Bridport Ghosts …. on the face of it a relatively easy subject to research?  The reality was quite different …. literally a wild ghost chase!  Local inns seemed to be a logical starting point.  The publicans fell into three categories:  the helpful and informative, the total disbelievers, and the rest who were lacking a ghost and implored us to invent one for them.

Our first port of call was North Allington, an area which has the feel of honest toil.  In the past, most of the houses had spinning walks, linked to Bridport’s staple trade:  rope, net and twine.  Other industries included brickyards belonging to Biddlecombe and Morey, a blacksmith, a butcher and a baker.  North and West Allington used to boast 8 – 10 pubs, although now only the Oddfellows Arms and the King’s Head remain.

The Boot Inn at 124 North Allington closed in 2007.  It was a hostelry with no airs and graces, just a cosy brown and cream bar reminiscent of many traditional town pubs, with literally dozens of china boots adorning every horizontal surface.  The origin of the pub’s name is often linked to boot and shoe-makers, but most probably has an explanation closer to home:  a boot was a type of leather jug used for filling the tankards from the tuns (casks) of beer.  The earliest recorded landlady of the Boot Inn was Mary Braddick in 1758;  other owners included Thomas Legg and Job Legg before it was finally taken over by Palmers, the local brewery.

Ghosts certainly seem to favour this unpretentious pub, and a past landlady told us of four in all.  At the far left hand side of the bar, two figures have often been seen sitting at a table, one in khaki war-time uniform and the other less tangible – just a vague apparition.  At the opposite end of the room is a corner which is known by a colourful term meaning ‘people who talk a lot corner’.  It is here that an unfortunate accident took place in the late 1870s which was reported in the local paper, the Bridport News.  ‘On Sunday, a number of men were drinking at the Boot Inn when a man named Clapp, who had been scaring birds, entered with a loaded gun which by some means went off.  One of the company, a 45 year old man, received the full charge in his head;  he expired later that day’.  At the time of the accident, the victim was wearing contemporary clothes and heavy hob-nailed boots, and it is his ghost, which is thought to haunt this part of the bar.

The fourth ghost, said to haunt a room upstairs in the Boot Inn, is of a ‘Grey Lady’, who only appears to customers who have had the misfortune to have been taken ill downstairs in the bar!  There are no records about the identity of The Grey Lady, but she is believed to be linked to a macabre happening at the King’s Arms down the road.  A Cavalier who was staying at the Boot Inn walked to the neighbouring pub and fatally shot the landlady.  It is supposed that the ‘Grey Lady’ who haunts the Boot Inn is the murdered Kings Arms landlady, who appears in order to seek revenge on the Cavalier killer by haunting him.

From the Boot Inn the ghost hunt took a slight detour to the recently closed Plymouth Inn which has been in West Allington since the 18th Century.  The last landlady’s daughter was the first to encounter the haunting of the pub;  early one evening, fearfully spooked, she ran to her mother screaming “Mummy, Mummy there’s an odd furry monkey underneath a table in the bar”.  This monkey has not actually been seen by anyone else, but its presence has been felt, some customers having thought they felt the pub’s cat brush their feet only to see the cat at the other end of the bar.

On East Street, The Bull Hotel has been the venue for Psychic Fairs in the past.  These were attended by psychics and mediums who felt that there was much spiritual activity within the building, sensing 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 called Mortarhay – the ‘field of the dead’.  There are other events in the history of the Bull which may also have given rise to this activity.  During the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, Monmouth’s army landed at Lyme Regis, and a contingent marched from there to Bridport.  One account of the incident relates that skirmishes took place in the town, most notably between Colonel Venner and a local gentleman, Edward Coker.  After a brief fight, a wounded Venner shot Coker dead.  A second life was lost during this skirmish:  Mr Wadham Strangeways, who was firing from a front window, caught the full force of a blast from a musket shot, and before this window was blocked up, Strangeways was reputed to haunt the room in which he died.  More recently, other ghosts or spectral presences have been felt at the Bull:  a child’s voice is often heard in a first floor ladies lavatory (causing one or two visitors to spend less than a penny!), and uncanny feelings have been experienced in the Function Room.  This room was a hayloft above stabling for the horses, dating back to the days when the Bull Hotel was a renowned coaching inn.

Then there is the Museum itself:  perhaps the strangest visitor to the museum is the former owner of ‘Gladys’, the pale yellow Edwardian afternoon gown which was once on display in the museum’s costume gallery.  The presence of this ghost was felt in several ways: fluctuations in the temperature of the room from hot to cold, and, for some people, the strong feeling of being watched.  Perhaps this was the lady’s favourite dress that she had asked to be buried in, and she came to be re-united with the gown?  One of the past museum curators, Jane Burrell, also encountered a visitor who had a problem entering the building.  He appeared strangely disturbed by the presence of a group of people standing and sitting around the ground floor fireplace. As there was a display screen obscuring the fireplace at the time, this was even more bizarre.

On the southern outskirts of Bridport, to the left of the by-pass, is the site of yet more recent ghostly encounters.  In 1997, holidaymakers who were staying at the 400 year old Broomhill Farmhouse had a fearful encounter with the resident ghost, a cloaked lady who is reputed to haunt not only the building but the surrounding fields, often seen leaning over gates.  This lady may have been a member of the Golding family who owned the farm for generations.

West Bay, despite its sunny disposition and fame as the setting for the television series ‘Harbour Lights’ and ‘Broadchurch’, also has its spooky side.  The Bridport Arms Hotel, a thatched building dating back to the 17th Century, has had its fair share of strange happenings: rattling beer glasses, taps turning on and off and mysterious footsteps heard going upstairs.  Not so long ago, whilst filming was taking place for a television programme, a strange stain in the shape of a human head appeared on the ceiling;  a similar presence is felt and sometimes seen in other parts of the hotel.

Inns have proved very productive in the ghostly stakes;  cynics might say that this could be attributed to the amount of beer consumed, but for those who believe, the tales and apparitions  are real enough.

Marion Taylor

www.mariontaylorart.co.uk

All of the information included in this article is correct to the best of our knowledge. However, if you believe anything is incorrect, or would like to submit further information, then don’t hesitate to get in touch.