Halloween Post - The Hatchet inn

It's that time of year again where there's a crate of pumpkins in the supermarket, Film 4 are showing Scream, and I'm struggling to find a haunted pub worthy of a Halloween post.

My travels took me to Bristol, to a pub that once had pirates and ne'er-do-wells as customers, plus ghostly occurrences on the upper floors and things that go bump in the night.
Unfortunately, it didn't feel at all creepy when I visited on a sunny October afternoon.

The Hatchet Inn (27 Frogmore Street, Bristol, BS1 5NA)
One of the oldest pubs in Bristol, this dates back to 1606 and has seen four decades of colourful characters propping up the bar, from pirates to bare-knuckle boxers, to hairy 80's rockers.

Let's start with the front door - as good a place as any to start when you arrive at a pub.
The gruesome claim to fame is that the 300-year old thick wooden door is covered with the human skin of executed criminals.

Quite why anyone would want to add a layer of skin to the front door, I'm not sure.  And no-one has ever actually scraped away the black paint to scientifically prove or disprove the story.

But Bristol has form with this kind of thing...in 1821 a young chap called John Horwood threw a rock at a girl he was infatuated with, causing her to die several days later from her injuries.  Horwood was hanged, then his skin was removed, tanned, and used to bind the notes from his trial.  The book now sits in a display in the M Shed museum.

The Hatchet Inn was also supposedly the chosen local of Edward Teach, better known as pirate Blackbeard, who'd knock back a few ales before heading off to plunder ships in the Caribbean.

There were all sorts of nefarious activities in the Inn in days gone by...
🐀 Rat Pit
🐔 Cock Fighting
✊ Bare knuckle boxing
A handful of symbols that have been phased out of the Good Beer Guide over the years.

So, what of the haunting?  Objects move of their own accord, hands brush by staff in dark corners, footsteps can be heard treading the boards in empty rooms.
Paranormal investigators have visited in the hope of seeing the bare knuckle boxer who is said to pace the upper rooms, or catch a glimpse of a ghostly woman mournfully crying as she wanders the building.

Thanks to an expensive makeover a few years back, the pub is fairly shiny inside, not offering the cobwebs and uneven floorboards and cracks in the wall that I like in my ancient inns.

The old boys in the corner were sinking pints of Doom Bar when I visited.  Robinsons 'Trooper', St Austell 'Tribute', and the local Wiper and True 'Kaleidoscope' were the alternatives, my pick of the Kaleidoscope being a well-kept and tasty pale ale.  The Hatchet is a decent city centre pub with an interesting past that is well worth a visit.

Whilst in Bristol thinking about haunted pubs, I may as well trek the short distance to King Street where you'll find another ancient inn with a ghost or fifteen...

The Llandoger Trow (5 King Street, Bristol, BS1 4ER)
Built in 1664, this is another ale house boasting some famous customers - Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have based The Admiral Benbow from Treasure Island on the 'Trow.  Daniel Defoe met Alexander Selkirk whilst drinking in the pub, a shipwrecked sailor who spent four years on a desert island and would be an inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.

There are a whopping 15 ghosts associated with the pub, as identified when the crew from TV show Most Haunted came to investigate.
The upper floor is said to be the the most haunted - including a young boy with a metal leg support clanking across the floorboards
Angry ghosts have pulled pictures off the wall and tossed utensils around the kitchen.  The Jacobean room and the cellar are both said to have haunted cold spots ('drafts' to the paranormal non-believers).

  

The Trow is a pub that I do like: photogenic timber-framed frontage, flagstone floor, grand fireplaces, nooks and crannies...and some fine beer and cider.
Cask ales on this visit were from Theakston, Adnams, and Bristol Beer Factory.  Apart from the hand pumps, there is a hefty draft menu on a blackboard, offering a fair few German brews, plus sours and nitro stouts, and crafty pales.

I opted to brave a still dry cider called 'Brain Twister', hoping it wouldn't live up to the name later in the day.

