Haunted Hotels & Hotel Ghost Encounters (IHTM)

[Anonymous]

I wasn't aware of the secret tunnels! Then again, they are secret after all. It is such a lovely town but the whole weekend I couldn't shake the feeling of being 'observed', in a strange way. I felt it especially down by the river taking the path from the back of the swimming baths and down the hill past the chapel and the House in the Rock. We sat for a while in the beer garden of the pub by the bridge you mentioned and I must admit that the dog would not settle for a minute and was almost pulling us away from the river.

When we left the owner of the hotel asked if we had enjoyed ourselves and would we be back. I told him yes while running out of the door, I couldn't wait to see that motorway.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against the place, it is beautiful but I haven't felt that uneasy about a place ever. I still can't describe my feeling properly, it just wasn't right for me to be there.

 

[michelleeb1970]

I wasn't aware of the secret tunnels! Then again, they are secret after all. It is such a lovely town but the whole weekend I couldn't shake the feeling of being 'observed', in a strange way. I felt it especially down by the river taking the path from the back of the swimming baths and down the hill past the chapel and the House in the Rock.

exactly, the whole four years i lived there, i could never relax completely, the entire town has an atmosphere, and it wasn't that i was an outsider, my mother's family has very strong ties to the place, and is connected to lots of places in knaresborough. it's just a creepy place. maybe it's to do with the mother shipton legend. she was supposed to have been fathered by the devil in that cave i mentioned earlier.

btw, the secret tunnels run under the market place to the castle.

 

[tygerkat]

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

Your uncle is mean! playing tricks on guests like that!

 

[dairyleacheese]

Re: Haunted Hotel / Night Terrors

Josh's wife talking in her sleep and interacting with his questions/actions reminds me of the night terrors that my fiance suffers from. At it's worst, this takes the form of him sitting bolt upright in bed, eyes open and talking in a really scared voice, normally saying something along the lines of "what's that? what's going on?". He has also been known to point above his head and enquire "what on earth is that?". Sometimes he tries to protect me from things that he can apparently 'see' whilst in this state (usually spears coming through the mattress or wall) or sometimes he actually gets out of bed to do this. I can usually ask him questions and he can reply whilst in this state. Also, he can see his actual surroundings (including me and what I'm doing) whilst in the night terror, although he is also seeing things not there in reality!

It's downright freaky, and even although I know it's all in his head I'm often quite scared by the whole thing. It all happens whilst he is still asleep and he usually has no memory of it in the morning. The funny thing is, however, he hardly has these night terrors anymore. They used to happen all the time when we lived in an old and allegedly haunted house in the far north of Scotland though.... (the only spooky experience we had there was unexplained footsteps coming from an upstairs bedroom).

 

[Anonymous]

my little half sister Lauren gets night terrors a lot too.

over the Easter hols i was staying over at my pop's flat in Luton and was bunking sown in Lauren's room. anyway, if it wasn't bad enough staying in a flat on a Luton council estate, just before i went to bed that night my dad's wife told me about the ghosts they had in the flat, that of a little girl, a man and a teenage girl. :shock:

anyhoo, there's me trying to get some sleep, when suddenly Lauren who had been asleep a few hours starts crying and making a fuss, saying things like 'get off me' and the like. well i switched on the light too see if she was okay, but she seemed fine and had gone back to sleep.
this fair put the wind up. it happened a further five times during the night and needless to say i didn't get much sleep. i kept expecting to open my eyes and seeing a ghostly figure next to my bed! in the morning thoroughly shattered, i explained to my dad what had happened during the night to which he said, ' oh sorry, didnt we say that she has night terrors sometimes?'.
also i found out that there was no ghosts either, but my dad's wife, who is an inveterate practical joker, said this to everyone who stayed round!

after i found this out i felt much better and managed to sleep through the following night only to be woken a few times by the noise of the lift going down or the occasional group of kids going past. it's amazing what tricks youre brain plays on you when you think you are spending the night in a haunted place!

