The Town of Ramsgate

In December 1688, Judge Jeffreys — the Lord Chancellor who'd sentenced over 300 people to death after the Monmouth Rebellion — was hiding on a ship at Wapping, disguised as a sailor, trying to escape to Hamburg. He couldn't hold out without a drink, went ashore, and was recognised lolling out of a window at what was then the Red Cow Tavern. A mob nearly killed him before soldiers dragged him to the Tower, where he died four months later. The pub was later renamed The Town of Ramsgate after fishermen from Kent who drank here on their way back from Billingsgate. Next door, Wapping Old Stairs lead down to the Thames foreshore where pirates were chained at low tide.