Another year, and more haunted pubs that prove not to be at all spooky when I visit.
But for those who enjoy this time of year...happy Halloween 👻

Look out...the ghostly decorations will come down in the pubs and the Christmas ones will pop up before we know it.  And that is scary.

Halloween Post - The Sun Inn, Chipping

The annual Halloween post found me under grey skies in Lancashire in 2023, searching out a haunted pub and a gravestone in the local church yard.

Twelve miles NE of Preston, in the Ribble Valley, the village of Chipping is home to just over a thousand folk.  It's a picturesque place, the smell of real fires drifting out of chimney pots into the damp October skies.

Right in the heart of the village, on a disappointingly un-windy Windy Street, is the Sun Inn.
Complete with checklist of reasons to visit...

They spell 'Friendly' and 'Bubbly' differently in this part of the country.
(Incidentally, Prop Up the Bar is NOT in a position to point of spelling errors!!!)

The Sun Inn (Windy Street, Chipping, PR3 2DG)
It is a thoroughly pleasant 17th century inn.
With its own tale of tragedy and ghostly goings-on, as required for the Halloween post.

Lizzie Dean was said to be a maid at the pub who made the mistake of falling in love with a local scoundrel who seduced her and led her to expect that they would be wed.  But, having whisked her into his bed, he then cast Lizzie aside and announcing he was marrying her best friend instead.

On the day of the wedding, Lizzie hung herself in the attic room of the inn with a clear view of the church where the nuptials were taking place.
A suicide note clasped in her hand included a request to be buried at the entrance to the church "so my lover and my best friend will always have to walk past my grave every time they go to church".
Because of the nature of her death, the grave was instead located in the SE corner of St Bartholomew's Church, which some suggest may be why she's stuck around to haunt her old place of work ever since.

In June of 1999, a chap from Edinburgh was enjoying a morning pint when the temperature dropped and a young girl with hair in ringlets, wearing a dress of many colours, appeared in the snug.  His greeting was ignored and she moved on to another room, only for the man to discover there was no such young lady anywhere in the pub at the time.

Landlords over the years have described catching glimpses or Lizzie wandering through the rooms in her colourful dress.

I'm afraid that I didn't spot any ghostly figures.
What a lovely pub, though.

Several rooms led off a smart entry hall with polished wooden floor and coat stand.  There are plenty of comfy places to settle down close to a warm fireplace, with dart board and ring-the-bull game in the room to rear.
Three real ales were on offer - Wainwright 'Amber', Timothy Taylor 'Boltmaker', and Bowland 'Buster IPA'.  I stuck to the locally brewed Bowland which was a lovely pint in good condition.

My research brought up a report by someone who claimed to have proof that Lizzie died from natural causes and there were no marriages at the church around the time of her death. 
Let's face it, you can shout 'nonsense' at the ghost story, but where's the fun in that.
And who are we to question what a Scotsman saw during his morning drinking session!

Ultimately, the story of Lizzie Dean caused me to divert to this charming village and enjoy a cracking pint of local beer in this fine pub.  So, no complaints from me.

Halloween Post - The Black Swan, Devizes

It's that time of year again - pumpkin mazes, ghoulish shop window displays, Beetlejuice and the Adams Family getting an airing on TV, and Halloween parties galore.

I'd spent the previous night in Bournemouth, finishing the evening in the Goat and Tricycle, where the staff costumes were superb, and a big chap dressed as killer-doll Chucky did a shuffling dance to the cover band's version of 'Chelsea Dagger'.
Which would probably have made for a better Halloween post, but I do like to find a pub with a ghost story.

For this I found myself in the town of Devizes where I stayed the night in this rather smart old inn...

Black Swan Inn (25-26 Market Place, Devizes, SN10 1JQ - web)

The current building dates back to 1732, although it's thought the cellars are even older.  Pub ghosts like an old cellar and down in the depths of the Black Swan the odd paranormal TV show and ghost-hunting enthusiasts have investigated strange lights, eerie noises, and mysterious sudden drops in temperature. 

