Haunted Pubs / Pub Hauntings

[Justin_Anstey]

You know, if we just went by local newspaper reports, it would seem that most ghosts prefer to haunt pubs.

How curious.

-Justin.

 

[rynner2]

I have infested - er - investigated many pubs, and not seen or heard of a ghost in any of them.

I think I must be anti-psychic.

 

[Anonymous]

Of course you mind many spirits in a pub.

Were would you rather spend the rest of eternity? In a pub or some knackered old house in the middle of nowhere?

 

[FelixAntonius]

In the next town to mine, a lot of people were seeing ABC's in the way home from the pub.

At least, that's what they were claiming to explain why a "swift half" lasted until closing time & why they had trouble standing straight.

The shock of the sighting a big cat????

 

[Justin_Anstey]

Some recent local examples:

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co...layContent&sourceNode=73927&contentPK=3817383

GHOST OF THE CELLAR?

11:00 - 24 January 2003

He looks like a kindly gent from a Dickens novel, but yesterday local people claimed this portly apparition could be the reason things go bump in the night at a West pub.

His presence suggests as a picture was taken more than a century ago but believers say it is less than 30 years old.

Now a West ghostbuster wants to find who the figure is and how he came to be snapped in the cellars of a Ross-on-Wye pub.

Paranormal investigator Barry Fitzpatrick stumbled across the picture of the typical Victorian while investigating rumoured hauntings at the King Charles II pub. He believes the image could be genuine.

Stories about ghostly goings-on at the Broad Street pub have been circulating for decades.

One landlord kept finding old coins in the cellar and former cooks complained about things moving about in the kitchen.

Reports of apparitions and icy chills in the corridor above the cellar are commonplace among customers.

During Barry's research former landlady Vi Boxer handed over a set of photographs taken in the 1970s. They included a shot of the ghostly apparition, which appears to be checking the cellar with a lamp.

"I always keep an open mind but it does appear to be genuine," said Barry, 66, a retired security officer from cider giant Bulmers.

"I've dated the barrels in the cellar to the early 1970s, which is when they said the photograph was taken.

"I've dated his clothes to the Victorian era but he appears too well dressed to be a drayman. I've heard that at one time they held courts in the cellar so maybe he could have been a court official."

As part of his research, Barry has held a vigil in the cellar and used a clairvoyant who confirmed the presence of a well-dressed male. But he believes his research has been hampered by mystery surrounding a secret tunnel hewn out of rock. The bricked-off passage, which appears to run between the town's two churches, is linked to the pub's cellar.

Present landlords Andy Gooding and Paul Neades took over the pub last June and say they want to find out once and for all if there are more spirits than they serve behind the bar. They dismissed the stories of hauntings until a string of strange happenings, including someone constantly turning off their gas cylinders.

The day after they took Barry down to the cellar, they went down to find a barrel had been rolled across the inside of the door to block it.

"At first we thought the stories were drink talk but now we think there is definitely something," said Paul, 31.


http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co...layContent&sourceNode=73927&contentPK=4379344

IS GERRY THE FERRIE SCARY PUB GHOST?

18:00 - 27 February 2003

A Symonds Yat landlady is looking for ghost experts who can tell her who Gerald - a ghostly regular who just won't listen to calls for last orders - really is.

Sonia Lewis says that the popular pub and hotel on the banks of the Wye is haunted by the 'presence' nicknamed Gerald by staff, who throws glasses, turns taps on and off and has made parts of her own pub no-go areas. "I won't go in the pool room unless it's daylight or there's someone with me," she told The Forester this week.

Sonia was herself no great believer in ghosts until she discovered she was sharing a bar with one.

"I didn't believe or disbelieve, and I've never seen anything," she said.

"This is really embarrassing, but what can you say? There's definitely somebody here."

Local legend has it that in 1927-8 a former occupant of the building committed suicide in what is now the pool room which was then a stable block.

"I won't go in there on my own to turn off the lights at night," she said, "it's a joke with everyone now that I won't."

A sense of someone being there, standing next to you, is how the landlady and several guests have described the manifestations, but they also take a more concrete form explained barmaid Nola Lewis.

"I've seen glasses come down from behind the bar," she said, "we thought it might be because of a band, or music, but it happens when there's no band on and it's really quiet as well."

