A night out at a pub called Hell’s Kitchen
A few of us will have ventured into some rough pubs in our time. But maybe none would have been as insalubrious as the Flying Horse.
In the early 19th century, it sat in Newcastle’s Groat Market, just up from where the Chronicle’s former office, Thomson House, is situated today.
Any pub that earns itself the nickname “Hell’s Kitchen” must have a story to tell.
The Flying Horse was really several pubs rolled into one, each room having its distinctive clientele.
There was the “printers’ room” where Newcastle’s literary fraternity would gather. The theatre critics would drop in each night to air their opinions and often end up singing bawdy songs. They would be joined by printers from the nearby offices of the Chronicle and Journal in Westgate Road who would down prodigious quantities of strong beer.
There was another room which the Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and Legend described, in 1888, as having regulars who, “...did not profess to be saints but, to give them their due, they were not such very great sinners”.
In the “old men’s room”, each regular had his own seat and hat peg. Smoking was banned after 4pm because of the overwhelming miasma of tobacco smoke.
Behind this was the “vestry”, where only the chosen few were allowed. Beyond that was the triangular “cocked hat” and, finally, was Hell’s Kitchen itself.
Here the rules of the house were even stranger. They elected their own ‘mayor’ each year, His Worship being installed with all the pomp of ceremony of the real thing.
An odd pub was bound to have an odd landlord, and Ralph Nicholson was certainly that.
The rules were all of his own making and if anyone transgressed, they were barred for six months.
A banning order could come at any time, but it certainly didn’t apply to the regular fights that the cutpurses and footpads who used Hell’s Kitchen regularly indulged in.
Nicholson would simply lock them into a cupboard, taking an occasional peek to make sure that the underdog wasn’t too badly beaten.
A copy of an 1820 painting by artist Henry Perlee Parker shows a motley group of Newcastle’s eccentrics in the tap room of the Flying Horse - the notorious Hell’s Kitchen.
Many of the faces and personalities would have been well-known to people of the time. They included including Blind Willy, Auld Judy, Lousey Donald, ShoeTie Anty, Bugle-Nosed Jack, Captain Starkey, Doodem Daddum, and the dog, Timour. They sound like a fun bunch!
It was said the pub’s cellar contained a door to a hidden tunnel that led to the Quayside.
There’s no sign of the Flying Horse today. By 1894, it had been succeeded by the Princess Restaurant.
In more recent times the Golden Bengal Indian restaurant had its home at the location. Today there’s an Indian restaurant called Shiraz on the site of the old Hell’s Kitchen.