 

[Anonymous]

posted it twice by accident. doh!

 

[tygerkat]

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but what's the difference between nightmares and night terrors? Or are they the same thing?

dairyleachesse, I'm glad your husband doesn't seem to have them anymore. Maybe he's a sensitive and living in that house gave him the terrors.
Even if it's only an alledgedly haunted house, I don't know if I could live in one. I spook myself easily enough living in a non-haunted house! Especially if I'm home alone and/or reading this forum at night! :shock:

 

[Anonymous]

RE: Night terrors and nightmares

Night terror

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A night terror, also known as sleep terror or pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia sleep disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness. The subject wakes abruptly from the fourth stage of sleep, with waking usually accompanied by gasping, moaning, or screaming. It is often impossible to fully awaken the person, and after the episode the subject normally settles back to sleep without waking. Sometimes the night terror can be recalled by the subject.

Night terrors are distinct from nightmares in several key ways. First, the person is not fully awake when roused, and even when efforts are made to awaken the sleeper, they may continue to experience the night terror for over 10 or 20 minutes. Unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during the deepest levels of non-REM sleep. Furthermore even if awakened the subject can often not remember the episode except for a sense of panic, while nightmares are easily recalled.

Children from age four to six are most prone to night terrors, and they affect about three percent of all youngsters. Episodes may recur for a couple of weeks then suddenly disappear. They usually occur during the first couple of hours of sleep. Strong evidence has shown that a predisposition to night terrors can be passed genetically. Though there are a multitude of triggers, emotional stress during the previous day is thought to precipitate most episodes. Ensuring that the right amount of sleep is gained also seems to be important.

The consensus for treating night terror episodes is three-pronged: gentleness, disposal of anything nearby that might hurt the subject, and avoiding loud voices or movements that might frighten the subject further. Night terrors are so transitory that medical help is often unnecessary, but options may range from treatment of sleep apnea to prescription of benzodiazepines and psychotherapy

source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terrors

 

[Anonymous]

Even if it's only an alledgedly haunted house, I don't know if I could live in one. I spook myself easily enough living in a non-haunted house! Especially if I'm home alone and/or reading this forum at night! :shock:

same here, i have a tendency to freak myself out easily, esp. when i am alone. our house only very occasionally is subject to paranormal phenom and i always think that if something was to happen to me i would either bolt for the door and/or faint and yet when things do happen, i just i think ' oh, okay then.' and shrug it off, even when i can't find any normal reason for it!

 

[rynner2]

I just got round to reading a leaflet I picked up on my last visit to The White Hart in Hayle (a place I've mentioned on the MB before). And it's apparently haunted! :shock:

The usual things: footsteps heard on the upstairs corridor, people being tapped on the shoulder when no-one's there, a picture of the hotel falling from a hook when the ghost was discussed, and people feeling a cold draught when no-one's come in the door....

Some of the locals tell stories of a room on the top floor - if you "feel inclined to find out for yourself, ask for Room 9!"

Tel: 01736 752322, if anyone's interested!


[Note to Mods: there are a good half dozen Haunted Hotel threads, if anyone wants to exercise their merging muscles! ]

 

[Paul_Caroline]

To add to the Westcountry flavour of this thread, I lived and worked at 14th C. Dartington Hall for 9 years, only a couple of miles or so from Berry Pomeroy Castle of 'Most Haunted' fame, and reputably one of the most haunted castles in Britain.

Dartington has several well documented ghosts (do a Google) but what we experienced was Poltergeist activity, with multiple witnesses on all but one occasion. Dartington was restored in the 1930's and boasts a magnificent hammer-beamed Great Hall, as well as a Restaurant and Bar in the adjacent old kitchen buildings. In places the walls are literally several feet thick, and the windows very high up. There is also a slendid Courtyard that includes over 50 letting rooms in the former knights and servants quarters.

