I recently spent the night at Ye Olde Kings Head in Chester, supposedly the 'Most Haunted Hotel' in the UK. I take such titles with a pinch-of-salt as many hotels have laid claim to this over the years, and having visited I can honestly say I experienced no more ghostly happenings there, than I have done in a motorway Premier inn.
A friend of mine had booked the whole property for just us, which meant once our guide left at 01:30 we were locked in and had nowhere to go - we could have left had we wished to but where's the fun in that? Plus we'd travelled for over five-hours to get there; it's not like we had anywhere else we could be. With thick snow on the ground outside (and still falling) with temperatures way below zero our options were limited; take on the spirits, or become one ourselves from freezing to death! Having said that in a property with no heating we pretty almost froze inside.
The Hotel
If you've not been to Chester and seen the hotel you have missed out on a beautiful little city - historically beautiful with some stunning architecture - and a proper traditional pub. Walking through the doors we were instantly hit by the smell of the wildfire burning in the main lounge area. Not a sign of MDF, or blaring LED spotlights - something you find in most pubs these days - to be seen. Just huge, solid oak beams and character aplenty. The ambient lighting adding to the incredible atmosphere. To me it's everything a pub should be, and the food they serve is beyond delicious; just make sure you're hungry and there's a few of you if you order the kilo of chicken wings.
The staff were welcoming and friendly, as were the locals which is not always the case in some pubs. I'm sure some of them must get fed-up with the outsider ghost-busters arriving in droves. I cannot speak for the gents, but the ladies loo in the main bar made me feel as though I had entered a dwelling in Rivendell! This is a supposedly haunted area too; mirrors are strategically placed but the only horror I encountered was entering after someone had previously emptied their bowels.
It shows how long it has been since I frequented a pub though as the £9.10 I paid for a small white wine (a basic pinot) and small bottle of coke nearly saw me pass out. That was proper scary in itself.
The upper floors of the hotel area itself are equally as beautiful. Ascending a gorgeous and generously proportioned staircase, light floods in from the large windows behind you, as you arrive at a fairly decent sized landing area. The stairs continue to the upper floors, but before ascending those you are taken through double doors - on the left - where you enter a large, beautiful room. Rows of tables with benches, like those seen on the dining decks of old ships (HMS Warrior and HMS Victory sprang to my mind when I entered the room). This whole area is open plan now but I assume back-in-the-day there was a wall separating bits as the property was originally two, knocked into one. From the main area you ascend a couple of small steps into another large room, with a few steps descending down into another area with a large oval table taking up almost the entire area. This would easily seat twelve comfortably. A bar wraps around a large chimney breast. This can be accessed from the main room along with the table room - apparently this area was the brothel.
The office where all the video equipment is stored lays beyond the brothel, tucked out of sight. The layout of this whole floor area is in an L-Shape. Bedrooms One, Two, Three, Four and Five are located above this whole area. The toilets on this floor are located under Room Eight which houses Grace. Bedroom Six and the museum are located above the kitchen area.
One thing I did notice is the amount of steps in some pretty random places, especially when entering/exiting rooms. A few of us almost went for a burton on more-than-one-occasion.
The TV show
I actively chose not to watch any of the 'reality' (I use that word very, very lightly) TV show My Haunted Project before I agreed to tag along on the trip, something I am really glad about. Had I watched any of the programs/episodes before going I would never have bothered to sign up. In fact the episodes I have watched since returning home have actually pissed me off and caused me to believe the whole thing is staged; the behaviour of the guys running the show and wanting to deliberately wind up people is unnecessary. I have no time for all the theatrics. I get they want to create an atmosphere to try and heighten peoples fear - after all fear sells - but (in my experience and based on what happened the night we stayed) things happen when you least expect them to, when you are more relaxed. Stuff hanging from ceilings, weird things painted on the walls, and pictures/mirrors hanging at wonky angles do nothing really but distract. If you want to be taken seriously and try to help prove to people the existence of ghosts and hauntings, to me you do it in a sensible, controlled and non-theatrical way. I watched as far as Ep 4 of Season 1 and gave up. To me it seems the only thing the crew are interested in is having a laugh at their guests expense.
