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Haunted Hotels & Hotel Ghost Encounters (IHTM)

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Josh Covington


In late November of 1999, my wife and I were on holiday in the United Kingdom. She had always dreamed of going to Scotland and I had always wanted to see the Salisbury Cathedral and Hadrian's Wall. Oddly, the only day it rained was the day we stopped at Hadrian's Wall in Carlisle. That evening, we arrived in Stonehaven along the North Sea in Scotland and began seeking out a hotel. We wound up getting a room in a very old hotel, which appears to have expanded into a neighbouring building. The only truly remarkable feature of the hotel was a massive mirror in one of the hallways, which made me vaguely uncomfortable.

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/hauntedhotel.shtml

Link is dead. See post below for complete text.
 
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People holiday in Stonehaven??? I always groan going past there heading south on my holidays, 'cos it means I've been in the car an hour and I'm not even on a different page of the map yet.
 
Haven't seen Father Ted in a while...

...that was a good one...



I'd suggest suggesting hypnosis to your wife, she seemed to know more about what was going on than you, but I don't know what I'm talking about and that's quite likely a very bad idea, for psssycological or -eew, the peanut I just ate tastes likes shoe pollish :cross eye - marital reasons.
 
I looked through the various hotel listings provided and I am pretty sure that it is the Royal Hotel on Allardice Street...I probably won't mention the hypnosis (good idea though)...just at the mention of Stonehaven on a trip last weekend and she immediately turned the radio up to almost painful levels...I suspect she is not very interested in the answer!
 
This account is awesome, one of the best I've read for a long time. Whether or not anyone can shed any light on what actually happened or what the history of the hotel was, it's a brilliant and intriguing story and managed to freak me out, even in the safe and bright environment of the office I work in!

It reminded me a bit of the account of the Enfield poltergeist - anyone else think there were similarities?
 
Enfield polt?

Ooh. Please enlighten us, wolfie! Is that the one who haunted the two girls and said "I'm a G-H-O-S-T" on tape? That's always given me the creeps.
 
Your wife sounds like she is in MAJOR denial. I'm no Psychologist, but I would bet that something has happened in her past that she is blocking. To not be interested in the supernatural is fine, but to refuse to discuss something she witnessed, and to be that adamant about it suggests more.
 
I'll have to ask about, see what I can find out about this...I didn't even know Stonehaven had any ghosts.
I know quite a few folk from there...the place is only ten minutes away (in a Cessna 152, anyway).
 
Enfield Poltergeist

Hi Minor Drag,

The Enfield poltergeist is one of the most consistently verified cases of supernatural activity that I've ever come across. My memory of the details is a little hazy (it's been quite a while since I've read about it) but basically, a household was troubled by a poltergeist which moved and threw things in front of a number of independent witnesses including a police officer who went on record and stated what she saw and the researcher Maurice Grosse (I hope I've spelt that right, sorry if I haven't). The activity centred around one of the girls in the house and recordings of one of the spirits who claimed to be possessing the place can be found all over the web. I thought that the similarity with the account above came with the unconscious talking and the malevolence that can felt in what is essentially a fairly sensible situation. Plus, there's the way in which the objects were moved - an upended makeup bag, a shower tap switched to hot, both aggressive and petulant acts (the Enfield poltergeist chucked marbles and toy bricks about and threw cushions at people).

I've not heard the "G-H-O-S-T" recording, but what I have heard was chilling enough; worst being an old man's voice shrieking that the people looking into the events were trying to get rid of him by praying to God. There's probably loads of other details on other threads here - anyone shed any light?
 
This page gives details about the Hotel concerned. Perhaps the presence of the night club accounts for the young voices heard outside.

No mention of ghosties, of course, but the link to the Hotel's own Home Page doesn't seem to work.
 
Stonehaven was a BIG Druidic area around the beginning of the middle ages. There could be some magic still left in the area.
 
