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Amen Court is a small alleyway close to St Paul’s cathedral. It backs onto the site of the former Newgate prison. It is thought that many prisoners tried to escape from Newgate by climbing over the wall into the court. It was also the site of the prison’s scaffold, where 12 men could be executed at the same time, and the lime pits where their remains were buried.

Now the alley is known as ‘Dead Man’s Walk’ because so many people have seen a dark shapeless figure sliding along the wall and heard the sound of clanking chains. It is thought that this may be the ghost of Jack Sheppard, an infamous cat burglar who escaped from Newgate three times before finally being hanged in November 1724.

The ivy-covered wall at the end of Amen Court is haunted by ‘the Black Dog of Newgate’. Just before a prisoner was hanged this ghostly dog was said to glide up and down the alley, accompanied by a sickening smell, and crawl along the top of the wall. It is said that it first appeared in the thirteenth century, when a famine hit London and a scholar charged with sorcery was killed and eaten by his fellow prisoners. However, he had his revenge one night soon afterwards, when the mysterious dog appeared, dripping blood from its jaws, and tore them limb from limb. Though the prison was demolished in 1902, people still claim to have seen the dog crawling across the wall, dropping into the courtyard and disappearing into thin air.

Amen Court, London EC4