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Pub Ghosts, Folklore and Forteana

Victorian Gentleman

Location: Norwood (North Yorkshire) - Lady le Gros public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1998
Further Comments: Samuel Peacock, a former landlord, still maintains a presence in his former bar, and has been seen several times or heard as he walks down the cellar steps.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2003-01-18 | Last updated: 2003-01-18 | ID #3649

Young Boy

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - Headstocks public house, Cinderhill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2023
Further Comments: Two non-threatening spirits are reported in this pub, a young boy who has been observed by employees behind the bar, and the ghost of a former landlord whose reflection was spotted in a mirror.

Source: User Submission
First added: 2023-08-05 | Last updated: 2023-08-05 | ID #15019

Victorian Girl

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - Loggerheads public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This little girl is said to enjoy playing along the corridors in the upper part of the building. The bar downstairs is home to a First World War officer, a Cavalier, and even possibly Dick Turpin who once stayed here en route to York.

Source: Published Media, User Submission
First added: 2008-05-05 | Last updated: 2008-05-05 | ID #8520

Dark Man

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - Sherwood Manor public house, Mansfield Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Wearing a large floppy hat, this dark figure has been encountered in the cellar. He is blamed whenever items are moved around. It may be the same man who is seen in other parts of the building, wearing a top hat.

Source: Published Media, User Submission
First added: 2008-04-20 | Last updated: 2008-04-20 | ID #8423

Voices

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem public house
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Probably the oldest public house in England, the building is home to spectral voices and other phantom noises. A model galleon, thick with dust, hangs from the ceiling and is said to be cursed - anyone who touches it dies within twelve months.

Source: Historical Record, Published Media, User Submission
First added: 2002-10-21 | Last updated: 2002-10-21 | ID #2777

Older Woman

Location: Nuneaton (Warwickshire) - Bull's Head public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former landlord watched an older woman in Victorian clothing walk through a wall.

Source: Published Media, User Submission
First added: 2017-05-11 | Last updated: 2017-05-11 | ID #12460

Dave

Location: Nuneaton (Warwickshire) - Coniston Tavern
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: April 2023
Further Comments: A ghost named Dave found himself blamed when a pint of lager exploded on a table, covering the customers with liquid. A few months previous on the same table, another pint glass had slid on to the floor unaided by human hand.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2023-04-29 | Last updated: 2023-04-29 | ID #14867

Robert Neville

Location: NW1 (Greater London) - Volunteer public house, Baker Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Dressed in the clothes he wore four hundred years previous, Neville now lurks in the cellar of this public house, occasionally materialising so that he is not forgotten.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2002-08-25 | Last updated: 2002-08-25 | ID #2286

Stress Inducing Shade

Location: NW3 (Greater London) - Gatehouse public house, Hampstead Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1947
Further Comments: The landlord of this pub apparently collapsed after seeing the spectre and retired soon after. The ghost is thought to be an old white-haired smuggler murdered on site.

Source: Historical Record
First added: 2003-01-02 | Last updated: 2003-01-02 | ID #3422

Victorian Man

Location: NW3 (Greater London) - Old Bull & Bush public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: This shade is thought to belong to a skeleton discovered hidden in the basement, dated around the end of the nineteenth century.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2002-11-12 | Last updated: 2002-11-12 | ID #3137

Girl Looking Through Window

Location: NW3 (Greater London) - William IV public house, Hampstead High Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The outside of the pub is haunted by a girl who gazes in through the lower windows, while inside walks the shade of a doctor's wife murdered and buried in the cellar.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2002-08-25 | Last updated: 2002-08-25 | ID #2291

Frank

Location: NW8 (Greater London) - Crocker's Folly public house (no longer a pub?)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local legend says that Frank Crocker is said to have thrown himself from an upstairs window after the pub that he opened failed to attract the business he expected. He was said to appear every night when the cash tills were emptied. In reality, Crocker died in his bed of natural causes, his suicide story coming into being in the mid-1980s.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2009-09-12 | Last updated: 2009-09-12 | ID #9676

Floating Female

Location: Ockley (Surrey) - Kings Arms public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1975
Further Comments: Several members of staff witnessed a phantom woman wearing a long dress float across the bar into a wall. The witness said the room was permanently cold, but the site has now been renovated.

