Ghost hunting in haunted pubs part 1
DICK TURPIN got about a bit, and there was nothing he liked better than a pint in the nearest coaching inn after a hard day's highway robbing. At least, you'd be forgiven for thinking so, if you believe the reports from countless pubs of his ghost hanging around his old haunts.
The Olde Boar's Head in Middleton, Manchester, is one such venue. It has not just been Dick putting the willies up people there, but many other ghostly goings-on. The JW Lees pub, a grade two listed building dating from 1632, has built up a spooky reputation and holds a successful monthly psychic night, featuring séances.
With Hallowe'en coming (see Focus, pages 51-56) what better time of year to spend a night in this haunted (managed) house and see what all the fuss is about? As I settled in - along with paranormal investigators brought in to see if the spirits present were anything more chilling than Smirnoff and Gordon's - there was talk of the marketing power that ghosts represent for pubs.
Spooky character
Interest in the paranormal has reached a new high. It is difficult to find a TV channel not devoting a slot to mediums stalking live audiences or shaky, green-hued films of scary mine shafts. The frontrunner, Living TV's Most Haunted, pulled in three million viewers for one Hallowe'en special. It all adds up to pubs claiming to be haunted having a certain appeal, as Emma Cartlidge, JW Lees trade marketing manager, explains.
"It makes a great story to tell new customers," she says. "This unique point of difference definitely adds character to this pub. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, it gives the opportunity for a different sort of entertainment from your pub quiz or karaoke. The Olde Boar's Head attracts fanatics from across the country, keen to spot paranormal activity."
Joining me is the team from Abbey Ghost Hunters. Angie is the linchpin, a medium who claims to be able to communicate with ghosts. Mark handles the array of flashing gadgets used to detect ghostly activity. He was a sceptic until he met Angie: "She immediately walked up to me and said I have a message from your nan, blurting out her name." And Tracey is a sensitive, a kind of trainee medium.
Olde Boar's Head licensee Claire Robinson is there too, a believer keen to establish the paranormal nature of her pub. She used to live on site and says on several occasions she felt a spirit tugging at her hair. Later she learnt that a young boy who died up the pub's chimney had had this annoying habit during his life. The psychic nights were her idea. "It brought in around 40 or so people the other night," she says. "It's a big attraction."
The first thing we do after the last customer leaves is set up in a large room in the back. Mark assures me the gear will detect any spirits that join us. The most important piece of kit is the one they're most proud of, and one which reveals an intense rivalry between Abbey Ghost Hunters and rival groups.
Ghostly gear
Mark brandishes the 'Sapphire' Electro Magnetic Field (EMF) meter, a device which monitors electromagnetic radiation, and announces "there are only six of these in the country".
The Sapphire brand of EMF was, I'm told, produced in limited numbers by an American scientist renowned among the ghost hunting community. Unlike other models, it is calibrated so as not to pick up human sources of energy, such as radio waves. To me, it looks like a primitive fuse box.
Angie chimes in: "Not every single medium can communicate with every spirit. Some claim they can, and they are lying." She objects, she adds, to the popularisation of their art by mass media. The group once did an investigation with a TV ghost hunter and were put off by the experience. "There are lots of nutters, lots of people with over-active imaginations out there," Angie says.
Spirits report
As we begin scanning for activity, Mark tells me that pubs can be particularly haunted places. "It's somewhere that has so many different characters passing through it. A lot of the time, ghosts come back because they love the place," he says.
That is why many of Abbey Ghost Hunters' investigations have been in pubs. One was in a lapdancing venue where the dancers had been scared away from staying in the attached accommodation. They would put their underwear down and, when they turned around, it would have mysteriously vanished! Angie discovered that the building was haunted by the ghost of a former cleaner who disapproved of the bar's modern day entertainment.
As I mull over the image of underwear being ghosted away from lithe females, a loud cry jolts me to my senses. "I can see a gentleman from the 1700s sitting over there using a strange dialect. In fact, he's wearing a hat with three points… I think… it's Dick Turpin." Spotting every pub's favourite ghostly resident is not enough for Angie. She prowls the room in a trance-like state. "When I walk down to that end, I start to feel sick," she says, looking at Claire. There is a dread-filled pause. "Down there's the dungeon," Claire says, her eyes widening.
It is explained to me that an underground room now used for storage is reputed to have been a jail in the pub's early days.
Now, I'm not sure I believe in ghosts but the suggestion we go down there and investigate made me tingle. For me, thinking of the paranormal brings to mind the little girl with the revolving head in The Exorcist, rather than Casper the Friendly Ghost. Searching for ghosts in the soft light of a nice snug is one thing, it's quite another doing it in the pitch black of the pub's seventeenth century bowels. n
To be continued… look to the right column to find part 2
