As Halloween approaches, we thought we’d get into the ‘spirit’ of things with a few blogs on the horrible side of London, the ghosts, the murders, and the legends. First up is Sweeney Todd, who nicely combines the latter two.
Known as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, many people are confused as to whether the notorious Todd and his accomplice Mrs. Lovett actually existed. They didn’t, or at least there is no biographical evidence to suggest they did, or that they committed the heinous crimes for which they are now famous.
You see, Sweeney Todd used to seat his victims in the barber’s chair and prepare them for a shave. He would then slit their throats and kick a lever which upturned the chair, dumping his dying customer through a trapdoor and into the cellar beneath. Some versions of the story have these events in the opposite order, but really it doesn’t matter – the end result was the same.
The corpses were then carried under a secret tunnel to Mrs. Lovett, a pie maker who turned them into the secret ingredient of her famous pies.
Only this never actually happened, because, as mentioned above, they never existed. I mean really, if London had found two cannibal killers in its midst, the case would have been as notorious as Jack the Ripper, not the subject of a Sondheim Musical. So where did he come from?
Todd first appeared as the central character of a Victorian serialisation called ‘A String of Pearls’ in 1846-47. Misleadingly sub-titled ‘A Romance’ and published in the innocuous sounding People’s Periodical and Family Library, the story was in fact a Penny Dreadful, a curious form of lurid Victorian literature which dwelt on the macabre and fantastical.
This particular serial was so well-received that a play of it was performed shortly after it finished. Several other productions followed, until Sondheim hit the pinnacle with his musical Sweeney Todd in 1979; this then became the popular 2007 Tim Burton film, ensuring Todd never strayed too far from the public consciousness. London tour guides have also played their part, telling his story as fact to all and sundry.
Although Todd himself isn’t real, his premises sort of are. A String of Pearls gives his address as next to St Dunstan’s church on Fleet Street and Mrs. Lovett’s premises on Bell Yard. Both the church and Bell Yard can still be seen today, which means that the secret tunnel described in the serial, must have run directly under the then-Bank of England!
Today these premises are a pub – so if you fancy a pint on the site of one of London’s first urban legends, you know where to go!
Find more hidden London at London Treasure Hunts
