Stop 6 of 6
You finish opposite the Old Bailey, which feels right. The Viaduct Tavern is London's last surviving Victorian gin palace, built in 1875 on or near the site of the Giltspur Street Compter — a debtors' prison that operated until the mid-nineteenth century. The cellar still has what are claimed to be the original holding cells: dark, cramped, with rusted iron bars. One former landlord reported being locked in by something unseen, the lights cutting out, and a voice saying “there's just two of us down here now.” We didn't go down. The pub upstairs is Grade II listed, all ornate plasterwork and Victorian glass, and it sits directly across Newgate Street from the Central Criminal Court. A prison beneath your feet, a courthouse across the road.