“THIS pub is considered one of the most haunted in the UK.”
My guide points to the first floor of the Ten Bells in East London’s Whitechapel – one of many stops on my unique small group Jack the Ripper walking tour.
London’s Jack the Ripper walking tour is a two-hour experience that is London’s fastest growing attractionCredit: GettyThe Ten Bells pub in East London’s Whitechapel is one of many stops on the tourCredit: Getty
Several of the Rippers’ victims were thought to have drunk here before being brutally murdered in 1888 and, despite almost 140 years having passed, the morbid fascination lives on.
Why such intrigue? It’s because the killer was never caught, making this one of the biggest unsolved whodunnits of all time.
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So popular has this two-hour experience become that its operator, Empire Tours, has recently announced that it’s their No. 1 attraction.
Who could have predicted the Ripper giving the royals a run for their money?
Be warned, though, this tour is not for the faint-hearted. The notorious serial killer is believed to have struck five times, butchering his victims’ bodies on nearly each occasion – and you’ll learn all the gory details.
Storytelling brings everything to life, discussing the who’s, how’s and where’s of each murder as we visit the crime scenes.
There are seven of us in total (group sizes are kept small), and when the guide shows images of the Ripper’s mutilated bodies, we gasp and gawp at the graphic horror.
The notorious serial killer is believed to have struck five times, butchering his victims’ bodies on nearly each occasionCredit: GettyStorytelling brings everything to life, discussing the who’s, how’s and where’s of each murder as we visit the crime scenesCredit: Getty
It’s an important reminder that, while much of this story is now cloaked in lore, these shocking murders were horrifyingly real. As we walk from Brick Lane to Spitalfields and the Square Mile, we also get a glimpse into Victorian society.
There were no equal rights for women back then and the Ripper’s victims were all female sex workers, alcoholics and vulnerable.
How did he get away with it? He dragged them all into dark alleys with no street lighting. No witnesses; nothing ever seen.
Newspapers at the time published what were likely hoax ‘Catch Me If You Can’ letters, written in blood and signed by someone purporting to be ‘Jack the Ripper’ – that’s how the name caught on. And more than a century later we’re still talking about him.
Aanand Mohapatra, from Empire Tours, says: “It’s a story that everyone has heard of and its sense of mystique makes people want to dive deeper.”
It’s not all blood and gore, however. Go on a Sunday and you’ll find Petticoat Lane’s market (open since the 1600s) in full swing.
You’ll see a less touristy side of the capital, too.
Where Whitechapel was once the poorest part of town, it’s now multicultural, vibey and trending.
For proper, spooky feels, however, this experience is best enjoyed in the dark.
And if ghosts and ghouls are your thing, then Halloween is the ideal time.
As well as seeing some of the UK’s most haunted pubs, you can try solving one of the world’s most enduring mysteries. If you dare . . .
GO: Jack the Ripper Walking Group Tour
GO: The two-hour Jack the Ripper Walking Group Tour runs every day and costs from £19pp.
Use the promo code SUN5 for a special £5 discount per paying guest. See empire-tp.com.
Few pubs boast a more idyllic setting. As I emerge from the woods after a 15-mile hike, The Bridges, on the banks of the Onny River, in the rolling south Shropshire hills, glistens in the late afternoon sun. Inside it’s all wooden beams, with light streaming through stained glass and huge bunches of homegrown flowers adding splashes of colour. There’s time for a pint before general manager Sam Thompson shows me to my room in the recently converted stables.
I’m here exploring part of the 185-mile (297km) Shropshire Way, on a two-day Heart of the Hills hike – one of the county tourist board’s new Rail-Ready Short Breaks. Designed for people who don’t have time to tackle the whole route, the itineraries focus on loops that are easy to access by train, with illustrated PDF downloads, GPX files, accommodation suggestions and highlights of what to do along the way. My route will take me from Shrewsbury to Bishop’s Castle via Ratlinghope – about 27 miles, perfect for a weekend.
The Bridges pub in Ratlinghope.
Shrewsbury itself is worth lingering in – the historic market town is crammed with independent shops and restaurants (I loved Csons for its creative small plates) and impressive Tudor architecture. But I’m most intrigued to learn that beavers have been reintroduced here by the council and the Shropshire Wildlife Trust. The first kit in the county in 400 years was born late last year and the Trust’s Tom Freeland shows me around the site, the Old River Bed nature reserve, just two miles north of the town centre. A boardwalk crossing wetlands allows an up-close view of the rewilding project. Although we don’t spy the elusive creatures (we see heron and plenty of moorhen), there’s still lots to learn. “It’s been a great success in inspiring the community to find out more about our local wildlife,” says Tom. Nature talks and guided tours of the beaver enclosure are in the pipeline, too.
