Historians argue that Turpin never made the journey, claiming that the ride was by John Nevison, "Swift Nick", a highwayman in the time of Charles II, 50 years before Turpin who was born and raised at Wortley near Sheffield. It is claimed that Nevison, in order to establish an alibi, rode from Gad's Hill, near Rochester, Kent, to York (some ) in 15 hours. The "Winchelsea Arms", an inn on a long straight section of the Great North Road near Stretton, Rutland, was reputed to be another haunt of Dick Turpin. It is now called the "Ram Jam Inn" after a story from the coaching days. A coach passenger undertook to show the landlady the secret of drawing both mild and bitter beer from the same barrel. Two holes were made and she was left with one thumb rammed against one and the other jammed into the other; the trickster then made off.In literature Jeanie Deans of Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Heart of Midlothian" travels through several communities on the Great North Road on her way to London. The road features in "The Pickwick Papers" by Charles Dickens. Part of the J. B. Priestley novel "The Good Companions" mentions the road, which represented to protagonist Jess Oakroyd (a Yorkshireman) the gateway to such 'exotic' destinations as Nottingham. The Lord Peter Wimsey short story "The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag" by Dorothy L. Sayers features a motorcycle chase along it. Similarly, "Ruined City" by Nevil Shute features an all night drive from Henry Warren's house in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, along the road as far as Rowley and then to Greenhead near Hadrian's Wall, where Warren is dropped off to go walking. His chauffeur, keen to get home for a date with the maid, is killed near Retford. In Cassandra Clare's "Clockwork Princess", the third volume of The Infernal Devices trilogy, Will Herondale takes the road after leaving London on his way to Wales to find Tessa Gray. The road also features in "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells, as the protagonists' brother tries to cross the Great North Road somewhere near Barnet through a frenzied exodus of refugees from London, driven north by the approach of Martians from the south. "Dick Whittington and His Cat" is an English story adapted for the stage in 1605, that, since the 19th century has become a pantomime, is loosely based on the historical Richard Whittington, a medieval Lord Mayor of London.