Source: User Submission
First added: 2011-02-20 | Last updated: 2011-02-20 | ID #10173

Hunter

Location: Ockley (Surrey) - Red Lion public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A bedroom in this pub is haunted by a young woman injured while hunting - she was brought here to rest and recuperate, but later died in the room from her wounds.

Source: Historical Record
First added: 2002-10-13 | Last updated: 2002-10-13 | ID #2606

Mavis

Location: Old Cornsay (Durham) - Black Horse public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Mavis is said to haunt the pub's cellar and the area in and around the toilets.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2008-08-25 | Last updated: 2008-08-25 | ID #8793

Bearded Man

Location: Oldbury (West Midlands) - Blue Ball public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: This figure, complete with an old beaten up hat, has been seen walking through a wall in the bar area.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2002-11-12 | Last updated: 2002-11-12 | ID #3141

Smoking Man

Location: Oldham (Greater Manchester) - Radclyffe Arms public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Thought to be a man who took his life in the cellar, this lonely chap has been seen sitting in the bar, milking a glass of beer.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2002-11-12 | Last updated: 2002-11-12 | ID #3152

Mrs Jones

Location: Ollerton (Nottinghamshire) - Snooty Fox public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 1990s
Further Comments: This pub was said to be haunted by a woman nicknamed 'Mrs Jones', though nothing has been seen or heard of the entity since 1993.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2008-05-27 | Last updated: 2008-05-27 | ID #8646

Awoken

Location: Ormskirk (Lancashire) - Plough public house, Church Street
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2012
Further Comments: After a car crashed into this public house in January 2012, landlady Linda Roughley reported that items would move and fly off surfaces unaided. Roughley also reported feeling an invisible hand touch her back.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2012-07-28 | Last updated: 2012-07-28 | ID #11043

Thomas Bamber

Location: Oswaldkirk (North Yorkshire) - Malt Shovel public house (closed 2017)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2007
Further Comments: After tables and chairs were found in disarray, and small items were tossed through the air, a rector exorcised the building in the late 1990s. However, new landlady Pam Wilson believes the pub to be haunted by Thomas Bamber, a five year old boy who died around the turn of the twentieth century.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2007-03-25 | Last updated: 2007-03-25 | ID #7138

Cellar Dweller

Location: Otley (West Yorkshire) - Old Cock public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: January 2022
Further Comments: Even though this ghost is said to be friendly in nature and at home in the kitchen, a plasterer refused to enter the cellar during renovation work.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2022-01-30 | Last updated: 2022-01-30 | ID #14382

Voices

Location: Otterbourne (Hampshire) - Old Forge (now a public house) and road outside
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1978-1979
Further Comments: One of the homes which was eventually converted into the pub was said to be haunted by a woman killed by a horse and coach on the road outside. A witness recalled hearing raised voices in an empty part of the building, and when a baby came into the home, crying would be heard in other parts of the site. Motorists would occasionally see a ghostly woman run across the road outside.

Source: User Submission
First added: 2019-03-02 | Last updated: 2019-03-02 | ID #13094

Footsteps

Location: Outer London: Acton (Greater London) - King's Head public house
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: December 1966
Further Comments: Father Finear Buckley from the nearby church blessed the pub after the landlady reported ghostly footsteps and a door which opened unaided.

Source: Historical Record
First added: 2024-09-21 | Last updated: 2024-09-21 | ID #15641

Maidservant

Location: Outer London: Barnet (Greater London) - Red Lion Public House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This woman died after falling down the stairs - her shade remains earthbound.

Source: User Submission
First added: 2005-08-31 | Last updated: 2005-08-31 | ID #6511

George

Location: Outer London: Croydon (Greater London) - Purley Arms public house
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1992
Further Comments: George, killed in 1830 by a rogue beer barrel, was 'released' in 1992 by spiritualists. George was said to have been responsible when the beer pumps failed to work.

Source: Published Media
First added: 2012-04-08 | Last updated: 2012-04-08 | ID #10825

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