Captain Kidd

About Captain Kidd

A riverside pub on Wapping High Street named after the pirate Captain William Kidd, executed at the nearby Execution Dock in 1701, though the building itself was fitted out to look historic only in the 1980s.

Despite its evocative name and convincingly aged, warehouse-style fit-out, the Captain Kidd is a relatively modern addition to Wapping's riverside pub scene, opened in the 1980s during the wider redevelopment of the old Docklands warehouses into flats, offices and leisure space, but it takes its name and much of its atmosphere directly from the area's genuine maritime history. William Kidd, the Scottish-born privateer turned convicted pirate, was executed at Execution Dock nearby in 1701, his body later gibbeted at Tilbury Point downriver as a warning to sailors passing on the Thames. The pub leans into exposed brick, timber beams and ship-themed decoration to evoke the working docks that once lined this stretch of river, and its beer garden and terrace give some of the best uninterrupted Thames views of any Wapping pub, looking directly across to Rotherhithe. It draws a steady mix of Wapping residents, Thames Path walkers and visitors tracking down the area's pirate and smuggling history.