The clown looks back across the road to where William Henry Smith walked his dog through a churchyard. At least the Cock is still here. A business that has plied its trade on this same spot on the edge of Kilburn Square for five and a half centuries. He watched as woods were cleared, trenches dug and heavy stones packed around the uprights. Sturdy frames for the walls pegged together, roped to mules then hoisted into place. Wattle dipped in wet soil, dung, clay and straw to make a plaster, then woven in between vertical boards. Thatchers dressing the roof. Hammer taps, a small forge, the slow sawing of wood and the smell of freshly cut oak. No other building of any permanence for a mile west to Kensal or east to Hampstead save the priory, these roads too dangerous, the woods too easy for robbers make their lair. Here Turpin drank and Catesby conspired. Even Shakespeare stopped once to eat a veal pie and take a shit.

It was at the Cock that birds clawed at each other’s heads and chests for money, giving the pub its name, but dogs fought here too. Point-headed bull mastiffs with savage teeth and powerful jaws set at one another in the old cockpit until one lay bleeding or an owner called the fight. Before that, they chained a bull to a pole, pug faced mutts mawing at the brute’s head, pulling him down, tearing at his face while he tried to toss them away. Bears were harder to procure, though he was among the crowds throwing coins when they brought one in, a young female, when the pub was still a remote tavern in a clearing. The furious beast on her hind quarters, snarling at the starved hounds who yawed at their cage, the hatch lifted and the animals prowling as a pack. The bear jabbing as the first dog bit her, growling and swiping in fury, her chain clanking as the others took advantage of her momentary inattention, attacking her flank; the bear desperate, clawing, roaring, tossing and tumbling, shaking her great head and spraying the jeering crowd with blood and slather. Two dogs died that day before the bear bled out, a carcass of fur, flayed flesh and gore, a dog eye among the offal left in the sawdust. They tore the worm and rot infested building down a century ago and built a gin palace that kept the name, the only fighting in the new brick tavern between market porters and Hackney cabmen, rat catchers and carny barkers. Today, it’s the last stop before the slab, a terminus for red faced men who die alone on mattresses drenched in urine, their bedsit carpets littered with encrusted takeaway boxes and chicken bones.