Licensed to chill
ALAN MURDIE pulls up a barstool and looks at recent reports of pub landlords beset by hauntings “I saw a tall woman in a long grey woollen dress standing in a corner of the landing...”
Imagine being the last person left inside a haunted building each and every night, entrusted with the duty of going round and turning off all the lights. Such is the responsibility that Mr Elliot Fearne discharges each night at The Eclipse Inn in the centre of Winchester in Hampshire. It is the first hostelry in 2022 to be announced as “Britain’s most haunted pub”.
“Lots of strange things have been happening. Everybody was telling me about all the different ghost activity that goes on. It’s not something I believed in when I first arrived until lots of strange things started happening.” So said Mr
Elliott Fearne when interviewed by the Hampshire Chronicle, regarding his short time at this ancient city centre pub where he has served as relief manager since last summer.
Since Mr Fearne took charge, perplexing incidents include a female apparition witnessed by a woman customer, strange object movements and unexplained noises experienced by himself late at night.
This ancient inn already enjoyed a longstanding reputation for being haunted ahead of his arrival. Dating back to the 16th century, the ghost of The Eclipse is popularly identified as Lady or Dame Alice Lisle (1617–1685), executed outside in the marketplace in September 1685. Convicted before the infamous Judge Jeffreys for harbouring two dissenters after the Battle of Sedgemoor, she was imprisoned at the pub after being sentenced to be burnt for treason. Mercifully, her sentence was commuted by James II to beheading (following the example of Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn). Dame Alice thus died swiftly on a scaffold hastily constructed outside, the last woman to be executed by decapitation. She is claimed as ‘the Grey Lady’ who has reputedly haunted the area for over 80 years. According to Christina Hole in Haunted England: A Survey of English Ghost Lore (1940), “Tradition says the sound of her silk dress and tapping of her heels were long afterwards heard in the corridors of Moyles Court, and that sometimes she was seen passing down Ellingham Lane in a driverless coach drawn by headless horses.” Since then, the main focus of her return is the pub, with her reputedly walking down the corridor outside the bedroom where she spent her last night on Earth in human form.
Such a history has proved irresistible for
ghost-hunting tourists and Mr Fearne has maintained a tradition of encouraging them to investigate. The most impressive experience so far occurred during just such a tour he arranged for a couple one evening last year. Mr Fearne had sent the couple upstairs after telling them the history, pointing out the most active areas “up on the corridor and near the ladies’ toilet”. However – as often happens – the real activity was simultaneously taking place unrecognised at that very moment. Another couple had arrived in the bar and were sitting on the opposite side of the room, not being a party to the tour of the first couple. According to Mr Fearne, “This lady walked in, her husband bought drinks, she went to the toilet then sat down and said she had a conversation with a lady upstairs.”
Astonished at overhearing this remark, Mr Fearne asked, “Are you telling me that you have just seen a lady upstairs? She said ‘Yes’.” Checking at once with the ghost-hunting couple, both confirmed no other woman had been present with them and no trace of this mysterious lady could be found. The implications shocked everyone. Contemplating the situation, their conclusion was this ‘extra’ woman must have been a ghost!
Half a century ago, writer Jack Hallam reported an eyewitness to the Grey Lady in the same passageway at The Eclipse, stating: “I was cleaning the carpet on the first-floor landing at about 10 in the morning and had a feeling somebody was watching me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a tall woman in a long grey woollen dress standing in a corner of the landing. I could not see her face…” The experience of brushing against someone invisible in the corridor was also recorded ( The Haunted Inns of England, 1972). The tendency of many sightings to occur just
when least expected and to a person not thinking of ghosts at the time is common.
Mr Fearne has yet to see this female phantom himself, but he has experienced strange sounds and object movements, some shared with other members of staff. He recalls: “I was by myself and I was about to lock up. I was having a cigarette outside and I could hear banging from inside the pub, which freaked me out.” On another occasion, while on the top floor, he heard noises, as though something was being moved around in the next room. The next day, both he and his co-manager noticed an intense atmosphere, described as “a really heavy vibe”.
Again, strange noises here are nothing new, noted by a succession of writers during the 1970s and 1980s, including Marc Alexander ( Haunted Inns, 1973); Guy Playfair ( The Haunted Pub Guide, 1985) and Peter Underwood ( Ghosts of Hampshire and Isle of Wight, 1985). Underwood mentions strange banging sounds at The Eclipse, which he speculated might be a ghostly echo of the hammers used in constructing the scaffold in 1685. Could these be the same sounds heard by Mr Fearne over 35 years later? Completing the range of current manifestations, the chef has experienced fridge and freezer doors opening without explanation in the kitchen – and in the bar the tops and lids of gin bottles have popped off by themselves.
