The Flask, Highgate

The story

The Flask stands on Highgate West Hill in Highgate, the hilltop village in north London, a short walk from Highgate Cemetery. According to the Survey of London, published in 1936, a pub called The Flask has occupied this spot since at least 1663. The present buildings grew in stages: the stables are thought to go back to the 1660s, the main body of the pub from around the 1720s, and the main bar room, originally a separate outbuilding, from about 1800 (which is why Wikidata gives 1800 as its date, a misleading shorthand). William Carpenter partly rebuilt the premises around 1767. In the 18th century the local manorial court held its sittings here. Today the pub is listed Grade II.

The name is usually explained by the flasks that were sold here so that visitors could carry away spring water, at a time in the 18th century when the wells of Hampstead and Highgate drew crowds of health-seekers. Another pub of the same name stands in Flask Walk, Hampstead.

Like many old London inns, The Flask has collected famous names, most of them hard to prove. The highwayman Dick Turpin is said to have hidden from the law in its stables (or, in another version, its wine store); the painter William Hogarth is said to have drunk at the bar; the poets Byron, Shelley and Keats are supposed to have stopped in when visiting Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lived across the road; and Karl Marx is claimed as a customer, earning the pub a place on Karl Marx-themed pub crawls. These are best treated as tradition. Better documented is a curious sporting feat: a report from 1736 tells of a man of 64 who, with a hairdresser for company, covered the distance on foot from the Bull's Head tavern in St Giles up to The Flask in three-quarters of an hour, to the astonishment of onlookers.

The pub has had its moments on screen too. A Carlsberg Christmas advertisement of 1995, "Last Orders," opens inside The Flask with two friends drinking until closing time, then stepping out to find Highgate blanketed in fresh snow.

The legend

The Flask's best-known ghost is a barmaid, usually described as Spanish. She has no name and no date. The story, told on the pub's own website, says she fell in love with the landlord and, when he rejected her (or, in another version, when she found he was unfaithful), she hanged herself in the cellar. That cellar is now part of the seating area, and it is there that she is said to appear in old-fashioned dress. Her arrival is linked to lights swaying and a sudden chill in the room.

The second figure is a man in the uniform of a Cavalier, in one version with a feathered hat and cape, who is seen walking across the main bar before disappearing into a pillar. A local history website adds a third: a tall, dark, monk-like figure that sat on the so-called Old Monk's Bench, since removed, and vanished when anyone came near. Visitors and staff have also spoken of breath on the neck, cold spots, flickering lights, reflections that should not be there and a sense of foreboding. Dick Turpin, despite his legendary stay in the stables, is not one of the ghosts; the pub is clear that his ghost is not among its residents.

There is a macabre side story as well. According to pub lore, the Committee Room hosted one of the earliest autopsies, performed in secret on a corpse that grave-robbers had stolen from Highgate Cemetery. A bullet lodged in one wall, of unknown origin, adds to the atmosphere.

The most dramatic incidents come from David Farrant's book Beyond the Highgate Vampire: light bulbs blowing as lager bottles flew from the shelves, two clocks stopping at the same moment, and a flower wreath sailing across the bar. Farrant, who called himself a ghost hunter, played a leading part in the "Highgate Vampire" furor of the 1970s, which means his records can hardly be called independent.

As for where the stories come from, we found no dated first report for the barmaid or the Cavalier; the Hidden Highgate site places frequent monk sightings in the late 1960s. Wikipedia, whose sources are Richard Jones's guidebook Walking Haunted London (2007) and the 2008 edition of The London Encyclopaedia, says only that some believe the pub has a female ghost, and introduces the pub's tales as legends that "may or may not be true." The Camden New Journal, including The Flask in its 2017 Halloween list, noted that the claims rest on unattributed legend, and a manager quoted by the Hidden Highgate site expressed doubt that the pub is still haunted. The pub has nonetheless appeared on Historic England's 2017 list of England's most haunted pubs and Time Out's 2023 roundup of haunted London pubs. No television investigation has been found.

What remains today

The Flask remains a traditional working pub, and its layered history is easy to read in the buildings: the old stable block, the early 18th-century main house and the bar room converted from an outbuilding around 1800. Inside are several rooms, including the Committee Room of the grave-robbing tale and the former cellar, now used as seating, where the barmaid is said to have died. The building is protected as Grade II listed.

Visiting

The Flask is open to the public as an ordinary pub, so a visit is simply a matter of going in for a drink or a meal during opening hours; check the pub's website for current times. Please remember it is a working business: ask staff before photographing, and respect other customers.

The pub makes a natural stop on a walk around Highgate village and Highgate Cemetery nearby, which is a site of its own legends and is often included on local ghost walks, though we could not confirm a specific tour operator that visits the pub. Highgate Cemetery has its own visiting rules and opening times, so check them before you go.

Sources

1. Historic England list entry (List entry 1379053) — Historic England · Open Government Licence
2. Wikimedia Commons category : Flask, Highgate — Wikimedia Commons
3. About — The Flask, Highgate (official pub site, Fuller's) — The Flask, Highgate (official pub site, Fuller's
4. "Halloween: Ten most haunted places in Camden?" — Camden New Journal (Alina Polianskaya, 27 Oct 2017) — Camden New Journal (Alina Polianskaya, 27 Oct 2017
5. "Licence to Chill: 11 of England's most haunted pubs" — Historic England, Heritage Calling blog (24 Oct 2017) — Historic England, Heritage Calling blog (24 Oct 2017
6. Official website
7. "The Flask Public House" — Hidden Highgate (Della Farrant; history by Ian Topham) — Hidden Highgate (Della Farrant; history by Ian Topham
8. "The most haunted pubs in London" — Time Out (Laura Richards, 31 Aug 2023) — Time Out (Laura Richards, 31 Aug 2023
9. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.