KAYLEIGH MARIE EDWARDS talks to a former owner of Bristol’s The Farrington Inn, the most haunted pub in the UK you’ve probably never heard of!
Most of the scariest places in the UK have a certain level of public attention, whether they’ve been featured on websites, in articles, or even on the news.
We’ve heard of them because they’re spooky, strange things happen in them, and you wouldn’t want to be alone in them at night.
However, lurking in the shadows of the well-known scare-fests are places far more sinister; places that are so terrifying that the owners are too scared to make their experiences public.
The Farrington Inn, nestled in a small village in Bristol, is one such place.
A former owner, who asked not to be named, recently came forward in an exclusive interview for The Spooky Isles to shed light on a place that is so very dark.
During the time of ownership of the Farrington Inn, our source explains that overnight guests often complained about loud noises at night from the ‘honeymoon couple’ in one of the guest rooms.
The complaints were so frequent that the guest room itself became known as the ‘honeymoon room’, though at the time of the complaints, it was never occupied.
Strange noises and shadows at the Farrington Inn
At first, the Farrington Inn owner, who often heard strange noises and saw what she describes as ‘shadows’ walking the corridors, put her experiences down to her imagination and the stress of running the business.
However, it wasn’t long before her children started to comment on similar experiences at the Farrington Inn.
Her daughters, who were aged six and eight at the time, also insisted that they frequently saw a woman through the attic window.
The attic, however, was not even open to access.
It was when visiting relatives also commented on the woman in the window that the owner realised that her imagination was not at play.
The more the owner noticed that things ‘weren’t quite right’, the more the atmosphere inside the building shifted, until she eventually started sleeping with the bedroom light on.
Children complain of haunted dreams
Her children complained that things in their bedrooms weren’t where they had left them, and then the eldest started to suffer terrible nightmares, which she described, even at the young age of eight, as feeling ‘more like someone was trying to show her something than a dream’.
Things became sinister when the eldest daughter ran in from the garden one day asking where her dad was, because she had heard him furiously yelling her name from inside the building, and she thought she was in trouble for something.
The Farrington Inn had not yet opened for the day, and her dad wasn’t even in the building.
The owner explains that this was not a one-off occurrence, and that her daughter often ran in from the garden asking who was yelling for her by name.
Former owner fled inn to ‘save’ her children
The owner, who describes herself as non-religious, became so frightened that she not only contacted a local priest to bless the building, but also contacted two exorcists based in London.
But she vacated the property and abandoned the business, opting to ‘save’ her children before help arrived due to an incident in which her youngest daughter almost crawled out through a window on to the roof.
Due to her height, it would have been impossible for the child to climb into the window in the first place, and that, combined with the eldest constantly hearing her name being yelled by a mystery man, was enough to convince the mother that things were getting dangerous.
Apparently, the locals also commented on the pub being haunted, and according to our source, she was not the first owner to up and leave for that very reason.
Very little is written on The Farrington Inn, despite its local infamy, which adds to the mystery.
The Farrington Inn is located at Bristol Road, Farrington Gurney, Bristol BS39 6TG