The Trust that own and run the Hall have historically always been very involved in the Arts, and the Great Hall has for over 70 years played host to concerts and performances by some of Britain's, and the World's, great classical performers. Crowds of up to 450 people will cram into the Hall on a regular basis, especially during the summer festival season.

My job involved the bar/catering/accommodation side of things and we would often sit and chat early in the morning after a late finish. However, the other staff lived off site and had to drive home, so alcohol was not a factor here

On the first occasion there were three of us in the bar (which is joined by a narrow corridor to the Great Hall) at about 2am. We were chatting away when suddenly we all heard the sound of cheering and clapping coming from the Great Hall. Now we were quite attuned to listen for this sound, as it signalled an interval/end of performance and thus a major rush on the bar. I can best describe the noise as 'rising and fading on the wind': we became aware of it, heard it and then it tapered off.

Needless to say, given that the building was supposed to be locked, we rushed towards the Hall in confusion; nothing, the building was locked and in darkness.

A few months later it was again in the early hours of the morning, and I was sat up talking to a barman who had been very sceptical about what we had heard (he was about 19 and a 'lad'). It happened again, just like the first time, and his reaction (with hindsight) was hilarious, although of course not at the time: he honestly couldn't get out of the bar fast enough!

Bearing in mind that I worked 4 - 5 nights a week, I feel I can safely discount mundane explanations for what we heard; after all, we would have heard these noises time and agaain if they had a 'normal' cause. Even writing this six or seven years later I can honestly say that I cannot think of a rational explanation for what we heard; it was very distinct, there was no mistaking the noise for something else - you could HEAR the people!

There was some further Poltergeist activity, and a classic ghost sighting, but that's enough for post number one.....

 

[StormMagic]

I once stayed at a 15th century inn in Breccon with my family. Because we were a large family and it was a small hotel we occupied all of the rooms I found myself in a small attic room. The owner, a frail old lady, slept on the same floor.

In the small hours of the morning, a loud bang woke me and I opened my eyes immediately. The door appeared to shake on it's hinges as though something had struck it very hard. I tenatively put on the light and checked outside the door. No one was there.

I checked with my family in the morning, no one else heard it.

Thankfully, I've never been back there.

 

[faith2faith]

There's an old B&B in Waterbury, VT, close to where I live. It's called "The Old Stagecoach Inn" and supposedly is inhabited by the ghost of old Nettie Spencer, the former owner of the inn.

I read about Nettie in Joseph Cipro's "Weird New England" and since the inn was close by, I went there one day to see for myself. I didn't see or feel anything unusual on my brief visit, but I talked to one of the current owners and he had some interesting stories to tell.

One day, the inn was completely booked out. He himself was at the reception desk that day and later in the evening, one of the guests called and canceled his reservation last-minute. So room # 3 was unexpectedly empty, but the owner didn't write it in the book or had a chance to tell anyone. He shut down the inn for the night and went to bed.

The next morning, to his astonishment he saw three strangers walk down the stairs. He asked who they were, and they said they had arrived around 2 am last night, and this nice old lady had unlocked the door for them and led them to room # 3. Only there was no nice old lady working at the inn (nor was any of the guests an old lady), and no one but the owner had known that room # 3 was vacant.

I like that story -- a super-friendly, interactive ghost...

 

[BlackPeter]

Purely by colncidence I have recently stayed at what is supposed to be one of the most haunted inns in Britain, The Red Lion at Avebury. The pub actually stands within the great stone circle and has several supposed ghosts including 'Florrie' who was done to death by being thrown down a well that can still be seen in the bar! The landlady who had arrived recently said that she had never seen anything but had felt someone touching her face while cleaning up in the bar. Anyway we went to bed expecting at the very least a few bumps in the night but disappointingly absolutely nothing happened.

 

[Fizz32]

Anyway we went to bed expecting at the very least a few bumps in the night but disappointingly absolutely nothing happened.

BlackPeter, I get six or seven e-mails a day offering stuff that can help with that.


