The chart of the most haunted places in Britain suggested by Uncanny UK editor Richard Holland reaches unlucky 13!
13. MARSDEN GROTTO: South Shields, South Tyneside
This extraordinary pub is built against the cliffs on the sea shore and back into an interconnecting series of caves. Despite its comparatively modern, rather industrial appearance today, this is an historic hostelry; indeed the caves have been used as habitations for centuries.
The earliest proprietor of the Marsden Grotto, one Peter Allen, and his wife both haunt the pub; the latter is seen in a rocking chair smoking a pipe. Another female apparition, said to be the Allens’ daughter Margaret, also makes her presence known near an old stairwell. Local researcher Mike Hallowell, who has written extensively on the Marsden Grotto, happened to be present when a visitor from Japan was startled by the ghost’s sudden appearance. He wrote: ‘I didn’t see the ghost but from the look of the chap from Tokyo it was pretty obvious that he had seen her – he was shaking from head to foot.’
Mike has witnessed spooky activity in the pub first hand, however. While taking part in a TV series on ghosts, he saw an ashtray fly across the room, juts after somebody made a disparaging comment about the pub’s best-known spook, a young smuggler who was shot dead here hundreds of years ago. This ghost, according to Mike, ‘has been known to become violent on occasions’.
Another Tyneside-based writer and ghost-hunter, Darren Ritson, has also investigated the Marsden Grotto. On one vigil Darren saw not only a tall dark figure but also a mysterious misty shape in the pub, while his colleagues heard inexplicable footsteps. The Marsden Grotto is a seriously haunted pub with paranormal activity of some sort or other being reported on an almost monthly basis.
[SOURCE: Paranormal South Tyneside by Mike Hallowell; Paranormal North-East by Darren Ritson; Haunted Britain by Antony Hippisley Coxe.]
