Royal Hotel

The thirty-two bedroom Royal Hotel, built in 1797 and demolished in 1966, had an unidentified ghost in tweeds. Some years ago the proprietor informed me that there had been frequent reports of an unknown ghost in one particular wing of the hotel. Psychic investigator Harry Price spent several days and nights there in 1923 and decided that the manifestations were genuine but that identity could not be established. Twenty years later a female employee reported seeing, on several occasions, a male figure in knickerbocker tweeds and a cloth cap walk down the corridor from the hall to the ballroom.

She said that the rather slight form had an energetic and lively physique and twice when she followed it disappeared quite inexplicably. She realized afterwards that she had not noticed any sound accompanying the experience. In 1949, after the hotel had changed ownership, a barman reported seeing a similar figure pass from the billiards room across the room where the barman stood and disappear along the same corridor. His description stated: 'brown knickerbocker tweeds and cap'.

Subsequently a maintenance joiner on the staff repeatedly saw an unexplained figure in the same room although his description did not entirely agree with that of the barman. A few months later unaccountable openings and closings of various doors in the hotel provided further food for speculation. At the time of their respective experiences neither the barman nor the joiner were aware of reports of an unidentified figure seen many years before in the same part of the hotel.

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