The George Inn at St Briavels, in the Forest of Dean, has a ghost, unimaginatively nicknamed "George", who walks along the corridor upstairs at night, and opens the door between the bar and the cellar regularly.

I've never seen anything while I've been there, but there's definitely a roaming cold spot in the upstairs corridor, and I've had that "hairs on the back of your neck" feeling there more than once.

 

[jeff544]

I just got round to reading a leaflet I picked up on my last visit to The White Hart in Hayle (a place I've mentioned on the MB before). And it's apparently haunted! :shock:

The usual things: footsteps heard on the upstairs corridor, people being tapped on the shoulder when no-one's there, a picture of the hotel falling from a hook when the ghost was discussed, and people feeling a cold draught when no-one's come in the door....

Some of the locals tell stories of a room on the top floor - if you "feel inclined to find out for yourself, ask for Room 9!"

Tel: 01736 752322, if anyone's interested!



Hey, we stayed at the White Hart in Hayle at the beginning of June for 2 nights (cousin's wedding in St Ives) Would absolutely recommend it.
Our room was not the 'haunted' room 9 and the only bumps in the night we had was one of the sash windows rattling in the wind.- cured with a bit of card although when I woke up my first thought was that room 9 is immediately above.
The hotel has a lot of history and is so much more enjoyable to stay in than the soul less chain places that usually cost more too. Oh, and the breakfast is excellent.


[Note to Mods: there are a good half dozen Haunted Hotel threads, if anyone wants to exercise their merging muscles! ]

 

[Creamstick1]

When I was 11, I went on a school trip to Le Touquet in France. The hotel we stayed at was pretty ramshackle, but it was on the market square, and the back faced onto the beach, so it wasn't too bad (our room was the only room in the entire hotel that had a shower, toilet, sink and bidet - most only had a sink and bidet).

Well, you know how kids are, and one night I was up in one of the girl's rooms (they were on the floor above) with a couple of other guys and girls. A couple of the girls asked us to stay there because they had heard footsteps in the middle of the night that would stop infront of each door for a few seconds and move on. They seemed quite shaken up by it, and while I reasoned that it was probably either one of the teachers that were on the trip with us making sure that everyone was asleep (or in their own rooms), or that it was someone looking for the toilet on that floor, even at that age I wasn't about to pass up a chance to get cosy for the night under the covers with a girl .

So, the night passes without anything remarkable happening, and after reassurances that everything was fine, we made our way back to our own rooms just as it was getting light - before any teachers would be up making sure we were in our own rooms.

I had just gotten back to my room (I was the last to get to my room as ours was at the other end of the hotel) and shut the door behind me when I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I knew right away that it wasn't one of the teachers, as they were a little heavier and seemed to slightly scuff on the carpet. I waited until they had passed my room when I opened the door a crack and saw a ball of light about the size of a football moving down the hall about chest-height, away from my door, toward the stairs.

I closed the door and noticed that I wasn't breathing. Trying not to make any sound, I moved as quickly as I could over to the bed and sat down staring at the door. I don't know how long passed, but I almost jumped out of my skin when there was a knock on the door - I think I may have even let out a yelp. Then I heard a knock being made on the next door and a teacher's voice telling us to get up.

The whole rest of the day, I couldn't go back into the hotel. Some of us met some locals, stayed out all night and slept on the beach. We went back to the hotel just as it was getting light, and as soon as we entered, I just got this really heavy feeling. Luckily, my room was the first room we got to. I crawled into bed fully clothed and fell asleep.

When the teacher woke us up in the morning, I went to get changed and noticed that my shoes were not on my feet, but were clear across the room - toes on the floor, and heels up on the door, side by side. They were also still tied (they were quite complicated boots that you could not slip on and off - hey, it was the 80's!).

I was really shaken by this, and later that day one of the girls said that she had got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and when she was in there, she heard the footsteps going down the hallway, and was so scared that she spent the night there.