Grace.
As with the hotel itself Grace https://www.spookyisles.com/haunted-dolls/ has her own history and is claimed to be the 'most haunted' doll in the UK. She had been elsewhere since finding her home at the hotel. Apparently she received her claim-to-fame as the most haunted because she told an investigator she wanted to "burn his eyes out". This came through a Spirit Box! These are also known as Alice Boxes. What an absolutely gimmick they are. As if a ghost from another time is going to know how to make one share it's words!! Jeez my Dad who passed away 1993 struggled with a TV remote even back then. Imagine someone from the 17th Century being able to chat to a spirit box! What utter nonsense. Great for entertainment purposes only. They are also pre-programmed with a limited set of words. Someone, somewhere is getting very rich from people purchasing these believing them to be a portal and space for spirits to talk to us!
Grace has been filmed at the hotel moving on her own, however, look at the position of her to begin with. Gravity itself could cause her to shift slightly, thus allowing her body to move accordingly.
Before entering the room she is locked into you have to read some instructions and agree out loud and on camera that you understand what could happen before entering her room. Again, more theatrics. She's a doll; a pretty faced doll, in a lovely velvet dress, lounging in a glass box. Nothing more, nothing less. If anything I felt sad for her that she's locked away on her own. Anything she is supposed to have said on a spirit box prior to being housed in Room 8 means nothing. Unless she was heard using her own voice, inside the room and captured on camera saying it (and even then I might find logic for it) then you have to take her whole persona with a pinch-of-salt. Of course believers will still believe, and that's fine, but I personally feel they are only deluding themselves in doing so.
White Noise Experiment
Like spirit boxes I am extremely sceptical when it comes to voices and white noise. Having spent many a year in my younger days on CB radio I am perfectly aware how sounds waves/frequencies can bounce about all over the place. I picked up a guy in Russia once on a rig that should never have let me get further than around twenty miles of where I was - let alone several thousand miles away.
At the hotel they have their own white noise box (for the life of me I cannot remember what they called it, and really can't be doing with going back through more of their TV shenanigans to see if they mention it again) and unlike traditional white noise - where you tune into nothing between radio stations (again, they are not nothing as just because you're not picking up stations where you are, doesn't mean there aren't stations out there in other places on that frequency) - they have a sound box thing which bounces out some very loud, very random noises. In fact it was so loud it was quite off-putting at times.
Sitting at a beautiful large table in the old brothel area, the machine was placed on the bar. I had my back to it. My niece to my left, a friend to her left. The lady leading our group on the other side, two other friends opposite and last of us at the head of the table to my right.
Because this machine was home-made I have no way of knowing if someone was able to radio into it via phone or walkie-talkie, so whilst it did provide us with some things I found slightly interesting I cannot say it proved anything to me, one way or the other. What I did find strange was how I seemed to be the only person able to hear the words which randomly came through; my niece heard a few too, yet none of the others appeared to, other than when my own name was spoken in response to whether anyone there would like to make specific contact with one of us. I was the fifth of the seven of us to say our names out loud, and when we had finished my name was distinctly heard through the machine by all of us. Now, and this sounds like I'm trying to blame the wonderful lady who lead us but she had said to me earlier when it was just the two of us - the other's had gone back up to Grace - "it is Claud, isn't it?" with regards to addressing me. Whilst we were there I could hear the machine running quietly in the background - at the time I had no idea what it was. I'm not saying it was a set-up, but because of this I am left questioning the validity of it.
Also, it stands to reason that myself and my niece would the ones able to hear words coming from it as it was directly behind us. You can only hear these words at the same time as the machine makes one of it's random noises. Nothing comes through in quiet between.
