The Magdala, also known as The Magdala Tavern or colloquially as simply The Magy, is a pub on South Hill Park in Hampstead, north London. Named after the British victory in the 1868 Battle of Magdala, it was the site of a notorious murder in 1955.
History
The pub building dates back to at least the mid-19th century, being built in mid-Victorian times to serve the developing neighbourhood south of Hampstead Heath.[1] The building was named after the British victory in the 1868 Battle of Magdala.[2][3]
The two "bullet holes" in the wall were drilled by the pub's landlady in the 1990s.[4]
The pub is included in CAMRA's heritage guide for its interior, which includes a "remarkably intact room from the 1930s" with wood panelling, an Art Deco frieze and a Tudor-style pink marble fireplace.[1]
The pub became infamous as the location outside which Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, shot her boyfriend David Blakely in April 1955.[5]
After closing for refurbishment in 2014,[5] The Magdala reopened in January 2015 before closing again in February 2016, with the upper floors converted to flats.[6] It reopened again as a pub and restaurant in May 2021.[7]
^Pankhurst, Richard (8 November 1981). "Ethiopian place-names in Britain". The Local Historian. 14 (8). (British Association for Local History): 468.
^Christopher Wade (1973), More streets of Hampstead, Camden History Society, p. 20, The first building in this street was The Magdala Tavern, which was already there by 1868.
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