While Mr Fearne has no plans to quit, it seems the haunting is playing on his nerves: “It’s particularly freaky at night time when you’re locking up. The light switches are on one side of the bar, so you’ve got to rush around in the dark with your light on to try and get out as quick as you can because you don’t want to see any ghosts.” But so far, it seems, on his nightly round he has not lost his head. (“Manager speaks of his spooky run-ins at Winchester’s Eclipse Inn”, Hampshire Chronicle, 13 Jan 2022).
As The Eclipse began experiencing its latest round of phenomena, it seems another pub was suffering equal troubles in Northumbria, with unexplained events taking a much greater toll upon its staff.
Shortly after 3.40am on 22 September 2021, police received a 999-call concerning a suspected burglary at the Black and Grey pub and restaurant on Newgate Street, Morpeth, following sounds like a break-in. Duly summonsed, three police cars attended the former coaching inn, which dates back to the 18th century. The police found no sign of any forced entry or suspicious damage. Instead they discovered two frightened women, sisters
Richelle Stocks and Ashleigh Naisbitt, the joint licensees, both greatly alarmed. “It kind of sounded like metal banging together, like if you’d grabbed some pots. That’s why we thought it was getting closer because down the corridor is the kitchen,” says Ms Stocks. They had taken over just a month before and had not expected this.
More was to come. Later, reviewing CCTV images, they discovered “human-looking” shadows glimpsed “bobbing across the bar”. Two days later this inspired Ms Stocks into mounting a challenge to the ghost, by now named ‘Paul’, to tempt it into manifesting. In the presence of the bar manager, she placed a pen on the palm of her hand and declared: “If there’s anybody there, move this pen.” The resultant CCTV footage shows her leaping to her feet in apparent surprise when the pen did just that, appearing to rotate upon her outstretched palm.
This seems to have triggered other troubling physical phenomena. As at The Eclipse, fridge doors have opened by themselves and iPads flown off shelves; and there have been “lots of footsteps”. Another clip of CCTV film reportedly shows a stationary broom suddenly lurching forward and hitting an employee in the back.
Consequently, one member of staff is “too scared” to enter the cellar, also after hearing banging sounds. One manifestation that personally alarmed Ms Naisbitt might be termed an aural doppelgänger. This was hearing one day a voice resembling her mother “very clearly saying ‘Hi girls’. I turned around and said, ‘Hey mum, come on in, we’re just in here’, but she wasn’t there. There was no one there.”
Both sisters think an entity is present and is engaged in “letting us know that there’s something there but not actually taking it too far.” Even though the sisters feel that overall it is ‘gentle’, Ms Stocks is driven now to say of her own pubrestaurant, “I would never sleep there on my own, never.” (“Staff at haunted pub to scared to go to work because of human shadows” ( D.Mirror, D.Mail, 19 Jan 2022.)
It is to be hoped that some comfort and reassurance may be drawn from such manifestations being relatively common over many decades, and for the large part physically harmless. Mistaking unexplained footsteps and ghostly noises as burglars inside haunted pubs is long established (e.g. The Grenadier in Knightsbridge, “Rather a ghost than a burglar” D.Express, 23 Dec 1967; FT244:16-17; unexplained thumps and bumps were heard at The Queen’s Head in Blyford, Suffolk, by a police officer and a bar full of customers in early December 1969 (Joan Forman,
Haunted East Anglia, 1975).
Potentially, low-level hauntings ought to be listed among the hazards of the licensed trade. (See Haunted! Britain’s Spookiest Pubs by Michael Tomlin, a collection published in the organ of the pub industry, The Morning Advertiser, in 1998). As Andy Owens, author of
Haunted Bradford (2007), put it concerning phenomena at the Dog and Gun at Oxenhope, Yorkshire, where plates jumped off walls: “Ghosts are seen by thousands of people each year, implying that such experiences are much more common than is generally accepted. Anyone, it seems, is susceptible to such an encounter.” ( Haunted Bradford, 2007; also Bradford & Telegraph Argus, 31 Oct 2007.)