Enfield poltergeist

Hi guys.
I know this is slightly off subject but I notice you mentioned the Enfield Poltergeist case.Well I came across this site about it a few days ago when looking for some other stuff
http://home.attbi.com/~wdwp/
 
My uncle owns a hotel in Soceleto. He says he has a "special" room. It has magnets, trip wires, noisemakers. All hooked up to a central "control room" in his room. So he can freak out the person who stays there. I actually saw the room, if you didnt know all that crap was there then you could actually swear the room was haunted. Cool but creepy:D
 
can we go home yet??

In response to the haunted hotel, my family and I spent two weeks in a converted station house up in Redmire back in 1998. My parents knew it was haunted but they didn't say anything until I noticed that things weren't right.
The cupboard door in the bathroom flew open when I was cleaning my teeth, an evil presence surrounded the staircase, a figure would appear in the dining room and the pictures on the wall would shake about as if a train were passing by.
 
re:can we go home yet?

Everytime i went up the stairs, it felt as though something was trying to push past me. When I meant an evil presence, the air used to go icy cold and i felt uncomfortable. If you have any more questions please don't hesitate in contacting me.


p.s

I am not making this up in any way just to get noticed
 
It could have been an natural rather than supernatural experence?

Sound just below the leval of human hearing produces effects similer to this and other classic 'haunting' experences.
 
My hubby and I went away for the weekend over the August Bank Holiday weekend. I found a lovely hotel on a pet friendly website because we had decided to take our dog (2 yr old border collie) along. We decided on Knaresborough in Yorkshire (4miles from Harrogate) as I have always wanted to visit Mother Shiptons Cave and for its lovely scenery and walks.

When we arrived at the hotel we where given the most warm and friendly welcome that you could imagine. They had even laid on treats and toys for the dog. It was such a lovely hotel - 18th century listed building- right on the main street. However, the minute I walked in I had a feeling that something wasn't quite right. I can't put my finger on it but all I can say was it felt 'odd'.

Anyway, we all settled in and did some exploring. My hubby left me and went to the local supermarket and when he left I had an overwhelming feeling of not wanting to be alone. He was only gone for 10 or so minutes but it felt like hours. I watched out of the window for him to come back.

I have heared that dogs are very receptive to paranormal activity but I didn't put 2 and 2 together until we left. She was acting strangely but I put it down to her being in a strange place. She was following me from room to room (not hubby) and she would runaround mad and suddenly stop dead and growl. The 2 nights we where there at about 2am I heared very fast footsteps running up the stairs and the dog went crazy. She whined and barked like there was no tomorrow and we only managed to calm her down by putting her in between us in bed.

When we were leaving I asked the hotelier if it was haunted and he said that there are 2 ghosts that he knows of, 1 being a lady in grey and another which he sees frequently is a big shaggy black dog which likes to run up the stairs.

Maybe this dog and my dog could sence each other and wanted to play.
 
I wanted to ask if anyone else had any stories regarding this matter, it has always been a subject that I have been interested in.
 
I used to work in an old hotel up nawth, which was said to be haunted. A friend of mine was working the front desk late one night when she saw the figure of a woman sweep down the stairs and thru the lobby. This freaked my friend out so much she ran outside, before deciding that what was on the street (at 3:30 a.m.) was scarier than what was inside. Apparently many people have seen the ghost of the original owner (a woman) wandering around at night.

I longed to see something myself but never did...parts of the basement were straight out of The Silence of the Lambs and I never understood how some of my co-workers could happily stay down there all day in the laundry. (Well, perhaps not happily, but they didn't seem to get spooked) I had more frightening moments with the guests than with anything spectral.

There was one room which always intrigued me. It was full of women's clothing, mostly new and costly, and many items still had tags on them. They were kept in an old, small room at the end of an out-of-the way corridor, and sometimes if we had finished our rooms but still had time left on our shift, some of the other housekeepers and I would go up there and poke around. There was something very eerie about the silent piles of new clothing. We were told that they were left behind by someone who was a long-term resident; I think she scarpered one day and never came back. I don't know if the goods were stolen, or just amassed on frenzied shopping sprees--certainly they were high-end for our town.

