Ghost
The Open Window
Close it, and the whole pub struggles to breathe.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Historic coaching-inn courtyard with permanently open window
- Legend from
- Modern pub tradition
- Tone
- Eerie
At the Eagle, where DNA's secret was announced, look up: one window in the yard is never, ever closed.
The Eagle on Bene't Street is famous as the pub where Crick and Watson announced the structure of DNA in 1953, and for the RAF bar ceiling scorched with wartime airmen's names. It also has a ghost tradition. An upper window overlooking the old coaching yard is always left open, it is said, to let out the ghosts of children who died in mysterious circumstances, sometimes said to be in a fire. Legend warns that if the window is shut, strange things happen and drinkers feel a sense of suffocation. Halliday and Murdie record two boys seen at the window, and others have reported a girl on the stairs.