That night, I was really tired and spent the evening in the room. When my room-mate came in, he went to bed and fell straight asleep. I couldn't sleep, and constantly found myself staring at the door. Eventually, I must have fallen asleep because I snapped-to with a start that woke up my room-mate enough to tell me to shut up before he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Right then, I heard the footsteps, coming from the same direction as before. I was now terrified, absolutely terrified. They stopped for a few seconds at the door before ours, then started towards us. Then they stopped right in front of our door. I was actually dizzy with fear - I can still remember it as I type this. The silence lasted for what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds.

BANG

BANG

It didn't exactly sound like banging on the door with a fist, more like a flat palm - not hard enough that someone in another room would have heard it, it didn't even wake my room-mate, but hard enough that I knew it was there - I started crying - I don't think I made a sound, but there were tears running down my face. I don't think I've experienced fear like this ever since - then another few seconds of silence, the the same scuffed footsteps away from the door.

I don't know how long it went on for, but I noticed that it was now bright daylight outside and in the room. My room-mate woke up, took one look at me and asked what the hell was up with me - I told him, he laughed and told me that it was probably just one of the teachers getting us up - he went into the bathroom to take a shower, when the now-familiar bang on the door and call for us to get up from the teacher sounded from the corridor.

I was so badly shaken that I couldn't face going down to breakfast with everyone else, so I went across to the beach and sat on the sea-wall. A few of the others came across after breakfast and found me in floods of tears, shaking. I told them what had been happening, and this started off a few of the girls crying in hysterics. Thankfully we only had a couple more nights there, and I spent them in one of the girls' rooms upstairs.

Nothing else happened the rest of the time we were there. I'm not sure why it had so much effect on me, as I had seen and heard things countless time before (and I've posted some of those here too). Maybe it was because I was so young and far way from home.

A few years later, I saw the original version of 'The Haunting', and it scared me like very few films ever have, because when similar things happened in the movie, it took me right back to that time. It remains one of my all-time favourite films, and when I showed it to my wife for the first time, I told her this story afterward and she gave me a little hug (patronising bitch!

[edit] something happened to the text formatting - fixed now [/edit]

 

[icarusgirl]

Creamstick, thanks for sharing that story, it chilled me! Reading it, i kinda thought that the footsteps and door knocking was likely to have been a teacher or a class mate playing tricks... but what makes this story seem authentic is the strangely unreasonable leves of fear you obviously felt.

I've really enjoyed this thread, it's kept me going whilst the boyfriend is watching the rugby

 

[volfie]

Reading the story about the ghost on a school trip (cool story, btw) reminded me of a ghost I ran into on my school trip, long, long ago.

We were visiting NYC and staying at the Roosevelt Hotel. There were four of us in a three bed room and my best friend and myself shared a double bed. I took the spot next to the wall (which also had a window in it) and she took the outside position on the bed.

We were sleeping back to back when I awoke suddenly to someone touching me. The only trouble was, they would have had to been standing between the bed and the wall or outside a window, 12 stories up.

My girlfriend also woke up right then and asked with a slightly paniced tone to her voice, "Did you just touch me?"

So, who/whatever it was, it touched both of us pretty much simultanously and about 4' apart. It got our attention but, being young and tired, we just went right back to sleep.

 

[Dick Turpin]

I actually have something intelligent to contibute to a thread! Will wonders never cease?

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!

Ok

I actually have something intelligent to contibute to a thread! Will wonders never cease?

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!

Okay, a long shot here as the original post goes back to 2004, but was the Hotel situated on Dartmoor..?, your description above is familiar



We stayed in quite a well-known Hotel on Dartmoor some years back, and banging doors throughout the night, and into the wee hours was annoying to say the least.

Every time I nodded off to sleep.….BANG, I was woken up again.

I eventually complained to the night Manager, who told me we were the only guests in that part of the Hotel.

He did walk me back to my room and check the (empty) neighbouring rooms bless him.

There were a couple of other things that happened that night, but right now I’m off to a meeting I’m afraid….bloody town hall.!!

