This impressive corner pub faces its famous namesake, Holborn Viaduct. Queen Victoria opened it in 1869, the Viaduct not the pub, although they were both opened in the same year. Holborn Viaduct was the world's first flyover, connecting Holborn with Newgate Street, avoiding a deep dip in the road caused by the River Fleet. Although this striking Victorian pub has a large curved frontage, the interior is surprisingly small. Many of the original features have survived. On one wall, three paintings of wistful maidens represent agriculture, banking and the arts. The 'arts' was attacked (some say shot, others bayoneted) by a drunken First World War soldier, and she still bears the scar.

There are some wonderful gilded and silvered mirrors and fine examples of decorated glass. At the back of the bar is a manager's stall, a sort of office booth, made from beautifully carved hardwood and intricately engraved glass panels. The ornate ceiling is made from beaten copper and is supported by cast iron pillars.

The Viaduct Tavern and the Old Bailey opposite, were built on the site of Newgate Prison, notorious for its appalling conditions and public hangings, which continued until 1868. The cellars of the Viaduct are former cells of the prison.

We began this investigation with a small tour around the area of Newgate. Newgate itself is a large and extensive area that plays host to some of the most darkest history in London. You can read up more about Newgate in our monitired locations section.

Upon returning to the Tavern myself and Angel divided everyone into two groups. This written account is from my group's experiences.

My group consisted of 5 in total (including myself). Pat, Gary ,Kelly and Alan. We began our investigation in the Tavern's cellars which of course were the cells from part of Newgate Prison. This area had a very un-nervy feel towards it and the cells were extremely small and very dark. Most of the group did not like being in the cells on their own so we held a vigil in the far Eastern cell and the far Western cell to see if anything would occur.

Far Western:- This cell was particulary strange. After a small amount of time a person's eyesight will grow accustomed to the level of darkness but in this cell it was found that no-one could accustom to the darkness and if anything itkept getting darker. All members of the group commented on a feeling of being watched and that the cell was getting much darker than it had when we first went in. The noise levels in this cell are apparent and this is due to a main road running just above us. We could tell the direction vehicles were travelling just by listening and this piece of information would become vital to us after around 15 minutes into the vigil. What had occured was that all members of the group heard a set of footsteps travel over head (which may we point out again is the main road) These footsteps were very loud and we could all tell they were a woman's high heels due to the sound resonating. The strane occurance was that these footsteps only lasted for four steps and were walking towards on coming traffic!!!

Far Eastern:- We held a vigil here but it only lasted 5 minutes because as soon as we settled a large variety of unexplainable noises began to resonate from the main cellar room so we moved back there to see if it would occur whilst we were present. Which it did....whilst sitting on a beer barrel i felt myself shoved forward and i literally nearly fell off the barrel. Other members reported feeling ill and Gary who went to investigate another cell by himself heard someone groan in his ear which resulted in him leaving the area as quickly as he could.

At a break between vigils myself and Kelly went to visit the ladies toilets which people had reported feeling very odd in and that they smelt like rotten eggs (a smell which soon vanished) Now this wasn't for us to investigate, we just needed the toilet. Everything was fine until i decided to take a picture in the toilets to see if anything was captured as the local ghostly residents are rumoured to pay a visit to the ladies. Kelly was outside of the door and i was propping it up with my foot whilst having one foot out of the door when all of a sudden the hand dryer switched itself on for what must have been 4 seconds. Now the strangest thing is...the hand dryer was located at least 10 feet away from me and could not have been set off by me. We investigated the dryer and attempted to make it come on again by repeating the photo shoot but to no avail. Kelly also found out that you have to give the hand dryer quite a shove to make it work so what set it off all by itself we will not know and can only refer to this as unexplainable.

Our next vigil was on the fourth floor which is reported as one of te most active floors in the building. The buildings upper floor are derelict. They are also quite un safe and holes in the floors and wobbly staircases are littered around the site. The fourth floor however on our first visit up did not yield much in terms of activity. Alot of the group reported feeling sick and some reported feelings of not being able to breathe. I left the groups voice recorder running here on lock off for a full 35 minutes and it has recorded some very interesting evidence which i will post on here at a later date.

Our final vigil was based on the fourth floor again. This vigil was a culmination of both groups coming together to see if we could enciurage activity by having more energy within the room. My group joined at a later time as we had explored the third floor Kitchen to see if any activity could be traced here but alas it was quiet and we decided to join the others for the large vigil. A Ouija Board was used during this vigil and most of the group members took part around a table. At this point i was feeling very ill as was Kelly and we left to explore the cellar again. Within a few minutes we were joined by both Pat and Alan, Pat also mentioned that she was feeling quite ill and Alan couldn't quite put his finger on why he felt a bit odd. We spent the rest of the main vigil time exploring the cellar again but sadly for us no further activity occured.

All in all we had a very successfull invetigation at the Viaduct Tavern and it has now become one of our monitored locations due to the phenomena that occured throughtout the night.