We did have a spirit box thing running in the main room and not long after we started we had the name "Adam" was spoken by it, and just minutes later the machine also said the name, however, as I have said above I don't know if anyone is able to radio into it and that is why we heard that name. Myself and my niece also heard a child giggle, and a child's name - if you know the history of the place you will know the names of the children reportedly said to haunt the upper floors. This could, I am assuming, be pre-programmed into the white-noise box prior to our visit.
What did we experience?
Aside from being so cold I lost feeling in my fingers, and thought my big toes were going to fall off, we did have a couple of '"Experiences".
Three of our group - I was in another room at-the-time - went into the museum. An Ouija Board sits on a fold-up table in this room. They said they all felt drawn to it. None of them wanted to touch it as they said they didn't want to mess around with it. One of them rested her hand above the planchette commenting on how much heat appeared to be radiating from it and asked it to move. She then said she felt as though her hand was being moved forwards, whist at the same time she felt as though she was swaying, in the same way I had been feeling as though I were swaying on a ship all night. Her hand moved forwards, and at the same time so did the planchet. She swears blind she wasn't touching it, tried to replicate it moving had it been as a result of her coat sleeve; was was unable to. The footage we saw of the incident - which hadn't been properly isolated or cleaned up - does make it look as though there is a shadow under her hand suggesting she wasn't touching it, however, the footage isn't strong enough to tell for certain if there was in fact a gap, and she had moved it without realising. Did I mention how cold the building was?? Her hand could also have been that cold she never felt it touch the planchette.
In room two - hideously decorated and definitely designed to try and spook you - two of us sat in the chairs at the table which also housed an Ouija Board. One of laid us on the bed towards the window, my niece sat on the left side of the bed facing the main door, my friend to her right. I leant against the wall just off to the side of the bottom of the bed, to the left of the bathroom door. We were talking about something random - at that point I think we were on the subject of Ghost Crabs and Paranormal Lice - when both my niece and I heard what sounded like a mans voice trying to say something. It was just one short sound and neither of us were able to make out what it was. This is where sound acoustics come into play though for my niece said she heard it as though it was from someone in the bathroom, and when I heard it I believed it was between her and my friend sitting on the bed. Our guide replayed the footage to us and we were still none-the-wiser.
The rest of the rooms were decidedly flat. Room Five, said to be very active - as is Room Six (apparently) - was so bloody cold I would think even spirits wouldn't bother to visit. The only odd thing which happened in this room was one of temperature gadgets my friend had taken. With six people shut into a room together, regardless of how cold it was, the temperature should have risen (it did in every other room we visited) yet in Room Five it dropped by just over three degrees Celsius. However, we did not this between the main and bathroom door so a draft could account for the drop.
They were the only things we had happen, or noticed on our vigils in the bedrooms and all are explainable. I did hear a woman talking when I stood in the hallway - although not distinct enough to make out exactly what she was saying - while waiting for my niece to go into Grace. When I asked if she had been reading aloud she replied "no" however, upon reviewing the footage we discovered she had actually been talking through the warnings quietly to herself, so it was her I had been hearing.
Then there were the glasses. Back down in the main room stopping for a tea break, my niece and friend were in with our guide whilst she got up the footage from room two so they could try to decipher what was said by the voice we heard. One of our group was already sitting down, another standing to her side whilst myself and another were finishing up getting our drinks, the condiments and ingredients for which were sitting on the bar. I was the last to grab my beverage and turned beginning to walk to the others when I heard the distinct sound of two glasses clanking together - they didn't clink, they definitely clanked. I stopped dead in my tracks, waiting for what felt like minutes, but was most likely no more than two-seconds, wanting to process what I had heard, to see if it did it again, when one of the others said "did you all just hear that?". It transpired all four of us heard the exact same thing.
Spinning around I headed back to the bar, looking to see if anyone was there, or where the source of the noise could have come from. The other three were hot on my tail, then told me to go into the office to get our guide to check and see if the cameras had picked anything up. Two of them did, however, neither of them covered the bar area exactly to see what happened, or whether someone had been there to knock them. Again though, we all thought it had come from a different area of the bar and were unable to get behind to see if we could find anything.
and finally.... The Cellar!!