 

[dannyagger]

Any of you lot ever stayed at what used to be The York Hotel in Bath? *shudders* Hideous place.

 

[Eponastill]

I insist on details

 

[dannyagger]

I insist on details

Oh, I never stayed in the York... it had been derelict for years when I lived in Bath as a teenager.

My boyfriend at the time (less said about that abusive freak, the better - I had very low standards at the time, apparently) lived in a flat opposite The York.

There was a window on the top floor of the hotel, left hand side, that always gave me the squits. No reason... the rest of the hotel was just a random derelict mess, with no atmosphere I could detect. Sad, but nothing spooky about the rest of it, to me at least.

One night, I was lying in bed with the idiot, and confessed that there was something I found creepy about that place opposite.

He, who was as about as emotionally sensitive as a demented warthog, said "It's that top left window, isn't it?"

Well, yes. Yes, it was.

I know I'd not mentioned it to him before. Bizarre.

 

[dannyagger]

Found it! It's been done up and is now a Travelodge.

 

[Swifty]

About twelve years ago, I was hired as the live in night porter/head barman at the Red Lion Hotel in Cromer.

If you skip to 0:23 in this video (and turn the dreadful music off), you'll see my old office (also reception area)..

I was responsible for locking everything up 6 nights a week and was nearly always completely alone, I was certainly the only staff member there.

One night, with the reception window still open, all the outside doors locked and all the guests in their rooms upstairs, I distinctly heard what sounded like three footsteps walking towards the reception window, hard soled shoes on the stone floor you can see pictured in the video. Of course there was no one there but my job was to make sure and there was still no one there or anywhere they could have been hiding. As a large 70's type plastic roof window was above the area, I put it down to that contracting and creating the sound. You can see one of these roof windows at 0:50 in the video.

Opposite that area, a door led/leads into the restaurant, one of my duties was also to check that area, by then I'd always switched the lights off although there was enough outside light that you could see. Often I'd get the feeling that the room was full of people, I never heard or saw anyone, just that feeling you get when someone walks up behind you and you sense them but of course, this could just be put down to tiredness.

One of our managers had had to check out a guest early from room 10, he'd refused to stay a second night but wouldn't explain why. His company had paid for the room so the manager received a phone call later the same day from this man's boss. It turned out the man had seen the reflection in his bathroom mirror of a Victorian looking woman and hadn't had a wink of sleep afterwards.

The large bar and dining area got through light bulbs at an astonishing rate, the tub we had for replacements was about half the size of a fridge, most mornings after I'd unlocked, the cleaners would arrive to find me up the stepladder replacing them. Again, this was/is an old building so weak electrics were the more likely explanation.

One evening, a good friend of mine was sat at the bar playing with a phone he'd just bought and was taking random pictures. He gave a shocked "f*****g hell!", said "hang on" and then explained to me that he'd just taken a picture of a dense person shaped shadow in one of the corners but had just as quickly accidentally deleted it. Often after my shift had ended, we'd go up to my night porter flat for a few cans of beer. I could access my flat from the inside of the building but for some reason, the owner didn't like my mate using the same route so I had to let him from the outside. I let him in one night and he asked me who'd followed me up the stairs ? .. he'd been watching from outside through a large stained glass window and swore a woman had been behind me.

The staff found all of this highly amusing, as a Fortean, I was quite excited about it as well although I tried to remain sceptical. One of the waitress's called my flat one lunchtime, apologised (because I was off duty) and told me there were people from a ghost tour organisation at reception who'd been asking questions and would I mind coming downstairs to speak with them .. which I did.

The owner wasn't keen on allowing them to host a night there so I gave them a tour after hours one night on the sly. The lady reckoned I was being followed around by the ghost of a woman, a detail I hadn't told them, that room 10 would sometimes scare people with a reflection of a woman in the mirror, something else I hadn't told them (I took them into a few empty rooms without giving anything away), a woman had once fallen down the bottom flight of stairs by reception but hadn't died, the snooker room used to be a ladies sewing/tapestry room .... when they all sat down in the bar after my tour, the lady in the team called me over and pointed upwards at the light bulb that had just popped directly above her chair.

