The Angel, St Giles High Street

After the dissolution of the hospital and the further moving of the site of execution to the newly built triple gallows at Tyburn, the custom was kept up by the churchwardens of St Giles Church at the Angel Inn.

Walter Thornbury was to remark in his 'London Old and New' that "there is scarcely an execution at "Tyburn Tree", recorded in the "Newgate Calendar", in which the fact is not mentioned that the culprit called at a public-house en route for a parting draught".

According to one fictionalised telling, Sheppard refused the Bowl and instead pledged that his persecutor, the corrupt thief taker Jonathon Wild, would taste of the cup within six months.

The Angel sustained a varied reputation throughout the 18th and 19th Century, even as the surrounding district and 'Rookery' of St Giles became a byword in London for the very limits of urban squalor and human degradation.

[11] The area was historically crowded with destitute immigrants, originally French Huguenots, but later home to so many Roman Catholic Irish migrant workers that St Giles became known as the 'Holy Land'.

The frequenters of this place were bound together by a common tie, and they spoke openly of incidents which they had long since ceased to blush at, but which hardened habits of crime alone could teach them to avow.

[1] With the opening of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue there occurred something of an improvement in the aspirations of the local property holders, with the Building News commenting that "Private owners have vied with each other in putting up costly fronts with elevations of imposing height".

An extra storey appears to have been added and the frontage was entirely redecorated with glazed terracotta casements and Norwegian Emerald Pearl granite pilasters[18] pierced by new acid-etched and cut ornamental glass.

It is decorated, particularly in the public bar, with signed and framed playbills and posters from many productions, including among others, Derek Jacobi and Pete Postelthwaite in Richard II at the nearby Phoenix Theatre.

The Angel adheres to the unique rules and usages of the Samuel Smith's Brewery public house estate, whereby digital devices and smart phones are forbidden, along with music and television screens, with a view to encouraging human conversation and conviviality.