According to Sonia the glasses always follow the same path and often don't smash despite a fall of well over six feet.

As well as a cavalier attitude to health and safety at work, the Ferrie's spook pays no heed to sex discrimination laws either.

"It never happens to a woman," said Nola, "I've seen it but it doesn't happen to me, or any other women.

"One barman, Owen, had five come at him in a night."

Sonia agrees: "My niece might dispute this," she said, "and she says a glass went when she was serving, but in fact she had just come out from behind the bar and a man had gone in."

The possible ghostly presence only came to light when guests asked whether the place was haunted after taps and lights got a mind of their own. One visitor found an orb had appeared in a photo he had taken, but his camera refused to focus on the fireplace. Footsteps are heard when the building is empty.

The building's owner confirmed Sonia's impression that there was 'someone there', but specific information has been hard to come by.

"We've been told that someone hanged themselves here in 1927 or 1928, and it was the biggest funeral that the Yat has ever seen," said Sonia.

"I've been told he's my keeper. I've been told he's a man called Daniel or Damien and he's about 38 years old. I've been told all sorts but you can't prove it.

"I'd love it if someone could come along and tell me who it is."

A pub quiz for Forest spirit fans.

http://www.forest-and-wye-today.co.uk/frame/newsdetail.cfm?id=58878

Now it's Liz who has the locals in a tiz!

THE GHOST of the Miners Arms at Sling, near Coleford, is not, after all, ‘Old Nell.’

The ancient picture hanging in the bar is that of Elizabeth Davis who was landlady at the pub in the 1880s and 1890s.

The photograph was recognised by Mr Pat Davis, of Cinderford.

“She was my great great grandmother and kept the pub for many years,” said Pat.

“In fact the pub was in our family for around a century and I was born there,” he said.

Mrs Davis had seven daughters, six of whom are buried in Clearwell churchyard.

“If this is the image customers see at the Miners then it is definitely not old Nell – she followed later – but my ancestor. They will have to rename her,” said Pat.

Landlord Brian Penkethman was delighted to get a positive identification of the old picture.

“The pub is definitely haunted by a friendly ghost and we have loads of stories and tales to tell about things that have moved and noises we have heard,” he said.

“We’ve always called her Old Nell but now we will have to think of changing that,” he said.

Copyright Tindle Newspapers Ltd 04 April 03

 

[Anonymous]

It's not that surprising that pubs and ghosts correlate. Alcohol has the effect of nullifying the mind's conscious faculty, allowing the deeper, more 'in tune' unconscious to come foward. The vast majority of ghost sightings are made in this distracted/switched off state. So, alcohol (to a degree) may be considered a revealer of ghosts, rather than a source in itself!

 

[DrPaulLee]

absolutely true!

>Alcohol has the effect of nullifying the mind's conscious faculty, > allowing the deeper, more 'in tune' unconscious to come foward.

Quite true! After a few pints, I'm fast asleep!

(Actually, I think you're quite right anyway. You'll hardly ever get to see ghosts if you concentrate really hard on finding them. You need to be in a relaxed, distracted state).

 

[taras]

Pub Haunting

(PA) Police were called to a pub toilet when a shocked licensee was left shaking by an encounter with a ghost with half a face.
Landlord Roger Froggatt, 55, and his wife Kathryn, 49, were woken by the alarm at the Low Valley Arms, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire in the early hours of the morning. As he investigated what he thought might be an intruder he was confronted by a woman wearing a long white gown in the ladies lavatory of the pub in Darfield.
But what left 55-year-old Mr Froggatt in a state of complete shock was her face - half of which was missing. One officer went into the ladies and although the figure of the woman had gone, the toilets began to flush themselves. Mrs Froggatt and a second officer went in and the flushing continued.