The most dramatic experience I had came some time after this though. I was sat at the bar, customer side with a pint and a few customers were still hanging on and drinking up. I saw the solid outline of a woman walk across an open doorway, it was almost like a rota scope animation but absolutely dense black .. just like vantablack. I saw it in my direct line of sight so not from the corners of my eyes ..

I stood up straight away assuming this must be the female owner on an unannounced visit and walked towards the direction she was going. The corridor she was walking along has decorative windows in and as she hadn't walked past those, she could have only walked into reception. There was nobody there.

I've worked there recently (last Christmas for just a couple of months) apart from one old guy who sometimes works in the kitchen, neither the new owners or any of the staff I cautiously asked have reported any ghostly goings on at The Red Lion, Cromer.

 

[Eponastill]

Now I want to go back to Cromer, nice advert!
There's something about that wood panelling in your hotel - I always find it a bit creepy. I had to lock a big house up at one time, and it was the wood-panelled rooms that totally gave me the creeps. Maybe it's the darkness. Or some weird effect on the sound. I know I didn't like it and ran round as rapidly as possible.

Also that vantablack, wtf?? That's crazy stuff. Really I want a pair of trousers or a bag made out of it. But it's more cool to think it's got proper scientific practical applications.

I don't know, Swifty. You've had so many interesting experiences. I feel rather jealous

 

[EnolaGaia]

The link in post #1 is long dead. Here's the complete text, salvaged from the Wayback Machine ...

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HAUNTED HOTEL

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.

We were both tired and decided to stay in and relax. I got a pizza from a pizzeria across the street and we settled into bed, watching television (in particular, a soap opera we had become addicted to in which the plot appeared to be revolving around a foster family). My wife has always been very skeptical of the supernatural and I have always been very open to believe in their possibilities. My family lived for a time in a house, which was haunted by something malevolent. Eventually my father was inclined to sell the house at a loss to get away from it. The fact that my wife was prone to mock my superstitious nature and that I know full well that I suffer from a very over active imagination led me to refrain from mentioning the unusually dark corner and the dread feeling which caused me to continually flick my eyes to that corner.

My wife dozed off around 6pm, while I continued to watch television because I did not want the room bathed in darkness. I had been smoking all evening long and after lighting each cigarette, would place the lighter on top of the packet of cigarettes, as is my habit. Around 8pm, I reached for a cigarette only to find the lighter gone. I leaned out of bed, speculating that it had fallen to the floor, and checked around the nightstand. My wife suddenly said: "You won't find it." I asked her why. She said, "Because they hid it." As she said that, I felt a chill of ice. I didn't say anything and she appeared to have gone back to sleep. I found some matches and smoked like a chimney for the next few hours. I felt something watching me from that too-dark corner and could only stare back. Around 11pm or midnight, my wife, still asleep, began speaking quite clearly: "Tell them to go away." I asked whom, terrified of the answer. "Them?" I asked her where they were and she held her hands a few feet over her head. "There." In terror, I jumped out of bed and threw the lights on. This woke her up for real.

She had no recollection of either our discussion about the lighter or her requests for 'Them' to leave, but my account did inspire some fear in her and we both watched TV. The episode of Father Ted, Speed2, was delightfully funny and took both of our minds off of the haunting. But during Naked Elvis, we both began to feel the 'spooky' quality of the room. My wife, ever the sceptic, was somewhat annoyed with me for scaring her. Neither one of us could fall back asleep. We sat in bed until about 430 and then decided to get dressed and leave. While in the shower, the heat knob would continually spin to totally hot. Never while we watched, just suddenly the water would be scalding and the knob would be full hot. After we raced through the shower, my wife started putting on her makeup while I packed our bags. At the bottom of my bag I found my cigarette lighter. I told my wife this in a shaky voice. She replied, "I hate this place." Her purse then up righted into the sink, spilling all of its contents. We packed rapidly and left. It was early, I no longer recall the time, but the sun was just coming up. We loaded our bags into our rental car and walked down to the beach. I have never felt so free in my life. I can't really explain it.

