Ghostly Sightings at Inn

If the research about this old building, situated on the outskirts of London, was to be believed then not all was well with this public house.

Built in the late 18th century, the inn has remained a public house/B&B since it was first built. Research tells us that it’s cellar, which is split into many rooms, was used as a holding area for prisoners when they were being brought down to the courthouses in London.

Katherine decided that we should carry out an investigation in this building when she found out that a lot of the prisoners who were held in the cellars never seemed to leave alive. The current owners of the inn told Katherine of some of the paranormal activity that kept them awake at night.

Glasses being thrown off tables, people seeing shadows, tables and chairs being moved in the night, but the thing that interested the team the most, ghostly screams being heard from down in the cellar. The workers at the inn refuse to go down there alone AND often don’t go down there at all in the evenings.

The team turned up and began our initial investigations into the workings of the building. We placed a glass in the middle of table in the bar area and around it laid some flour. Hopefully when we returned later on in the evening the glass would have been moved. We also placed some motion detectors in the hallway going from the bar to the cellar area to catch anything that may move through beams.

We brought Annabel in to give us her initial opinions of the building. Walking into the bar area first Annabel told us of the ghost energy of the past 300 years that still resided in the building. She told us of people and noises, the smell of ale and talking and laughing.

Annabel found it very hard to concentrate on any one given thing, as she was beginning to tell us so before she stopped. Annabel asked to leave for a few minutes for some fresh air. This is something we had never come across before on our ghost hunts, and were quite shocked by this.

After a ten minute break Annabel came back in and told us that while she had been talking about the ghost energies still in the building, when a spirit had whispered in her ear proclaiming that “Those that will be judged will be done so here.”

She then saw a visual image of a man being tied up to a pole in the basement and whipped to death. So shocking was the image that Annabel had needed to take five minutes out just to clear her head.

Now that she was back in however the ghostly images had returned. She informed us that the voice she was hearing was from one of the old patrons at the inn. “Robert”. She told us that when criminals were bought here and held overnight some of the soldiers escorting the prisoners paid Robert to do away with the men so they could lay claim to the prisoners dying on the way down to London. The soldier’s get paid and they could return home sooner than expected

Annabel claimed that Robert took great delight in beating the prisoners to death and doing away with the bodies. Annabel asked if we could now go down to the cellar as she wanted to confront this evil man and hopefully cleanse the inn of his ghostly influence.

We made our way down to the cellar, when Katherine told us that the temperature had dropped significantly since moving downstairs. Annabel claimed that Robert was angry we were in his domain and was going to make that quite clear to us as the night went on.

As we moved down deeper into the cellar, I was struck on the back of the head by what felt like a large hand. As I was telling people of my experience one of the other members of the team also shouted out in pain, saying he had been struck on the back of the head.

Annabel told us that Robert is going to make his spirit presence known, and we should all be extra careful. She went on to tell us that she could feel that a lot of men were murdered down in the cellar. More than thirty bodies had been carried out and buried in the surrounding areas. It was shortly after saying this that a loud bang was heard coming from one of the rooms. On investigating the noise, we found one of the beer barrels had been pushed over.

It was at this point I decided to call out to the ghost, and nervously I asked him to show himself to the ghosthunting group. I only just managed to utter these words, when we heard a scream coming from one of the rooms further down in the cellar. What happened soon after we got there, was something I won’t soon forget.

On entering the room, Annabel told us that this was the place that Robert carried out the deeds. I slowly entered the room with another member of my team to see what could have made the scream, and although the room was empty, we heard a shuffle coming from deeper inside. It was as we entered further, that we heard Katherine shout for help. We turned to find Annabel lying on the ground in tears. We tried to lift her up but she was in some sort of trance. I declared that this would have to be the end of the evening, as we needed to get Annabel upstairs and away from the inn.

It was as we were lifting her up and carrying her upstairs, that we heard another scream come from the room that we had just been in. As she heard this, Annabel began to wail that she had to cleanse the building of lingering ghost spirits. I refused and told her the first thing we needed to do was get her upstairs and outside.

When we finally got Annabel outside, I went back into the building and had a look at the glass which we had left on the table. Sadly nothing had been moved, and nothing had set off the motion detectors. I picked the stuff up and got outside with the rest of the team.

I don’t know what happened that night. But I do know that soon after Annabel went back without us knowing, and cleansed the building of ghost spirits. She still won’t tell us what she saw that made her cry that night. It’s something that she never wants to revisit.

One thing, I am glad I’ll never have to visit that place again.

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