Back at my base, the 16th-century Lion + Pheasant townhouse hotel, I dine on pan-roasted trout in the beamed restaurant (there’s a popular wine and tapas bar on site too) and the next morning set off to walk the first leg to Ratlinghope. Crossing the River Severn, the city soon peters out and quiet country lanes lead to Lyth Hill Country Park where expansive views open up across Shropshire.
It’s a steady climb to Wilderley Hill, past fields of rape, bright patches of yellow in a sea of green, and I stop under an oak tree to picnic. There’s no one around, just the songs of wren and chaffinch filling the air. The landscape changes on the approach to Ratlinghope as the route traces a brook, crosses wooden bridges and winds through pretty woodland. Just off the path lies the 12th-century St Margaret’s Church, the burial place of 19th-century farmer Richard Munslow, the last known “sin-eater”, whose job it was to eat bread and drink ale over corpses to absorb their sins.
I enjoy a drink instead in the pretty beer garden at The Bridges. The seven immaculate, minimalist rooms are round an adjacent courtyard – and guests have access to a lounge above the pub, too. The food in the bar includes Guinness rarebit and duck terrine, while the light-filled restaurant focuses on organic fare from the owners’ regenerative farm on the Linley Estate and the Welsh Marches. I feast on huge radishes with anchoïade, and hake with fennel, capers and crispy polenta. Breakfast the next morning – homemade granola and poached rhubarb – is equally delicious. It’s such a lively, friendly place I’m tempted to move nearby for the pub alone. They’ll even drive locals home if they’ve had one too many, Sam tells me.
Blue skies and gentle sunshine greet me for day two of the hike, a 12-mile yomp across rugged moorland and pastures to Bishop’s Castle. The pub lies on the edge of the Long Mynd, a heath and moorland plateau, but I’m heading north to the Stiperstones, a national nature reserve with a wild, dramatic ridge of quartzite rock formations that pierce the ground. I climb higher, passing Devil’s Chair tor, watching skylarks and buzzards soar overhead.
The Devil’s Chair on the Stiperstones Ridge, Shropshire. Photograph: Vincent Lowe/Alamy
It’s a beautiful walk. After several hours, a magnificent avenue of Linley Beeches line the descent into Bishop’s Castle, a pretty town of half-timbered houses. Bank House B&B, a Georgian renovation with an oak-panelled drawing room and five antique-filled rooms, is my home for the night. I pop into the Poetry Pharmacy where prescriptions are poems chosen to spark specific emotions, to be “taken” when required (I leave with a bottle of Joy). Although little remains of the medieval castle that once stood here and gives the town its name, the grand Castle Hotel, with its pretty gardens and welcoming restaurant, is worth a visit.
With more time, I could, of course, carry on and add another loop of the trail. But the train back home beckons – Craven Arms station is a short bus or taxi ride away – and I leave feeling pleased to have dipped my toe into a small segment of the Shropshire Way. As far as rambling weekends go, it’s ticked all the right boxes, and whetted my appetite to discover more.
Between the treetops, I can see the towers of a distant mist-shrouded castle. Is it possible I could make contact with the spirit of the great Welsh hero Owain Glyndŵr so soon, at the very start of our hike? We are not even on the actual trail of Glyndŵr’s Way. I’ve had to make a detour to find accommodation that takes dogs, as Stevie the terrier is with me. The Castle Inn at Knucklas is a mile off the route, and two miles or so from the pretty border town of Knighton – where the 135-mile (217km) Glyndŵr’s Way officially begins.
The towers slide away behind trees and a railway viaduct emerges. The medieval castle ruins, it turns out, are believed to have been plundered to build the viaduct in the 1860s, and the builders dropped in a couple of crenelated towers to honour the origins of the stone. I fear this may be an early omen: the spirit of Glyndŵr will be as elusive as the man himself was in his lifetime.
After his great rebellion of 1400 devolved into a murderous guerrilla campaign, the last Welsh prince of Wales simply disappeared. His English adversaries thought he had supernatural powers. Writing two centuries after the events, Shakespeare has Glyndŵr declare (under the anglicised name Owen Glendower) in Henry IV: Part I that “the earth did shake when I was born” and “I can call spirits from the vasty deep”. The last known sighting was in about 1819, when William Blake saw him in a vision and sketched his gaunt head. Since then, nothing. If he’s been hard to pin down for six centuries, what chance now?
Welsh rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr seen in battle in a painting by AC Michael. Photograph: Lordprice Collection/Alamy
I plan to cover the 75-mile southern section of the national trail’s great horseshoe across mid-Wales, starting with a late afternoon two-mile warm-up from Knighton station up to Knucklas. On our first full day of walking, we head south out of Knucklas and soon reconnect with the main path. The hills are bone dry, lying like dead giants across our route, defended by armies of sheep. Stevie is nonchalant. He was born near Rhayader and is good friends with a tup called Patrick. Nevertheless, I keep him on a tight leash.