The ghostly goings-on in Room 4, in the top corner, above the coaching archway, are what have secured this Devizes inn a place as one of Wiltshire's most haunted pubs.

Reputedly, the figure of a young woman materialises through the wall, takes a seat by the window, gazes out for a short while, then wisps out by way of another wall. Could this be the spirit of a woman fatally trapped in the room when the pub suffered a fire in the 19th century?

She's said to appear at 1:15am, but I suspect the drunken revellers spilling out of the Halloween karaoke party at the Pelican Inn across the square would have deterred her from sitting by the window for too long on the night I was there!

Fair to say the pub itself is not very spooky...

In fact it's positively posh and 99% restaurant.
I'm sure the food is great - breakfast sure was.  But you've lost all your pub credentials when you randomly place cookbooks by celeb chefs on ledges around the place.
I waited until after 10pm when many of the respectable diners had finished, so as not to lower the tone too much as I sat on a small table by the bar with my pint of Wadworth's.
Decent pint of 'Horizon', in good condition, though.

I would have loved to have reported on apparitions in the middle of the night - or possibly the lack of them.  But I was allocated Room 2 rather than the haunted Room 4.
And the 6% ABV Hop Kettle 'Festbier' I was drinking in the British Lion would probably have ensured that I slept right through figures appearing through the wall anyway!

One year I'll find a good old traditional inn with real cobwebs and dimly lit corners to feature at Halloween, rather than an upmarket establishment with a ghost story.

More on Devizes later, when I get around to catching up with the blog - something I've not been very good at recently.
I'll leave you the skeletal decoration nearby in the White Bear...happy Halloween!

Halloween Post - The Grenadier, Belgravia

We've reached that time of year: pumpkins, trick or treat, and Michael Myers terrorising Haddonfield, yet again.
To mark Halloween 2021 I headed into London to search out one of the capital's most haunted pubs.

This was located in Belgravia, past a host of embassy buildings and into the mews, the 'private road' signs making you question for a moment if you're going the right way.
Somewhere down here was my destination apparently...

This is a pretty well hidden pub.
Not the kind of place you'd just happen to be passing.

Grenadier (18 Witton Mews, Belgravia, SW1X 7NR)

The pub was built in the 1720's and was originally an officers mess for the first royal regiment of foot guards, their barracks being next door.
It opened as a pub in 1818 as the Guardsman, later becoming the Grenadier.

Ghostly goings-on...
Many years ago, the guards would play cards in the basement room. 
A subaltern in the Foot Guards made the mistake of cheating, or more crucially getting caught cheating.  Fair to say his fellow players didn't take his dishonesty very well as they proceeded to beat him to death.

Although we don't really know his name, this unfortunate chap has become known as Cedric.
Being the victim of a somewhat harsh punishment, Cedric has hung around in the spirit world ever since.

There are reported icy blasts in September - thought to be the time of his demise.
Furniture moving of it's own accord.
Cat's paranormal senses being triggered,
and footsteps in empty rooms.



In recent years visitors have taken to pinning bank notes to the ceiling in the bar - supposedly to pay off Cedric's debt.

A 1982 TV crew rocked up to try their best to catch some evidence of the spooky goings-on, but didn't have much luck. 
But the pub owners had hired a photographer to take some shots of the TV crew in action.  Showing the staff the pictures, they were surprised to see the faint face of a young man with handlebar moustache in an upstairs window of an unused room.

Missing the September haunting dates, all was quiet and normal on my October visit.  I really should make these trips on dark, misty evenings.
The only chill that ran up my spine was upon hearing the cost of a pint of Timothy Taylor 'Landlord'.

Being a Greene King pub, GK IPA was the other cask ale available, whilst house-badged 'Grenadier' and 'Cedric's Debt' were 'coming soon'.  I'll wager they both tasted pretty much the same as the IPA.

