As Halloween creeps around the corner, Greene King is inviting the public to explore and learn about some of its most haunted pubs in York, including Ye Olde Starre Inne in Stonegate, Lendal Cellars in Lendal and Windmill Inn in Blossom Street.
Ye Olde Starre Inne
Ye Olde Starre Inne is the oldest and best loved pub in York, dating back to at least 1644. The pub is also one of the best known in the country due to its many ghostly goings on, such as lights turning on, chairs moving by themselves, and strange noises that keep the landlord awake at night. During the English Civil War, the cellar was commandeered by Royalist troops to serve as a makeshift hospital and morgue for the wounded, dying soldiers. It is from this cellar that the bloodcurdling screams of dying soldiers can still be heard echoing throughout the pub.
Three hundred years later a soldier about to be sent to the trenches during World War I, wrote to his sweetheart, promising to meet her at Ye Olde Starre Inne on his first night home; although she waited, he never came. The two star-crossed lovers have both been seen roaming the bar, looking for one another for eternity.
Additionally, two black cats are often seen running from room to room playing. The cats date back to when the custom was to entomb two live cats inside a building to protect it from fire and bad luck. Dogs visiting the pub growl and snarl at the spot the cats were walled in, with one dog even throwing itself at the spot and knocking itself out! Many visitors have been seen to bend to stroke one of the cats only to find nothing there.
Lendal Cellars
Lendal Cellars is located in the heart of the historic city of York. The site of the pub used to be the location of a Friary during the medieval era, where around 35 Austin Friars lived. The Friary was destroyed by Henry VIII during the Reformation. Some say however, that one friar never left…Guests claim to have seen monastic figures in the lower seating area of the pub. Yet, when they have turned their head to look again, the figures have vanished.
Windmill Inn
General managers of the pub – past and present – have reported sightings of two ghosts, a man in a ball and chain who makes little commotion in the cellar and a little girl who lives in the upstairs of The Windmill Inn. The pub was previously a coach and horse station and the little girl seemingly died in a coach crash there during the late 1800s. Staff often feel her presence and have been told by previous general managers that if she becomes too bothersome to open a window and let her leave.
Greene King, the UK’s leading managed pub company and brewer, has switched on its haunted pub search facility to give pub-goers in York the spooks again this year.
Would be ghost hunters will be able to seek out the spirits in some of Britain’s most haunted pubs by visiting the Greene King Haunted Pub Guide at https://www.greeneking.co.uk/newsroom/our-blog/halloween-haunted-pub-guide/.