The rebellion started with a land theft, an English lord helping himself to some of Glyndŵr’s hectares, a personal feud that laid bare a vast hinterland of Welsh disgruntlement. Men flooded back from England to join Glyndŵr. Edward I’s great fortress at Conwy was captured; a battle near Knighton was won. It was all going well until the teenage son of Henry IV (the future Henry V) was put in charge of the English forces. Not for the first time, British history turned on an arrow: this one burying itself six inches into the young Henry’s skull at the Battle of Shrewsbury. He survived. The rebellion faltered.
It is coming over Bailey Hill that Stevie gets the first hint of danger. A flock of sturdy old ewes spot him and form a tight huddle, a testudo formation, to slink up behind us. Stevie turns and does a comedy backwards leap of surprise. The ewes stamp their feet. Stevie hides behind a tussock. The ewes creep forward. I pull him through a gate. He has not barked or rushed at them. He has done well. Soon, we drop down into the hamlet of Llangunllo, where there is a pub. “It’s closed,” says a local woman. “Evenings and weekends, and for drinking only.” There is a dearth of facilities along Glyndŵr’s Way, widely considered the most remote of all 17 English and Welsh national trails, and I have brought a stove and teabags. This will prove a good decision. We set off up the lane and then on to the hills. It is quiet, very quiet. Nothing moves except the distant wind turbines.
The writer on remote Glyndŵr’s Way. Photograph: Kevin Rushby
Rebellion is in the air at the moment. The Uprising, a film about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, directed by Paul Greengrass, will be released in the UK on 9 October. And a new play by Gary Owen, Owain & Henry, opens on 5 November in Cardiff with Michael Sheen in the lead role. On a call before I set off, I ask Sheen why Glyndŵr remains such a potent hero. “His vision for a Welsh nation was based on a Welsh parliament, universities, religion and the laws of Hywel Dda,” he tells me. “It’s a vision that resonates. The play feels like a conversation between then and now.”
Sheen himself has walked parts of Glyndŵr’s Way. He says: “Owain could only do the uprising because of that landscape; it enabled a guerrilla war and you still feel that today.”
Stevie and I take a break in the Llangunllo bus shelter. There are no refreshments, but there are stacks of unwanted books. I find a copy of Francis Kilvert’s Diary, by the Victorian curate who kept a vibrant record of life in the Welsh borders. “Who died on the cross to save us all?” he asks one wild child from a remote Welsh farm. “Lord Chesterfield,” she replies. I tuck the book in my pocket.
Approaching the hamlet of Llangunllo. Photograph: Simon Whaley Landscapes/Alamy
Soon we are climbing over hills where the heather and gorse is in glorious bloom and there are no roads except droving tracks. These green lanes were once used to send cattle and sheep across the border, a tough, brawling existence hinted at in Kilvert’s Diary. By then, however, the railways had arrived and the old droving life was doomed.
At our first encounter with cattle, Stevie is happy to be carried. Different breeds, we soon learn, represent different threats: big cows can’t be bothered, small feisty ones are to be avoided. We take some long detours.
Our second night is at Brandy House farm, a welcoming place with various types of accommodation. We choose the vintage caravan. Nearby Felindre has a simple pub, the Wharf Inn, serving one of my favourite beers, Wye Valley Brewery’s Butty Bach.
Now the walk really begins to deliver. Majestic upland stages pass epic locations such as the Castell y Blaidd, the castle of the wolf, before arriving at Abbeycwmhir, the abbey that Glyndŵr reputedly sacked. I’m staying in a cabin at Wales in the Woods, a couple of miles up the hill in a deep, silent pine plantation, perfect for Glyndŵr reflections.
The ‘lovely, eccentric’ town of Llanidloes. Photograph: Joe Dunckley/Alamy
Next day, rain threatens, but we dodge all the showers, passing Saint Harmon, where Kilvert was briefly vicar, enjoying a stop at the superb Welsh Mountain Cider, then dropping down to Llanidloes. After three days on the trail, this lovely, slightly eccentric town seems like the big city, with so many pubs to choose from. We stay at the Unicorn. The following morning, we pass the Clywedog dam and climb to Y Star Inn, one of the highest pubs in Wales, which has three smart new pods to stay in. From here, the path rises again on what, for me, is the greatest stage of all. Leaving the trail, Stevie and I climb the 564-metre hill of Foel Fadian, opening up great panoramas of Cadair Idris, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and the Irish Sea. We follow the trail down and reach our destination, Machynlleth, a town that has the same eccentric edge as Llanidloes, with lots of interesting independent shops, pubs and cafes.
It was in Mach (as the locals often call it) that Glyndŵr briefly set up his parliament, and the building, albeit partially reconstructed in 1460, survives. It is an atmospheric spot and there, on the wall, charging into battle, is the great hero himself. Now I get the ghostly shivers. But it turns out the Victorian artist used the face of his patron, David Davies, the indefatigable railway builder of the 1850s and 60s. After five days of walking, Owain has eluded me yet again.