As we walked back up to the car we could see into the back of the hotel, probably the kitchen. My wife was taken aback and she called my attention to what was a man, staring at the two of us with a scowl on his face, hacking at something with a meat cleaver. We hopped into the car. (it is entirely possible that this fellow was a disgruntled employee angry with us for inadvertently parking our car in the employee parking area, but we have both been inclined to attribute a supernatural nature to him.)

We left Stonehaven and spent the day at DunOtter Castle, a wonderful experience, and then stayed at a delightful bed and breakfast. We both went to bed around 3pm and slept soundly until the next day. It was the only experience of that nature we have shared and, while I delight in telling it, my wife hates it when I bring it up. Even she, who does not believe in the paranormal or usually admit its possibility, admits something very strange happened there that night.

Has anyone else experiencing something like that in Stonehaven? I cannot recall it's precise location, but it is in Scotland and right on the North Sea coast. I left out of the story, because I could not recall at which point in the night it occurred, but we could hear quite clearly the sound of youths talking excitedly right outside our window, although we could not see anyone and could not make out what they were saying. We were on the second floor and just assumed that they were right under us and out of our line of sight.

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SALVAGED FROM: https://web.archive.org/web/20030629065704/http://forteantimes.com:80/happened/hauntedhotel.shtml

 

[Swifty]

Now I want to go back to Cromer, nice advert!
There's something about that wood panelling in your hotel - I always find it a bit creepy. I had to lock a big house up at one time, and it was the wood-panelled rooms that totally gave me the creeps. Maybe it's the darkness. Or some weird effect on the sound. I know I didn't like it and ran round as rapidly as possible.

Also that vantablack, wtf?? That's crazy stuff. Really I want a pair of trousers or a bag made out of it. But it's more cool to think it's got proper scientific practical applications.

I don't know, Swifty. You've had so many interesting experiences. I feel rather jealous

A different local ghost investigation team want to interview me about my experiences in the hotel sometime in the next two weeks so I'll be going back there to point out key areas .. I'm friendly with the new owner so hopefully he'll let me give them a more in depth tour although the place had a huge refurbishment not long after I left and some otherwise easy to access rooms have been converted into guest bedrooms so it's a lot busier these days, it might not be as practical ..

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I was sure I had posted this before, though evidently not in this thread.

According to our trusted family genealogist, I am descended from a Cumbrian family named Dalton. I liked to think the chemist, John Dalton, might be an ancestor. He was from Quaker stock, however. Those roots must go a long way back. In vain moments, I like to imagine them!

More likely are links are to the Dalton Gang, outlaws of the Wild West!

The three Dalton brothers had their roots in Cumbria; some Americans take a perverse pride in tracing their own roots back, the way Australians love to be children of the exported! Nothing to confirm that link, so far, either.

More certain is our own family's link to a William Dalton, yeoman, whose dwelling has been extended and become a "haunted" hotel. I would name it but no need to become another Tripadvisor!

My relatives have, so far, failed to book a room there to see if the ancestral spirits are ready to make contact. They did have a meal there and general indifference was the order of the day. :wacky:

 

[Swifty]

I met the team tonight instead of last Friday, the lady is the ex partner of the night porter who I took over duties from, her daughters and new partner were with her so I did the best I could reminiscing accurately .. I'm sure I looked like a bit of a weirdo to the current staff but that can't be helped when you're talking about hauntings .. I was being filmed at points and sound recorded so they say they're going to do a short film about it .. I've asked her not to make me look like a twat anyway .. WW1 dead woman ghost stuff apparently as I was told at the time, apparently I was being followed around. I'm trying to gather other witnesses together that I still know who recorded or were also witness to weird shit at that time.