Halloween Special: The Black Horse, Pluckley
Well, we're a proper blog now with regular posts and actual content rather than the sporadic event photos we were posting a year ago. You've seen us grow into something, our knowledge has grown too, as has Lauren's qualifications. We're half amateur and half historian, and Yogi of course. But with this in mind we now need seasonal content and as we're nearing 1000 followers to our little learning corner of the internet, it was time. So Halloween was the right place to start, and what better way to celebrate Halloween than a post on the pub in the most haunted village in Britain?
Let us clear this up now, we had this adventure weeks ago while it still counted as the summer. We respect our local villages and we know every ghost hunter going will be flocking to Pluckley this time of year and while it is good for business it is also a bit annoying.
Regardless of that, what better way to introduce a seasonal post than with a haunted pub!?
Oh yes, it is no surprise that Pluckley's resident pub is haunted alongside the other ghostly residents which attributed to its Guinness World Record, but we have actually seen a ghost at the window, on two separate trips, in two different windows, and thus we know this one is the real deal.
Looking back at the photos on this pub, as of course it has always been here in some form, it was actually shrouded by Ivy for a good portion of the early 1900s. It was nearing the 1950s that the photos began to show a barer brick externally and the charm of the building could finally shine through.
Much like the other buildings in the area, the pub has the classic 'Dering' windows common to the area. We touched on these round top windows in the last post we made from Pluckley back in the summer. But what we didn't know was that this important village building was originally just a simple farm house complete with its own moat (no evidence of a moat no sadly, but the property does sit on an incline so the moat may be where we parked!). It then became the Bailiff's house who managed the wider Dering estate. After this it was the pub to which it is now this very day.
Interestingly, from the moment we entered the pub we were met with a negative energy. This should have been our warning to leave, but we'd booked a lunch so we muddled through. Not only did Yogi not want to be there at all, but from that moment onwards everything that could go wrong did go wrong. From incorrect charging to terrible seating placement, the negative charge couldnt be to blame for our overall bad experience surely. Its a shame, as the staff and pub are lovely and welcoming, just the vibe and overall experience was not too great. We'd try again though, just in case it wasnt human error to blame, they really were lovely.
When researching the Black Horse we found a few things. Obviously it is home to quite an unruly poltergeist but everyone knows that and they may be the cause of the issues when we visited, however we found a death notice from December 1857 for a 17 year old girl. Emma Smith, daughter to Mr Smith of the Black Horse Inn died on the 6th. Is it she we saw from the upstairs windows? Maybe. Or perhaps it was Mr Fidler or his father.
Mr William Fidler, the licensee of the Black Horse died in April 1932 strangely a few months after his father who was the licensee of the pub before him. Mr Fidler the younger was only 39 year old and had served in WW1.
The poltergeist to whom everyone goes to visit is reckoned to be Jessie Brooks, a young woman who died in Skittle Alley. Other stories list her as also wandering the village looking for her lost child but we believe this story to have been confused with that of Lady Dering which is otherwise known as the Red Lady as she too wanders looking for her lost child (died in childbirth).
The poltergeist is known to move things around including peoples belongings but place them back where she found them. She knocks, she breaks things, but is she the face we keep seeing in the window? We think so. The face we saw on these occasions was grey but female, an older woman so it rules out young Emma. We don't know how old Jessie was when she died but we assume somewhere around our age (nearing 30) so this would make sense.
At the end of the day, we would go back here but not for a little while. In fact we are trying to avoid Pluckley as a whole after the experience we had in the woods. Our visit to the Black Horse was a few months after the woods debacle and we were still on edge and refused to look into the trees when on route. Unless we have a reason to come here we think we're done with Pluckley, for now anyway. We've explored the ghost stories, we've lost our wits in the woods, we've wandered the churchyard and drank at the Inn. There isn't much left to do, we've had the full Pluckley experience and that is enough for us!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
DISCLAIMER: Now for the official bit. This blog does not receive any paid promotions from the places mentioned above. We have not been approached to promote or act as spokespersons for any attraction mentioned within this post and this is simply a post intended to act as a day in the life of a couple on a cute date. All photos included are taken by ourselves and as such the rights for these images our ours, no links, brands, or companies mentioned otherwise belong or are associated with Phantom Adventures UK. We are responsible only for this blog. Opinions are our own and not influenced by any third party source..
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