My friend who organised the trip was so happy to be told we would be able to visit the cellar. Now, this isn't like your usual cellar, because it's not underground. In fact the drayman's entrance is at the end of the room, pretty much level with where you stand. Any passer-by could stand outside and make noises to try to spook, as could anyone in the kitchen or toilet area of the pub. We walked a short corridor to get into the room. Again it was dark, with just a filter of light here-and-there. We were a group of three at this point and our guide was telling us about different things people have seen and heard. She then proceeded to tell us about a lady who screamed and ran when the generator on the wall kicked it, which is does randomly every so often. We had a little chuckle about her, especially when we were told they'd posted the video onto their tiktok and she'd become quite the 'celebrity'.
Fast forward a few moments, it's quiet and we're just chatting in general. I believe my friend has asked our guide how long she had been working in the building, when this noise happened. Our guide screamed and jumped, which in turn scared the living shit out of me. I shot forward before pressing my back as tight as I could against the wall which until a split-second before had been opposite me. My niece shoved my friend out the way and tried to make her way to the drayman's entrance in case she needed to get out. What was the source of the noise? The bloody generator, and it was our guide screaming the shit the crap out of us!! Once we all realised we stood for a good five-minutes all of us in fits of laughter.
Debunking
The Upper Floors
The hotel was originally two properties, or so I have been told, that were knocked into one. The morning we left we had been chatting to Harry, the owner. When he left he told us he had to go out, do some banking, and other bits-and-pieces; all normal everyday business owner stuff. Yet, he walked off in the direction of the office and never came back passed us again! This is what lead me to thinking there may be another staircase, or entrance and sent me on my mission to find some floor plans. I ended up finding quite a few, and they show a lot of building beyond that which we could see, or explore. Extra rooms, staircases and passageways. This makes it very interesting to me with regards to 'paranormal' experiences. We were told we were alone, but were we?
All these different rooms and a bigger part of the building would allow anyone access to the room we were in and could definitely explain the noise we heard from the bar area. We were distracted when we heard the noise, walking in the other direction and out-of-sight of the bar. It is very possible someone could have entered the area without us seeing, tucked themselves away, made the noise, and disappeared again before we made our way back to where we heard it. We were not able to enter the bar area to check where the noise came from ourselves, and at night when our guide left, this whole area was locked and unavailable to us! Was this locked to stop us from discovering the other entry/exit options.
'Apparently' there is a void space behind the wall of Room Five, yet the layout of the place, and floor plans I have found suggests this not to be the case as the so-called space fits in perfectly with that of Room Six - the next door room. Guests have heard a knocking sound coming from a specific area in each room, which incidentally are directly adjacent to each other. There is a whole host of other rooms the other side which cannot be accessed by guests! There is also a flat roof area outside the window of Room Six, which now debunks for me the video I have seen of someone supposedly walking by outside where they state nobody can get out there! The floor plans themselves debunk a lot of what we were/are lead to believe.
Onto the white noise box
I did feel we were lead a little with regards to a man being present whilst we listened to the random bonks, clangs and other strange noises as our guide had spoken out asking if it was him and telling him to leave us alone; at no point up until then did we hear a mans voice, yet after she called out to him I definitely heard what sounded like an aggressive mans voice through the machine. I cannot tell you what was said though as the others with me at the table had all started to talk at once so I was unable to pick up specific words. This actually happened a few times, which again leaves me wondering if someone is radioing in; doing it at such a moment would make us stop to listen, yet nothing then came through until they all spoke again. I personally feel if someone ( a spirit) was specifically trying to make it's presence known and communicate with us it would do so when we were sat quietly, and patiently waiting. It was a good experience though and not one which frightened in any way.
The timing of the box was also interesting to me as it was done before winding up for the night with everyone heading off to their respective bedrooms - I slept in Room Four. Bed was ok, pillows were like rock and the lack of any kind of heat didn't make for the best couple of hours. A time when we were not only tired, but also then heightened by what we had experienced with the box. This could have aided in us having other experiences upstairs in the quiet of our rooms, with our minds full of sound. FTR it didn't!
