HAVING a previous landlord confess to over 60 murders isn’t often used as a unique selling point for a pub, but then the Ostrich Inn in Colnbrook isn’t a your everyday run-of-the-mill drinking establishment.

Laying claims to the third or fourth oldest pub in the UK (depending on your source), the Ostrich flung open its doors to revellers way back in 1106, when the youngest son of William the Conqueror King Henry I was ruling the roost.

While this Berkshire boozer definitely has a dark past, it certainly isn’t something the current owners have tried to cover up, in fact they are clearly proud of its blood-curdling history, listing the gruesome tale on their website.

The coaching inn stands opposite a traditional milestone advising travellers they are 17 miles from London – an important stopover on the main route that ran from Bath to London. Knowing now what waited for them inside I bet many wish they had just cracked on to the capital.

John Jarman was the infamous murdering landlord of the Ostrich Inn in the 17th century, who alongside his wife would eventually be hung for their crimes.

Jarman unfortunately had a penchant for knocking off and thieving from rich patrons and he even developed a hinged bedstead and trapdoor to aid him in his gluttony.

When a rich customer would arrive Jarman ‘would inform his wife that a fat pig was available if she wanted one. She would reply by asking her husband to put him in the sty for till the morrow’.

The hinged bed would then upend the sleeping victim flinging them through the trapdoor and into a vat of boiling water immediately below.

The activities of Jarman and his wife reached a fateful conclusion when their insatiable greed led them to attempt to murder a well-known clothes maker, Thomas Cole.

After persuading him to make his will before he retired, Jarman slaughtered Cole. Unfortunately, Cole’s horse was discovered wandering the nearby streets, triggering a search for its owner who had last been seen entering The Ostrich Inn.

It was some time later that his lifeless body was retrieved from a nearby brook, leading to the intriguing speculation that the name ‘Colnbrook’ might have originated from this ‘Cole-in-the-brook’ event, a subject still debated by locals.

The alehouse was originally called The Hospice but its name was believed to have been ‘corrupted’ over the centuries to its current moniker; The Ostrich.

Other famous customers include Dick Turpin who used it as a hideout while escaping the Bow Street Runners, the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and the forerunners to the UK’s modern police force.

It is also rumoured that King John stopped by for a swift half on his way to Runnymede to sign the Magna Carta and let’s be honest who could blame him.

Thankfully these days murder is off the menu and instead quality ales and decent food is its unique selling point.