:shock:

 

[taras]

More

LANDLORD SHAKEN BY PUB SPIRITS
By Dave Higgens, PA
Police were called to a pub toilet today when a shocked licensee was left shaking by an encounter with a ghost with half a face.
Landlord Roger Froggatt and his wife Kathryn were woken by the alarm at the Low Valley Arms, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire in the early hours of the morning.
As he investigated what he thought might be an intruder he was confronted by a woman wearing a long white gown in the ladies lavatory of the pub in Darfield.
But what left 55-year-old Mr Froggatt in a state of complete shock was her face - half of which was missing.
Mrs Froggatt, 49, who was just behind her husband before he went into the toilets, said she was so concerned about what her husband had experienced she called the police.
"He was in total shock," she said. "He was shaking, he was white and he wouldn't move.
"He just kept saying `face, face, it's horrible, it's horrible'.
"I was so worried about what he might have seen I rang the police there and then, sitting on the stairs."
But Mrs Froggatt said the bizarre goings on, which began when the couple first came downstairs to find all the televisions on in the bar, continued when the police arrived.
She said one officer went into the ladies and although the figure of the woman had gone, the toilets began to flush themselves.
Mrs Froggatt and a second officer went in and the flushing continued.
"The handles were going up and down and there was water everywhere," she said.
The landlady said she and her husband had moved into the pub a year ago and although there had been rumours of things moving around the cellar, nothing had been seen before.
A South Yorkshire Police spokesman confirmed officers were called to the pub at 1.35am today.
He said a search of the property revealed a small window was open but it was "far too small for any entry to be gained."
The spokesman also confirmed that the toilets in the ladies flushed themselves when the officers went in.

 

[Anonymous]

Hope to see a police report at some point. However, however, the cynic in me can't help wondering if this isn't a stunt to drum up trade or get onto MH.

:lol:

 

[taras]

I think the last line is the most interesting. I'm reasonably sure the police have better things to do than help generate pub-licity, and surely - surely! - nobody would go to the bother of rigging up a set of toilets to make them deliberately flush. Maybe that's just me though...

 

[ProfessorF]

Interesting - I've now read this story as featuring a headless woman, a woman with no face, and as a woman with half a face.
Will the 'real' apparition please step forward?

 

[taras]

I would presume the PA would be the source of all the other stories, as it's the only version on the wires - at which point inaccuracies/deliberate 'embellishments' would have occurred.

 

[Anonymous]

Just a thought, but do the loos have an automatic flush system at all, or any form of electric flush? If not, then they must be push or pull flushes. These require, I believe, a physical force to act on them - at a guess a few pounds of pressure (be it pull or push). If the loos have not been rigged etc, and police genuinely corroborate this, then clearly this is something to be investigated.
My gut feeling is there has been much misreporting, confabulation and yes publicity. Do we know if any of the police involved know or are related to the publicans? Do we know if the local police have any known jokers etc?
Please keep us posted with developments...

 

[MaxMolyneux]

You got the link to that? :shock:

A ghost of a murder victum maybe?

 

[taras]

Useful round-up of other haunted pubs:

Roll-call of pubs with more than one kind of spirit
Yorkshire has some of the most haunted bars in the country. Emma Dunlop takes a look at some of the more well-known.
Carbrook Hall in the Darnall area of Sheffield is reputedly the city's most haunted pub, with four different ghosts having been sighted there.
The main ghost – a short, stocky man with long, brown hair and wearing heavy, dark 17th century clothing – often appears at the top of the stairs.
The ghost is believed to be that of a Colonel John Bright, who fought in Oliver Cromwell's army in the Civil War.
In Wyke in West Yorkshire regulars at the Hypnotist pub have often encountered "Fred the Flusher", which is said to be the ghost of an engineer, based at a nearby dam, who died after an accident.
He is described as middle-aged and dripping wet and is blamed for flushing toilets when no one is around.
But it is York which stands head and shoulders above the rest of the region in terms of ghostly apparitions. It is the most haunted city in the country, with every street, alley and pub seeming to have a chilling ghost story to tell.
At the Five Lions pub there is a figure known locally as "Green Jenny", although she has not been seen for many years.
The Punchbowl, in Micklegate Bar, is regularly visited by a spectre known as the "Burnt Landlord".
This spook is the ghost of a landlord who burnt to death in a fire there and haunts one of the bedrooms and the cellar.
The ghost of a woman who died of a broken heart has also been seen on site.
Also in York, at the Snickleway Inn, on Goodramgate – formerly the Anglers' Arms – the ghost of a little girl is often seen waiting on the staircase.
She met her death when a horse and cart delivering beer ran over her just outside the pub.
There is also a much more sinister presence which haunts the basement of the same pub.
Five other pubs in the city – the Roman Bath on St Sampson's Square, the York Arms on High Petergate, the Golden Fleece on Pavement Street, the First Hussar on North Street and the Other Tap and Spile, also on North Street – can also claim ghostly fame.
They include a phantom splasher, a grey lady, a drunken airman and two caped figures.

