Tucked away on one of the city's oldest side-streets, a pub with a long and colourful history still nurses a few startling secrets.
The Denbigh Castle pub building has stood in Hackins Hey, Liverpool city centre, for over 200-years. In the 1970s and '80s it was called Walter's before becoming Jupiters in the 1990s.
Fiona Hornsby and husband Dominic, along with business partner Ian Forster, reopened The Denbigh Castle in 2020 with the pub reverting back to its original name. Fiona and Dominic also own The Bridewell, a former prison and another city centre drinking hole with a long and unique history.
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Recently, Fiona spoke with the ECHO about taking over a pub in this historic area of the city, and revealed the secrets of The Denbigh Castle's tunnels and the story of its cursed chair that made the newspapers. Fiona said: "The Denbigh dates from 1815, and the buildings of The Hole in the Wall and Rigby's are 1700s. They weren't pubs then but the buildings have been there that long."
Dale Street and its surrounding streets and alleyways is home to some of the city centre's oldest pubs. Along with The Denbigh Castle (1815), there's also Thomas Rigby's (1852), the Lion Tavern (1865), and then there's Ye Hole In The Wall dating way back to 1726.
Speaking about its rich history, Fiona said the pub was still in the same place but the original pub was much smaller, adding: "What we've got as a snug now used to be a little art gallery. And then at the other side where our fire doors [...] that piece of land was an entry."
It was during the 1980s that one of the eeriest pieces of the pub's history made the newspapers. Between being known as Walter's and before Jupiters, the pub had once again reverted to its original Denbigh Castle name and a story on its infamous 'death chair' ran in the Liverpool Echo on November 9, 1981.
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The chair, dating from the 17th century, got its macabre title after several people reportedly died shortly after sitting in it. Speaking to the ECHO, one of the pub's regulars, Ted Reynolds, 57, said: "I can honestly say that everyone I have seen or heard of sitting in the blinkin' thing has been dead within weeks.
"They have had accidents or heart attacks, all sorts of things have happened to them - it's uncanny. I certainly wouldn't sit in it and I don't like seeing others sit in it either."
The last death rumoured to have been caused by the chair was said to have been four years previously, when a young man sat down in it for a dare and was killed in a car crash on the way home. The tragedy was the final straw for the landlord at the time, who is said to have thrown the chair in the pub's cellar to rot.
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However, in 1981, the pub's new landlord, Ken Holloway, planned to restore the chair and return it to the middle of the pub "where it belongs". Ken said: "There will be a plaque over it just to warn people, but it really is a marvellous piece of furniture, and should be on show.
"I won't stop anyone from sitting in it, but I refuse to be responsible for what happens. Its reputation alone is enough to scare you to death."
Fiona said she did not know what happened to the chair but that it was no longer a feature of her Denbigh Castle. What does still remain, Fiona revealed, is part an old interconnected tunnel network that leads directly under her pub.
Fiona said: "There's tunnels underneath. I ran Rigby's for a long time so underneath there's tunnels.
"Underneath the beer garden there's an entire cavity that's a big open space. And then there's a tunnel that goes down underneath the courtyard on to Dale Street and there's tunnels underneath Dale Street.
"We can get into the void underneath the courtyard at Rigby's [from The Denbigh Castle]." Fiona said they still have access to "the void" as her pub takes its deliveries from Rigby's courtyard but warned against anyone venturing further down into it as "it's not very nice."
As the ex-licensee of Rigby's pub, Fiona also revealed there was a secret "Tudor" room that resides underneath its Nelson Room. She said: "It's just a full room, it must have been used for something at some point.
Adding: "But we've never managed to get anybody down there, and to be honest, it's horrible. There's all sorts of things living down there. That's what happens with room's in town that are below ground that nobody uses."
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Tunnels, secret underground "Tudor" rooms and 'death chairs'; it should come as no surprise pubs as old as The Denbigh Castle and Rigby's comes with centuries of history living in their bones. The same can be said of many other pubs in its vicinity who have historically been kept going by the lunchtime and evening trade of the surrounding workers.
However, since the pandemic, Fiona said many of the pubs in this area have been hit hard by the slow return to the office by its traditional clientele. Adding: "Liverpool Without Walls put a big focus on Bold Street and Castle Street.
"The Baltic is a whole new area and then there's Ten Streets is coming on. I think it's just this little bit of town that's been forgotten about a little bit because it's just always been there."
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