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| Ghosts Archive 1981 |
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 Ghosts news, views, gallery and archive brought to you by Weird Wiltshire Introduction Latest News News Archive Longleat House Sign of an Angel Bewley Court Red Lion Westbury Pool Maud Cunnington Wardour Castle Manor House Hotel Devizes Castle Kings Arms Malmesbury Abbey Lacock Abbey Avebury Manor Littlecote Manor Lydiard House Gallery Postcards Wallpaper Forum Links |
First Published October 31 1981 Strangers haunted by a face in the dark TWO sensible, level-headed men stayed overnight in a pub. Neither knew the other and they occupied separate rooms on the same floor. Neither knew that the pub was said to be haunted. When each man came downstairs, one at about 7am and the other an hour later, neither was in the mood to eat breakfast. In the night each had undergone terrifying experiences. Many ghost stories go back years, or even centuries but this one happened only a year ago at the Black Horse Inn, Cirencester. Mrs Jacqueline Rogers, the licensee of the Black Horse for the past three years, takes up the tale. She said that the previous licensees were there for 20 years, and knew that the pub was haunted although they had never experienced any ghostly incidents themselves. But it was in one of the haunted rooms that Mr J Burton, a stonemason staying at the inn, had a shattering experience. The other man in the story, an RAF technician, was on the same floor. He was staying at the hotel while working at RAF Kemble, and slept in a room divided from the stonemason's by the well of a staircase. 'When both men came downstairs they were absolutely shaken and green,' Mrs Rogers said. 'Both said they had a feeling of coldness with a rushing wind and light. They felt a presence. Both had seen a face which could have been a monk in a cowl or a woman wearing a head veil.' Mrs Rogers brought the two men, who had never previously met, together and asked them if they would write down their experiences. Each wrote a brief statement. Anderson, the RAF man said he was wakened by someone who shouted 'Mary Fetch of Petch' just as the church bells chimed. 'I was forced back on the bed where I felt the bedclothes or something of a similar texture thrust on my face,' his statement continues. 'I was unable to move or shout. Eventually I was able to prise the clothes away from my face. 'I then had the sight of a thin face in a wimple pass the bed three times. At 4am I had an impression of coldness on my left side.' Later, with the light on, Anderson had the feeling that someone was sitting on the bed. 'At 6.45am with the light on I was awake and had the impression - where the dressing table was of a narrow clock moving, and I looked at the window where it appeared that the window was broken and the curtains flowing.' While the RAF man had a room to himself, Mr Burton, the stonemason was sharing his with a colleague. Something woke him up in the night. 'I looked over to my friend's bed and saw what I thought at first was my mate talking. 'In fact I thought at first he'd called me. I shouted my mate's name and asked what was wrong. There was no answer. 'From this I saw an old world squared-off face which was manly looking. I was frightened even though I am not that type of person. It seemed to smile at me. 'I can't say any more except that I am working at Cirencester Parish Church, and I thought maybe looking at weird gargoyles all day may have played on my mind. The following week I was told something of a similar nature which made me think that what I had seen was somewhat realistic.' One fact about the Black Horse is that it is old. 'This inn is dated about 1470,' Mrs Rogers says and then it was a wool merchant's house. The top floor was all one room, and that's where the bales of wool were stored.' Since then the store has been divided into hotel bedrooms. The stonemason, though he did not know it, was sleeping in a room where in 1933, a girl saw the apparition of a stout old lady from an earlier age gliding across the floor. The girl screamed and the figure walked through a wall. Afterwards mysterious writing, which is still there, appeared on a window pane. About ghosts, Mrs Rogers says: 'I'm neither a believer nor disbeliever. I'd say something had to have happened to affect those two men. 'They were not fools and they had not been told about the ghost.' While the riddle of the ghost of the Black Horse Inn remains unsolved, Mrs Rogers still considers the possibility that something that happened one November night many years ago may be linked with these ghostly apparitions. Back to 1981 index |
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