There's several dozen identical copies of the initial report in newspapers around the world (do a search on news.google.com) because they've all been copied from the original (above) which was on the press wires so there isn't a link to it.

 

[maxwell121]

Police Report

So, did the police claim "they had nothing to go on"?

 

[MaxMolyneux]

So if this Fred the flusher died at the dam why does he feel the need to go to the pub then? :lol:

Ah well least he cares about the bad smells in toilets when no one flushes! :lol:

Will have to go to York again someday.

Full of pastry shops. 8)

 

[Niall114]

I couldn't find a separate thread for Pub Hauntings, so please join it to one if it's out there.

Story from the Southport Champion free paper August 10th 2006

Beware the "Ghost" House

Pub regulars shun "cursed" pub seat after numerous deaths

In a small town, in a small street, in a small pub there’s a small seat – dubbed coroner’s corner.

The seat, in The Oast House in Southport, has been given the name after it was noticed whoever sat in it had a sealed fate.

In the past year, eight pub regulars who have graced the corner have died – although landlady of the Stanley Street pub – nicknamed The Ghost House – insists it’s the friendliest pub in town.

Long-time regular of the pub, Bill Middleton, 74, said: “I’ve lost about 14 good friends after they have sat in that seat. All good old mates, mainly from the armed forces, I won’t sit there.”

Landlady Gill Cox said: “My husband Jeff and I have run the pub for the past two years and although we’ve had some strange experiences, there’s no better or friendlier atmosphere in any other pub.”

When she says strange experiences, Gill means it. She continued: “Just after we took over the pub, I was downstairs locking up late at night, and I swear I saw a person walk through the bar and through the back wall of the pub. I wasn’t scared, it was just a strange feeling.

“Jeff is even more sceptical than I am, he has never believed in anything like that, but he also saw something one night. He woke up in bed late and saw a face looking at him. Again he wasn’t scared – it was just strange. The ghost, or what ever it was is friendly, we’ve never had any bad vibes.”

The seat though is another story. Constance Bennett, 73, has drunk in the pub for 15 years, and insists she doesn’t believe in ghouls – but she won’t sit in the corner. She said: “I want to be round for a while yet, there’s no way I’m sitting in that chair.”

Gill added: “Everyone knows everyone else in the pub. New people come in and are welcomed straight away.”

 

[escargot]

“Everyone knows everyone else in the pub. New people come in and are welcomed straight away.”

I bet they are. 'Step this way, sir!'

 

[jeff544]

Hmmm. 'This is a local pub for local people' :shock:

 

[Niall114]

Hmmm. 'This is a local pub for local people'

I'd have to say "the Smallest Pub In England" on Southport Prom should have that accolade.

 

[RealPaZZa]

"the yarborough" pub in Gainsborough used to claim it was haunted by someone who looked like Ronnie Barker. Hed not be seen in that place dead or alive, believe me

 

[Little_Miss_Who]

Our pub over the road is supposed to be haunted - I've never seen anything, but the landlady was hoovering one day and caught sight of a figure in long black robes out of the corner of her eye crossing in front of the bar. When she looked, it has disappeared... when it was built, monks did use the pub for brewing, so maybe one of them decided to pop back just to check out the new menu.

 

[escargot]

The Red Cow near here is reputed to be haunted, especially the ladies' lavs area.

I was sitting outside there one day watching the buses come in, thinking, I wonder if it's really haunted... and I suddenly saw ELVIS spelled out on the side of a bus. :shock:

It was actually the word 'TRAVELWISE' with some letters or parts thereof artfully obscured.

There is something to be said for not getting carried away. :lol:

 

[fynoderee1]

A few years ago Iworked in a pub, the Hop Garden, which had a strange feeling about it. I never saw anything, but didnt enjoy being in it on my own (I've worked in different pubs and never had similar feeling). Other members of staff reported that glasses would fall off the shelf for no apparent reason.

Recently I visited the pub, which has since changed ownership, so none of the old staff were there, and some comment was made about the pictures not hanging straight. The Barman heard this and commented that it must have been the ghost. Whilst this could have been a throw away comment/joke it gave me pause for thought.

