had a reputation. Dick Turpin, the legendary highwayman, is said to have been born nearby in Hempstead, Essex, and his father is sometimes claimed to have been the pub’s landlord. Whether or not that’s true, Turpin worked the roads around Hampstead Heath — one of the most dangerous stretches of road in 18th-century London.

Travellers heading north out of the city passed directly past The Spaniards Inn. The heath was thick with rogues, ambushes, and unsolved disappearances. Turpin was hanged in 1739, but his legend settled permanently onto Hampstead’s oldest pub.

There’s no hard evidence Turpin drank here. There rarely is with these stories. But the pub has kept the connection alive for nearly three centuries, and nobody is in a rush to correct it.

The Writers Who Kept Coming Back

By the 19th century, The Spaniards Inn had become a literary address. John Keats walked regularly from his home in Keats Grove to the heath, and the inn was a natural stopping point. Charles Dickens was a regular — he featured it in The Pickwick Papers, where Tony Weller arranges a tea party there for his son Sam’s widow.

Bram Stoker sent his characters to Hampstead Heath while writing Dracula. The atmospheric landscape — fog rolling in off the ponds, strange sounds from the woodland at night — suited his purposes perfectly. The Spaniards Inn sits at the edge of that same landscape.

William Blake, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron all frequented Hampstead during the Romantic period. The inn was where writers came when they wanted to think, drink quietly, and escape the noise of the city below.

If you’re planning a few days in the area, the one-week London itinerary covers how to work Hampstead into a broader trip without the usual tourist rush.

Where the Name Comes From

The pub’s name has never been definitively explained, which makes it more interesting. The most popular theory is that it was named after the Spanish Ambassador to King James I, who resided in the small house directly opposite — now the old toll booth on Spaniards Road.

A second theory suggests two Spanish brothers ran the inn in the 17th century and gave it their name. A third points simply to the road, which was already called Spaniards Road before anyone can confirm why.

What’s certain is that the toll gate on Spaniards Road was once controlled by the pub’s landlord. Travellers paid their toll, and the innkeeper collected it. The narrow gap between the toll house and the pub is still there — barely wide enough for a modern car, exactly wide enough to have stopped a riotous mob in 1780.

The Pub That Is Still a Pub

The Spaniards Inn is a Grade II listed building. It still operates as a pub. On Sundays, the garden fills with people from Hampstead and beyond — families, dog walkers, and anyone who has spent the morning walking the heath and wants a proper Sunday roast and a well-pulled pint.

Inside, the low ceilings and original beams are still there. The fireplaces still work in winter. The menu runs to proper pub food — not the gastropub version that has taken over much of London, but the kind of honest cooking that makes sense in a building that has been feeding people since the reign of Elizabeth I.

It sits at the northern edge of Hampstead Heath, where Spaniards Road runs between the heath and the gardens of Kenwood. In summer, the trees close overhead and it feels genuinely rural. In winter, the mist comes off the ponds and the whole place feels exactly like a setting from one of the novels written here.

London has many old pubs. Few of them stopped a riot. Fewer still can claim a highwayman, three Romantic poets, a Victorian novelist, a Gothic horror writer, and a saved Rembrandt, all under the same roof.

Getting There

The Spaniards Inn is at Spaniards Road, Hampstead Heath, London NW3 7JJ. The nearest Tube station is Hampstead on the Northern line. From the station, it’s a 25-minute walk across the heath — which is the proper way to arrive.

Go on a weekday morning if you want it quiet. Go on a Sunday if you want it full of life. Either way, stand outside for a moment before you go in. Look at the toll house opposite, the road narrowing between the two buildings, and remember what happened here in June 1780.

Then go in and order a pint. It’s what everyone has been doing for four hundred years.

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