Places Features

The Talbot Inn on Thurcaston Road is famous for its spirits... and not just those which come out of a bottle.

People who have worked at the Talbot for many years have reported unexplained goings on, airy apparitions and things that go bump in the night.

Yes, the Talbot has a reputation for being haunted, as befits an ancient building.

Tony Robson looks at the evidence

Listen: The Haunted Talbot

The stories... the horror!

The pub opened in 1606 and it has had 41 landlords. One of these, Mary Dawson (aka Hairy Mary) who died in 1764, is still said to walk the Talbot.

Mani, the present landlord has experienced a number of weird phenomena over the past year, though as yet he has not run into his phantom predecessor. He told Julie: "We've heard banging on the door and when we opened it there was nobody there.

"Once when I was locking up my son heard a great bang. He rushed to help me but I was fine." So what was the cause of the noise?

Tony Robson, a paranormal investigator, has carried out over 130 investigations throughout the UK.

As he set up his equipment he explained why paranormal activity seems to be confined to night time. "It's only at night when it's quiet that people listen and are able to hear things. But actually it goes on all day."

Listen: Paranormal Activities

Tony Robson sets up his equipment

Tony deployed night cameras, temperature gauges, sound recorders and other bits of paraphernalia. What was he hoping to detect? Amongst other things, mists, unexplained noises and apparitions.

Falling into the later category are Hairy Mary and a little boy who has been seen sitting by the fire, swinging his legs.

Kelly Robinson who has worked for eight years at the pub says that Mary is 'dressed in white, with an angry look on her face and long flowing hair." She has been seen walking through a wall in the cellar.

As for the little boy, he is thought to have been a child of a previous landlord.

Says Kelly: "I've seen a picture of a customer sitting by the fireplace with a strange shape in the corner of the picture like a face looking down at her."

Another apparition seen on the premises is that of a man wearing an old fashioned cape and carrying a leather purse.

So does all this haunting scare the staff?

Kelly says: "Most of us are used to it... But I got locked down in the cellar once because nobody knew I was down there. I was only locked in for a few minutes but that was enough!"

Perhaps the most inexplicable sounds recorded by Tony's equipment were footsteps. Close up, echoing footsteps. Nobody could explain them...

Listen: Ghostly Footsteps!

Or are they? What Tony Robson recorded at the Talbot