If anyone's curious, it was the Empire Hotel at McIntyre & Fraser Streets in North Bay, ON. It's not a hotel any more though; last I heard they'd converted it to seniors' apartments. It was an old place, by the standards of the city (built 1928).

Edited because I really do know how to spell "corridor". :rolleyes:
 
I actually have something intelligent to contibute to a thread! Will wonders never cease?:D

My story is about an old Inn that I worked at in Devon. It dated from about the 17th or 18th Century I believe, and was situated next to a weir and an old stone bridge. Lovely in the Summer. There were two bar doors that opened out on to this wonderful view which were open all day. At this time I still lived on site. We were a hotel, restaurant and bar. To set the burglar alarm at night all doors had to be locked. When you locked the door (I believe) the connection would be made and you could set it. If a door wasn't locked the alarm would beep at you and say where the unlocked door was. The doors had to be locked physically. They weren't magnetic or anything. One night at around three in the morning the burglar alarm went off. It sounded in the premises and in the Managers house as well. I was closer, so I went straight over and had a peer about, but waited for the manager before I went in. He'd brought his dogs and when we opened the door they rushed to the bar doors. Both were standing ajar- not wide open, just a few inches. We checked the alarms, checked the stock and as far as we could see nothing had been touched. In the morning we called the alarm people to check the system (Just in case the doors hadn't been locked properly and the alarm hadn't noticed.) but it checked out fine. So that night, obviously the doors were double checked. And yet at about the same time the alarms went off with exactly the same results. The dogs rushed in barked at the doors which were standing only just open. Again, nothing had been touched. We started talking about staying in the bar all night the next evening, but none of us were keen. We decided to see what happened next. And guess what happened next? Nothing. Not a thing. The Managers and I woke up at about the same time (Apparently- we discussed it in the morning.) expecting to hear the alarm, but all was quiet. And the alarms didn't go mad again all the while I worked there.

Anyway, the rumour was that the Inn was haunted by a young woman. No-one knew anything about her, but many of the staff had heard her laughing. It was generally only staff that heard her, mainly I think because when customers were there you wouldn't realise that the laugh didn't have a person attached to it!;) One evening while we were locking up for the night, one of the chef's nipped back through the kitchen to collect his bag and things. I was waiting by the front door, chatting to someone else who was coming home with us. Anyway, the chef came striding up to us, asking if I was playing silly buggers. I had no clue what he was talking about and told him that I'd been stood here waiting. Apparently as he had come through the kitchen he heard a young woman calling his name. He said that it didn't sound anything like me and that he couldn't see anyone there. He was really quite spooked out.

I also have a tale about the next place that I worked in, but I have to do some work now!
 
The Bella Maggiore Inn in Ventura, California, is haunted by a young woman named Sylvia; she brings the scent of roses whenever she's near.
 
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Interesting stories, fun fact is that most of the older hotels I have been to are haunted or have odd stories attached. I often wonder if all the stuff that goes down in these places (emotions, etc.) does not have a lot to do with it, as well as that most hotels do tend to suffer from the inconvieniance of guests departing... in the permanent sense.

Most of the spirits that I have come across all seem to be waiting, or looking for something, or are just plain comfortable where they are.

Once or twice you come across an angry/evil/just plain nasty one, but generally these are few and far between.

Private houses are another matter entirely...
 
Most of the hotels that I've worked in were old coaching inns or the like, but I have managed to work in a couple of places that weren't reputed to be haunted or had wierd stuff happen in them!

I do wonder if it is the close proximity to alcohol that makes old pubs and inns hotbeds of paranormal rumour. Either because those who see the wierdness are pissed or because the heightened emotions caused by alcohol lead to some violent or passionate actions that lend themselves to becoming hauntings. Or it could just be that old buildings, well trodden, make funny noises.:D

As I said earlier I do have another tale of strangeness in a hotel, but it is more a series of possibly related incidences as opposed to a definite sighting or something.

