Dorset is well known for its spooky past with ghosts, phantoms and apparitions popping up all over the place.
From sailors and smugglers to crying little girls and strange noises there are many creepy ongoings at some of Dorset’s favourite drinking establishments.
Here are just some of the area’s most haunted places:
The Angel Inn – Lyme Regis
A little trip down memory lane for this one… It is widely believed there was some presence in this former pub, thought to be an apparition of a old lady
A former landlady known as Mrs Lawton has always been believed t be the spirit that resides at this west Dorset pub following her death in the 1930s.
She is dressed in the distinctive style of Queen Victoria, leading some witnesses to believe that they had indeed seen the former monarch.
Owners over the years have reported clear impressions of someone sitting on the bed, and a customer being pushed aside, but there was nobody ever there.
The Royal Lion Hotel – Lyme Regis
This forming coaching inn dates back to the 17th century and is the scene of a most disturbing phenomenon.
A cloud of ectoplasm has been seen by several witnesses in one of its corridors, and one woman described it as being like a ‘damp mist going right through you, turning you to jelly’.
People have also heard disembodied footsteps approaching them and have told how their mystification turns to alarm when, as the invisible form passes by, a chilly sensation is felt.
No one knows why these spook things happen here but some do believe that public executions were once carried out on the site next to Hotel, which may have something to do with it.
The Bull Hotel - Bridport
The Bull Hotel has hosted psychic fairs in years gone by which were attended by psychics and mediums who sensed the hotel was riddled with ghosts.
One theory was that it might have been built on the site of an ancient graveyard – and there is an area of land behind the hotel known as the field of dead.
During the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, Monmouth’s army landed at Lyme Regis, and a Mr Wadham Strangeways, who was firing from a window, during a battle was shot dead from a musket. Before the window was blocked up it is believe he haunted the room i he died in.
A child’s voice has been heard more recently in a lady’s first floor bathroom – creepy.
The Anchor Inn – Seatown
An 18th-century pub that sits at the end of the road, the cove below the inn was a perfect spot for smugglers.
Such was the extent of their illegal activities that, in 1750, it was deemed that Seatown should be given a resident exciseman.
One of these excisemen was shot dead at the top of The Anchor's stairs as he listened in on a band of smugglers in the bar below.
His ghost is still said to reside still in the pub as a sad and forlorn figure.
Ilchester Arms - Abbotsbury
There are many legends of ghosts at this pub.
One that witnesses have seen the most is that of a soldier from the English civil war. They have described the soldier as wearing 17th century Royalist uniform, with a wide brimmed hat - he was hung by Parliamentarian troops in Abbotsbury.
Other Ghostly apparitions to frequent this pub is that of a coin collector named Charles, a ghoulish woman in the toilets, with a dog that approaches the windows and stands peering through.
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