If you’re looking for a scare this Halloween, book a night at the Ancient Ram Inn, reputedly Britain’s most haunted building.
This ramshackle inn in south Gloucestershire has attracted the paranormal investigators at Most Haunted and the US series Ghost Adventures. Among the poltergeists you could be sharing a bed with are a witch, a monk, and a succubus (a female demon).
Located in the historic town of Wotton-under-Edge, the Grade II listed inn sits on a former Pagan burial site and the intersection of two ley lines, ancient invisible lines believed to have high spiritual energy. More than 800 years of history and ghostly goings-on are cooped up within the walls. Some quite literally – a mummified cat was found in the wall cavity and the skeletal remains of children with broken daggers lodged in them were unearthed beneath the stairs, evidence of Satanic rituals.
The Bishop’s room is considered the most haunted. When it was still a working inn, guests would regularly be seen fleeing from it in the middle of the night, claiming to have been grabbed and even pulled out of bed by a sinister entity.
I joined a group of paranormal enthusiasts who’d paid for the pleasure of being scared half to death with ghost experience agency Haunted Rooms.
This ramshackle inn in the Gloucestershire town of Wotton-under-Edge is said to be Britain’s most haunted building. Laura Sanders checked in
This is the Bishop’s Room, said to be the most haunted room in the inn with guests claiming to have been grabbed and pulled out of bed
The Grade II listed inn sits on a former Pagan burial site. More than 800 years of history and ghostly goings-on are cooped up within the walls
‘You have to be prepared to believe the unbelievable,’ warned our guide, Jim Nutbrown. But by unbelievable, he said not Amityville Horror type activity. ‘There’ll be subtle signs and some nights, you’ll get nothing.’
But we were in luck.
Darker than dark
Is the message on the window a prank? Or a plea from beyond the grave…
Laura’s group used a ouija board in three of the rooms, included the eerie attic (above)
With lights off and doors locked, the group joined hands in a seance. Two women opposite noticed the dark corner behind me getting even darker. The top of my head tingled beneath my woolly hat and I felt very uneasy. After a minute, the corner brightened up again.
Sleeping in the back of my car was looking all the more tempting.
Ghouls on film
Laura visited the inn with a group of paranormal enthusiasts, ‘who’d paid for the pleasure of being scared half to death with ghost experience agency Haunted Rooms’
Some will find logical explanations for the noises, temperature drops and electromagnetic field (EMF) spikes we witnessed that night. But even the biggest sceptic might struggle to explain the bright lights I caught on camera. On two separate occasions, I flashed my camera in the pitch black near to where the children’s skeletons were excavated and a flash of light appeared one minute and not the next. My guide suspected orbs, manifestations of spiritual energy.
Another member of the group captured a face behind his wife’s head on his night vision camera. It was like finding shapes in the clouds. It could have been something, it could have been nothing.
Inside the barn, a few of us felt physically sick. We watched the thermometer drop by three degrees Celsius within ten minutes and we definitely didn’t feel as though we were alone.
Gentle knocks came from beneath the solid floor and shortly after, the previous owner’s spirit, John Humphreys, who lived there until his death in 2017, made contact on an EVP recording. After asking, ‘Is John Humphries here?’ a weary voice whispered, ‘It’s me.’
The sleepover
Pictured here is the witch’s room, where Laura spent the night with her travel companion
Laura’s guide said that this streak of light may have been a ‘manifestation of spiritual energy’
A streak of light can be seen to the left of this image by the wall. Was this spiritual energy?
3am. Six of us stayed as the others went back to their warm, unhaunted hotels. My plus one and I hunkered down in the witch’s room, named after a woman who hid there after being accused of witchcraft in the 16th century.
We pulled our sleeping bags up to our eyes. ‘At least a succubus can’t pull my feet from a sleeping bag,’ I thought to myself. Eyes scrunched tight, we fell asleep. At 7am, we woke. The house was silent but just as eerie at dawn.
We didn’t feel alone in there, but to many’s disappointment, we slept undisturbed.
Sceptic or believer, you can’t deny that the Ancient Ram Inn has a harrowing backstory and it’s enough to give even the biggest sceptic the creeps.
For more information visit www.hauntedrooms.co.uk.
The previous owner, John Humphries, spoke to the group via an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recording
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