Footsteps and knocking sounds
All buildings creak and groan, and one this old it's a given you will hear noises. Depending on the style of house you live in a lot of the noises may be sounds you have never heard before. As rooms heat, then cool - or freeze in the case of our visit - the building, which is timber framed, will expand and contract. My own home has floorboards which creak, twang and make odd noises as though someone is walking across them in the middle of the night. This is purely down to the heating pipes underneath going off, and the wood doing it's thing. A natural occurrence; to the unknowing person though this could easily be interpreted as disembodied footsteps walking up-and-down.
This same, natural process, can also be an explanation for the knocking sounds on doors, and the same doors appearing to attempt to open themselves. The floors throughout most of the rooms are not level. Bedroom three has a real tilt to it. This will also have an effect on how the timber floors and doors behave. It also has an effect on some people as well. It definitely did with me. I felt as though I was at sea, trying to navigate my way around a boat for most of the evening, in all areas, as none of the floors are exactly level. This is nothing to do with the paranormal though; it's to do with my own inner ear and balance. To someone unaware how your balance can be affected by uneven flooring, the swaying and ship-like feel could easily cause them to believe it is a paranormal experience, especially when it is well-known a lot of the wood came from broken up ships, back in the day.
Room Four has bells placed over the handle as it has been reported people felt as though the door was rattling and someone was trying to get it. They bells never tinkled once whilst we there, but if they had done I would have put it down to a draft from somewhere. The windows are not sealed UPVC so are therefore susceptible to drafts. This would result in tingling bells and potential door handles movement experiences. I have a set of bells on my own bedroom door at home. If my window and the bathroom window have the slightest gap with a south-west wind blowing, those things will jingle all night.
Shadows
Our brains are little systems we still no so very little about, and before when I have seen shadows I have automatically been intrigued wondering if it is from a person, or just a trick of light and an over-active imagination. The lighting in the rooms is such that it creates an ambience - to get you in the haunted mood. Because of this anyone with a vivid imagination could easily believe they are seeing shadows, which nobody else has seen. I have done it myself. I believed in all things paranormal and my 'shadow people' were no exception. Then something happened to my Mum. She had an eye operation which the surgeon ballsed up, and she began to see things which weren't there. Buildings, children - a lot of children - shadows. So many things we could have put down to paranormal sightings, yet they were not, are not - she still sees them. What they are is a result of her sight loss, and is a registered medical condition known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Basically what happens is the eye catches sight of something - could be just the smallest piece of cobweb that has moved gently (by natural occurrences such as breathing - it always amazes me how so many people don't understand we are inhaling, and exhaling air at all times, resulting in anything light enough eg. a cobweb, getting caught on a breeze we have created) and because her eyes are unable to see exactly what it is, her brain will fill in gaps. Sometimes it goes completely overboard, which is why she can see people, but not a single person is real. They are not ghosts of the long dead. They are nothing more than her brain trying to help her make sense of what her eyes are seeing. At night, in a 'haunted' hotel, in the dark with random lighting, a room/building you do not know, the slightest thing can catch you eye, and in a split-second your brain has to process what that thing could be.
Four things.
These are the only four things I can take away from my night spent in this 'haunted' hotel.
One - The temperature drop in Room Five. Benefit of doubt to the haunting though as the temp outside the room was distinctly warmer than the temp inside the room, although the bathroom door was ajar and that room was extremely cold.
Two - The glass clinking; it could well have been someone sneaking in but at the same time would someone really have been able to get by us without us seeing, or hearing them? Without going back to try to recreate it with someone sneaking in I will be left pondering this for many years to come.