I was working as assistant manager to Soong and Mrs. Soong in an old coaching inn in Kent. (The company we worked for specialised in these places and I moved over here when the inn that I worked for originally was sold and the Managers started having affairs with staff members and stuff, in case you're suspicious at all the inns that I've worked in!:p )

The most obvious strangeness I noticed before I was actually working there. I used to come and stay with Soong for a week or so in my holidays and I always had the small single room on the top floor. Because I worked in a hotel I would always come in a quiet period, so the corridor would be empty- no-one else would be staying on that floor- and yet I used to hear "someone" pacing up and down outside my door. I could always blame it on my imagination, but when I began to work there I would get spontaneous reports from guests about someone pacing all night.They were usually complaining and asking what I could do to stop it! One of the chefs had the same room I used when he came to "live-in" and said that he actually saw a shadow pass his door when we were empty, but he was a piss-head, so I take his testimony with a pinch of salt.:D

One Sunday I was working in the restaurant and I had to take the umbrellas from the patio tables in. Being a lazy old bint I looked around the restaurant to see if there was somewhere I could store them instead of lugging them down the drive to the shed. My eye caught the door that was barricaded by a huge leather sofa. It used to be a secret passage up to room 7 and also had access to the tunnel that went across the road to the church. It's blocked up now, but my theory was that there might be a bit of space in which to wedge the umbrellas. Anyway, it took a while to get the door open, but I just used a bit of brute force and a lot of swear words. The space was full of pipes and then boarded up, so I closed the door and put the sofa back. I thought no more about it.

That night I was working as chef in the kitchen. It was a rather trying evening because the fryer was playing up. On Sundays I was often alone in the kitchen, yet the switch flipped itself off while I was cooking some fish. Then Soong came in, all excited because a customer in the restaurant had said that she had just seen a ghost. Apparently she saw a figure dressed in a long skirt and apron and turned to order a drink from her but she had gone.
The table at which the customer was sitting was the table closest to the door that I had prised open that morning.

Of course it could all be coincidence- people seeing things, electrical faults and shifting foundations, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies!:eek!!!!:
 
The Wheatsheaf Hotel in Newport, Isle of Wight, is haunted. Allegedly a young Georgian soldier - on the eve of his wedding day - was mortally wounded in an illegal duel at Carisbook Castle. He was carried to the Wheatsheaf where he died.
I've never stayed in room 1 but the chambermaids that I spoke to were quite open about finding the unoccupied room with disturbed bedding and feeling nudges while they were cleaning it out.
Still a nice hotel ...
 
CHIPMUNK said:
My hubby and I went away for the weekend over the August Bank Holiday weekend. I found a lovely hotel on a pet friendly website because we had decided to take our dog (2 yr old border collie) along. We decided on Knaresborough in Yorkshire (4miles from Harrogate) as I have always wanted to visit Mother Shiptons Cave and for its lovely scenery and walks.
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i used to live in knaresborough, and it is an intensely creepy place. i know the hotel you're talking about, although i've never had any experiences there. but i did used to work in mother shipton's cave. as a tour guide, one of my duties at the end of the day was to go into the cave and sweep it out. Alone. i would go to the mouth of the cave (and it's fairly shallow, and well lit) and would just feel such a sense of oppression and dread i couldn't go any further. and iwasn't the only one who felt like that. normally, we were in and out of that cave all day, so we should have been used to it.

there's another thread somewhere here about someone seeing clumps of grass falling from the skies in knaresborough. all i know is, i feel safer wandering around london at 3 am, then i ever did wandering around knaresborough any time of night.

maybe it's becasue the town is so old. or the secret tunnels underneath it. or the various deaths. or the legend that when the road bridge falls for the third time (it's fallen twice already) the world will end, but the entire town always felt umcomfortable and oppressive to me
 
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