Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This tale of a haunted British pub (there are a remarkable number of them) appeared in the “Regina Leader-Post,” July 26, 1930:

GLOSSOP--A ghost that rings a bell on the tap-room table and hammers on the tap-room door, and other strange happenings, are mystifying the landlord of the Bull's Head, a 800-year-old public horse near Charlesworth. Mr. S. Onslow, the landlord, said that he does not believe in ghosts, and one night with the assistance of a customer he tried to solve the mystery. After a thundering knock at the tap-room door, the customer stationed himself at the back of the door and Mr. Onslow stayed in the bar which looks into a passage leading to the front, and through which anyone coming to the tap-room door must pass. Another terrific knock came. The customer flung open the door as Mr. Onslow flung open the bar window, but neither saw anything. About three months ago, the mystery took a more sinister turn.

Mr. Onslow was awakened from his sleep by a noise like the ticking of a clock. He believes that it was the call of the death-watch beetles, which is said to be a sign of death to those who hear it. Once previously, while living at Southport, had he heard it, and two days afterwards he received word that his aunt had died.

He woke up his wife, who could also hear it. The noise increased as the night went on, and at last Mr. Onslow got out of bed, put on a shoe, and delivered a kick against the wall when the sound appeared to come. On that it stopped, but on the following morning a telegram was received that Mr. Onslow's wife's father had died suddenly during the night. 

"Two nights before this," said Mr. Onslow, "a man whom I had never seen before nor since came into the house. He bore a striking resemblance to my wife's father, but his cheeks were sunken like those of a dead person. I called to my wife, who also noticed the astonishing resemblance.

"The man had his drink and went out."

The Bull's Head has two of the strangest rooms. There is no way Into them from within the house. Obtaining a ladder, Mr. Onslow and I today made a dangerous and grimy ascent to them from an old stable at the rear of the building. Entrance to the first is gained through a hole knocked through the wall, and to the second through a hole knocked through the fireplace. The only things in the second room are a strong hemp rope which dangles from a beam and four bricks placed on top of one another directly under it. Did someone take his life in this room? And is it his uneasy spirit that is responsible for the mysterious occurrences here set forth? But perhaps the most baffling mystery of all is the cellar under the flagged floor of the tap room, for no matter how diligently he searches Mr. Onslow can find no way to enter it.