There's not really much room for the drinker - just one high table by the front window and a few stools to perch on by ledges.  The rear rooms are fully set up for dining, but do look very stylish and cosy.  The pub has apparently been a bit of a fave of various celebs over the years.

A quick glance at WhatPub spoils the ghost story somewhat...  They attribute the tale of the disgraced card player to another pub of the same name nearby, which was closed by the 1830's.
But let's pretend we didn't see that.
The Grenadier is one of London's intriguing traditional pubs and deserves a good ghost story.

Halloween Post - The Ostrich, Colnbrook

Getting into the spirit of Halloween, I figured I'd feature a pub that's purported to be one of the most haunted of the country.  

Some would say that tackling Slough and calling in to their Wetherspoon's is scary enough by itself.

After a pint in Spoons, I caught bus 81 for the 3-mile ride to Colnbrook.  This is a village, of a sort, with some 6,500 residents, but in reality it's been swallowed up by the urban expansion of Slough.  Seventeen miles from London, Colnbrook was once a stopping point on the coaching route from the capital to Bath, and it's to an historic coaching inn that I was headed.

Ostrich Inn (High Street, Colnbrook, SL3 0JZ - web) 
The Ostrich tends not to get mentioned in lists of oldest pubs, but it's said to date back to 1106, with the current, picturesque, timber-framed building being constructed in the 16th century.  

More attention is directed to the supposed gruesome past.
T'was a time when a fellow named Jarman was landlord of the pub and, along with his wife, came up with a wicked scheme to supplement their inn-keeping income.

Should a particularly wealthy traveler stay, they'd ply him with food and strong liqueur, before allocating the Blue Room.  Here the four poster bed was adapted so as to tip the unwitting comatose inhabitant through a trapdoor into a pot of boiling liquid, killing them instantly.  The Jarmans would nab all the valuables and dispose of the body in the nearby brook.

There are a couple of accounts of how the nefarious inn-keepers came to be caught.  One claims a victim hopped out of bed to use the chamber pot and, whilst doing so, was alarmed to see the bed tip-up. His shouts alerted fellow guests to the murderous scheme. 
Alternatively, the alarm was raised when a visitor called Cole was reported missing, having last been seen at the inn, leading searchers to discover his body in the local brook.
Bang-to-rights, Jarman was said to have boasting of killing 60 persons at the inn before he was hung.

The murders feature in a 16th century novel 'Thomas of Reading' by Thomas Deloney.
As the book appears to be fictional, it kinda suggests the story has created the legend around the pub and may not be entirely true.
I'd put in my own two-penneth-worth, by suggesting there would be much less troublesome ways of murdering your guests than undertaking the tricky carpentry work to create a tipping bed mechanism.

It's pretty much obligatory to have a ghost if you're one of the countries oldest pubs, let alone if there are such grisly tales attached to the premises.
Hence staff have told tales about feeling a presence in the cellar, a ghostly Victorian woman has been sighted, and one landlord recounted how "Strange noises, ghostly figures and objects moving by themselves are all in a days work if you re employed at the Ostrich Inn".

Decidedly un-spooky dining room.

I discovered an annual list of the UK's top 100 haunted places. 
The Ostrich Inn was No.66 in 2019, but has slipped down to No.80 in 2020. 
Who would have guessed there was such a ranking system, let alone the competitiveness between the spirits to maintain their annual place!

Other than the wineglasses and serviettes of the dining room pictured above, there is a outdoor patio to the rear and some casual tables around the bar, on which I plonked myself.

Appropriately for an old pub, beers came from Britain's oldest brewer, in the form of Shepherd Neame 'Spitfire' or 'Bishops Finger'.
With the sun shining through the windows, there was no sign of the ghost of the devilish Jarmon or his victims, leaving me to relax and enjoy a reasonable pint.

At the end of day, I do love an historic pub.  The more I read about the ghostly elements and tales attached to the Ostrich Inn, the more skeptical I became.  But these great old buildings and stories surrounding them (true or not) are one of the elements that make pubs great.