This is very true. For example, The Times on 10 Nov 2021 mentioned cricket administrator Keith Bradshaw once seeing a ghost inside a grace and favour apartment at Lord’s Cricket Ground, as did his then wife and a housekeeper. This interesting fact appeared in the obituary for Mr Bradshaw, regrettably supplying no further information.
Of course, with any haunting, whether great or small, one should look for ordinary explanations first, and relatively small incidents may point to normal explanations. Tony Jinks, a psychologist specialising in paranormal belief, emphasises how anomalous psychologists may be keen on “the simpler types of paranormal experience which are attributable to straightforward cognitive mistakes”, including “mild ‘poltergeist’ infestations where household objects seem to go missing or have moved.” ( An Introduction to the Psychology of Paranormal Belief and Experience, 2012.)
Some may be what parapsychologist William Roll (1926-2012) acknowledged as “ersatz poltergeists” or (as others may label them) “phoneygeists”, where misperceptions of normal stimuli generate belief in a haunting, to the alarm of residents. Equally, with other cases, phenomena take place that do not yield to such a ready explanation. Witnesses may not realise immediately that a haunting is underway, being oblivious to any pattern or particular feature at the time. Only later do similarities between the recorded incidents become apparent, sometimes after weeks, months or decades.
Active haunts can involve a mixture of ordinary and paranormal events, with the task of the investigator being to try and unravel which is which. Because of their unpredictable nature and the fact manifestations cannot be guaranteed to occur at regular intervals, a mild haunting can be a cause of sporadic shocks and accumulating worries in many households.
Many people today lack a firm religious faith or coherent philosophy of life by which they can encompass and contextualise random anomalous experiences. One problem is that at all levels people are generally very badly informed about paranormal phenomena in the 21st century (see The Secret History of Poltergeists and Haunted Houses: From Pagan Folklore to Modern Manifestations, 2012, by Claude Lecouteux). Often dependent upon misleading depictions carried in the mass media, an excess of breathless ghost hunting TV shows and blood-curdling horror fictions, adults can suffer disproportionate fear and alarm. No matter how some grown adults adore Star Wars, Harry Potter or the Marvel comics universe, these provide no basis for coping with paranormal incidents in real life. As CS Lewis said regarding fantasy tales, “the slightest suspicion it was true would turn the fun into a nightmare.” ( Miracles, 1948).
Fears may easily be compounded by irresponsible, thoughtless and often downright idiotic pronouncements rashly uttered by outsiders, including dubious psychics, Devil-obsessed fundamentalists or hot-headed ghost hunters drawn to the scene, often ostensibly to give help, succour and relief. Even when acting in good faith, careless remarks may succeed in aggravating fears to the extent that some hapless residents become gripped by the notion “that any interference will only anger it” – whatever ‘it’ is.
More responsible investigators often have to pick up the pieces, taking on the role of a sympathetic counsellor and helping restore a sense of balance and perspective to an affected household. A non-sensational and sympathetic approach is needed to calm nerves, and sensible reassurance is especially important in the 75 per cent of poltergeist cases that appear personcentred, where an individual appears to be generating the phenomena themselves, often entirely unconsciously. Enquires can reveal that the lives of such individuals and households are often stressful (the late Maurice Grosse observed he invariably found stress of some variety in affected households). Reducing tension and anxiety may bring a halt to manifestations fairly quickly.
Much more difficult to account for – and curb – are the other 25 per cent or so of long-period poltergeist cases that resemble fixed-place haunts. In these, phenomena may be reported over many years, regardless of changes in occupancy – pubs often feature – and their duration and the fact they are not linked to any particular occupier suggests an independent force or presence. With these cases, it is important to remain open-minded and as objective as far as possible, if any progress in understanding is to be made.
Still, I suspect many researchers will have to go a long way to match the calm rationality and sang-froid displayed in 1873 by a Devon clergyman, the Revd Brooke de Malpas Egerton, when confronted by a ghost at his rectory at Uplyme. ( Haunted Houses, 1907, by Charles Harper).
Coming into his study one day, the Revd Egerton was surprised to find an unknown old lady seated in his armchair by the fire. A minister secure in his faith and subscribing to the early Victorian theory labelling all ghosts the productions of disordered brains affected by digestive troubles, he refused to admit the evidence of his own eyes. Seeing but not believing, he successfully extinguished this spectral trespasser in his study by going and sitting on it.
Investigators often have to take on the role of a sympathetic counsellor to an affected household