Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street is one of the oldest. Rebuilt in 1667, the year after it was destroyed by the Great Fire of London, there are records of a tavern on the site in 1538 and the cellars are thought to belong to a guesthouse of a 13th century Carmelite Monastery.

Inside is a maze of narrow corridors and staircases leading to cosy bars and dining rooms panelled in dark wood and down into the ancient stone cellars. Famous patrons through the ages include Dr. Johnson, Voltaire and Charles Dickens - there's even a copy of Dr Johnson's dictionary (English's first) on display.

The Ten Bells in Spitalfields is a Victorian East End pub that's not nearly as old but has a dark history. The current name comes from the long competition between local churches to claim the finest bells. The pub's name commemorates the adding of a tenth bell (there are now twelve) at Christ Church Spitalfield.

But the pub used to be called 'The Jack the Ripper' because it was associated with two of his victims - Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly. Jack the Ripper memorabilia used to be displayed there and it was used for a scene in the 2001 Johnny Depp film 'From Hell'.

Dirty Dick's may not sound appealing and the legend behind the name certainly isn't. But being in Bishopsgate, just across the road from Liverpool Street Station, today it's a clean pub offering a range of tasty beers that pulls in a more sophisticated crowd of city types.

So where did the name come from? In the 18th century a merchant called Richard Bentley owned a shop and warehouse that, following the death of his fiancée, he never cleaned. The level of dirt his businesses descended into made him something of a local celebrity - letters addressed to 'The dirty warehouse, London' would reach Bentley.

For years the pub kept the legend alive being equally festooned with cobwebs, mould and other disgusting things that included a dead cat.

Today the pub is clean and light, but the staff will eagerly tell you the gory details of what they found during the clean up. And, if you're feeling brave, you can descend into the famous vaults to see that cat and other unpleasant things from the pub's less sanitary past.

OK, so villainous murderers and dead cats might not be what you first think of when you're looking to book hotels in London, but these pubs only scratch the surface of the many colourful and intriguing places to be explored within walking distance of most London hotels.

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