Three - The man's voice in Room Two - the fact two of us heard it but from different areas. Sound travels, we all know this, even more so at night so it could well be that we heard it differently because of the sound acoustics. Having said that my friend who organised has listened back to this voice via headphones on a recording device she placed in the room and believes it to be a woman speaking my name. I've listened to the audio and cannot make it out at al, not even the original sound I heard l. Is it just because she wanted to hear something?
Four - the quiet. Old buildings - all buildings - creak, groan and complain at night. A four-hundred year old building should most definitely creak, yet upon climbing onto the bed and settling down, my head still buzzing from the white noise machine, the building was quiet, almost deathly quiet. Not a floorboard creak, a window click or building settling noise. Nothing. I wasn't the only to notice either; the friend who booked mentioned it as one of her first things when we saw each other the following morning.
Conclusion
I won't lie; to begin with I was really nervous as we made our way upstairs. So much so I didn't even want to go and visit Grace, originally. However, I did visit with her and came away safe and un-spooked. Like everything it's the fear of fear itself. Once my sensible brain cell kicked in I found the whole thing to be an intriguing venture, and experience.
Since returning and having done proper research, I am way more sceptical about whether our experiences were genuine, or just part of some clever marketing ploy, an amazing business idea really and way to get people to frequent the bar below and generate money needed to keep such a building/business running - I'm genuinely now even more sceptical about all paranormal stuff than I was before visiting. The fact new TV show episodes are only available on Amazon Prime at 'additional' costs - not included with Prime Membership, leads me even more to believe it's only about making money. Which most things are anyway, and as the old saying goes "A fool and his money, are easily parted". Now, I'm not dissing anyone here and calling them foolish, please don't get on one and think that, but it was the only phrase I could remember to explain why people would be willing to shell out such costs on rooms that don't include bedding, heating or any of the amenities you would get in any other hotel whose prices would be similar, and often far less. I was one of those who paid, expecting to have to question scepticism. Others paid hoping to witness something, as have probably most of the people who have visited before.
Listening to The Ghost Story Guys podcast this very morning - I'm a late starter to podcasts so am only up to Ep 104 of their show, which is well worth a listen IMO - and the host Brennan is talking about his experience at a so-called haunted museum in Las Vegas; one of his listeners had written in to the show with her own experience there, and he said (and I quote) "they are selling a paranormal experience". Those words have resonated with me intensely. He explained in those few words exactly how I feel about Ye Olde Kings Head. They are selling a paranormal experience, which we were willing to pay for.
Would I revisit and recommend? I'm undecided. The price per room per night as an individual is definitely a no-go for me, but if with a group and we booked out the whole place again, then yes, I would considerate it, especially now knowing the history and actual layout of the property, but I would only do so during the summer/warmer months. A property with no heat, insulation or sealed windows with snow outside and minus temperatures, in rooms with no bedding (you take your own) is not really my idea of a good night! Don't even get me started on how the icicles formed on my body when I stepped out of the shower! When the hotel opposite has everything you could need, at a fraction of the price as well, with their own ghosts - it stands to reason if such things exist another old building would house their own spirits without all the theatrics, you've got to weigh up what it is you're really looking for. I know my friends would like to return, especially since we have learned of the buildings layout; if they go I'll tag along again.
Having been scammed this week financially by some very clever people - I don't even connect to friends wifi in their houses as I don't know what their security is like - who took me for a lot of money, I am left feeling I was scammed also by my visit.
Another negative downside for me, other than anything mentioned, was that once we had been locked in we were only able to access the upper floors with the bedrooms, meaning those of us who are early risers had to wait until staff arrived to open up before we were able to make a cup of tea. By the time that kettle was boiled I was absolutely gasping. Be aware of this if you book for yourselves, and ensure you have enough liquids with you as you won't be able to get any after you are locked in.
We have asked for copies of the footage from our 'experiences'. IF they share them with us - I have a really strange feeling they won't - then I will ask those I know with technological genius to check it all out for me to see if they can isolate the sounds/voices. I still hold on to a small amount of hope that some things may not be explainable.
I would definitely like to visit the city of Chester again; it appears to be a truly beautiful and historic part of the world.
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