As I mentioned above I've worked in a few pubs and in some of them people have said , oh this place is haunted/has a ghost (always the established ones). Empty pubs can be spooky, which I suppose can be to do with your perception of the place as there is something about a place which is usually busy being quiet.

In general it could be easy to dismiss haunted pubs as a ghost story could be good for business, to entertain or add 'character' (the Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham?). Or they could be dismissed by the fact that many of the pubs reputedly haunted are older buildings with all the feelings/noises that go with them. Has anyone heard any stories about new build pubs being haunted?

 

[HelzAngel]

fynoderee1: Has anyone heard any stories about new build pubs being haunted?

I used to work in a modern built (1960/70s) on a housing estate, one evening there were 2 of us working behind the bar in the pool room, normally about 8-8.30 some of the regular would start using the lounge bar and I'd move in there (The bar area itself was an "L" shape with the 2 rooms were seperated by a corridor that had the loos and one entrance to the pub off it). This particular night we'd both had gone through into the lounge when we'd heard the lounge door close and presuming that somebody had come one or other of us would go through to serve them, after the 4th or 5th time of this happening we were getting ready to ask the lads from the pub football team to go outside and explain to the estate kids who were always hanging round that pi**ing about with the door was starting to get on their nerves (Its was stopping us from serving them) when one of the lounge regulars came into the pool room to tell us that the door to the other bar was locked.

1. the door hadn't been locked when I arrived at 7.00 because I'd come in that way
2. we had to get the landlord to come downstairs with the keys as he'd taken them with hime when he went for dinner afteer I arrived (he hadn't left through the lounge door, the stairs to his flat we're from behind the bar).
3. there was no other way into the bar except a fire exit which we'd already checked was locked when we thought it was kids messing about.

The pub I now regularly go in is also a moder building, but built on the site of another pub and cinema. Things regularly go missing from the flat upstairs to be found a few days later on the steps in the cellar, we're also supposed to have the figure of an old man who sits in one corner, but nobody ever seems to see him as more than a shadow.

 

[LordRsmacker]

I used to run a pub which was once an old fire station. It was a rough, spit and sawdust place, ie. a shithole, and full of the town's most anti-social characters.
The cleaning lady nearly shit herself one day when she opened up at 8am and the DJ, a rough-arsed hairy biker, popped up from behind the booth where he had collapsed the previous night. Likewise when she opened the door and was confronted by the life-size cut-out of Seal that some twat had left there.

Now, being in this place alone wasn't too bad, I was more afraid of the clientele deciding to break back in and relieve me of the takings, but one or two occasions scared the crap out of me. Most memorably was the time I was helping a sparky fix some wall lights, at dusk, just before Christmas. We both heard something bang down the stairs, then looked at each other in horror as the door into the bar slowly creaked open, then a moment or two later, closed. He looked at me and said "What the fuck is that?", I didn't answer because a. I had seen as much as he had, how the hell did I know? and b. I was already clattering through the fire escape into the carpark, where he joined me and we both sat in his van until other staff arrived. We opened up like nothing had happened, and still I'm none the wiser about who or what came down the stairs and opened and closed the door.
There wasn't a particularly spooky atmosphere in the place, though when the flat above was in use, the occupants couldn't sleep because they could hear someone whistling and opening and closing doors all night.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Niall114 began the thread with a tale about The Oast House in Stanley Street, Southport. Years ago, when I lived in the town, I recall the landlord of that pub entertaining the regulars with an account of a blocked-off passage-way in the cellar. He reckoned it led to the famous underground street beneath nearby Neville Street.

Southport Message Boards used to be full of tales of that subterranean avenue. There are old post-cards of it in its hey-day. It exerts a strong imaginative pull on people of the town and there are lots of foaf tales of gas-men, water-board officials and surveyor types who have managed to see the surviving shops. From time to time there are urban-explorer wannabes who plan such an excursion. Yet it never seems to happen and I have yet to see any real modern evidence of its survival.

So the Oast-House is certainly in a haunted sector of the town. I had not heard the ghost story before, though!

 

[quantgirl]

The Red Cow near here is reputed to be haunted, especially the ladies' lavs area.

I've heard quite a few stories about haunted pub toilets - always the ladies as well :shock: