'An unknown presence'
This local trendy pub is situated on Hereford's busy Widemarsh Street; the pub proves to be one of the most popular pubs in the City and is a top nightspot for many clubbers. Once known to have been a coach house this busy pub often has its own ghostly occurrences which as had its workers in a somewhat state of confusion and bedazzlement. The pub has three floor levels, the first and second is for the public and the top floor is a flat, the flat as also been at the receiving end of paranormal activity, the landlord claims that there is a real uncomfortable presence on that floor and that you constantly feel as if you are being watched by unseen eyes.
This public house was originally named The Black Boy and was sold on the 26th June 1777 to Joseph Partdrigde and was then named the Wellington in 1815. The Wellington Arms and Widemarsh Gate would of stood in between the Farmer's Club which is on the left hand side and this building before it was taken down in 1798, there were many gates in Hereford city at the time, the gate would of safe guarded the City and would of stopped intruders gaining entry to Hereford, the pub even has the leaning original city wall down in the cellar part of the pub and the original barrel run that is no longer in use. An inn was built outside of the City gate between the wall and the ditch, this is where JD's stands, a doorway was inserted through the City wall to make give access to the inn, this original inn was the Wellington, in 1898 the inn and wall was demolished, this was photographed by Alfred Watkins who was a known photographer in the City, the Wellington was soon after rebuilt.
In 1829 the Wellington Arms was owned by Henry Brookes who was soon followed by a Mr. Richard Hardman in 1835, however the pub soon became the popular Wellington Hotel in 1929 when a Mrs. E. G Cooke was landlady, so with so many years of service as a pub it seems that some of it's past occupants seem rather reluctant to leave and on frequent occasions they have made their presence known to the staff. Many unexplainable events have happened at the pub such as lights upstairs in the living accommodation repeatedly switching on and off and on one occasion a unknown apparition was seen on the CCTV walking into the upstairs kitchen when nobody was present upstairs at that moment in time, the pub also had constant disturbances with the alarm in the cellar and after calling experts in to check the alarms they ended up swapping the alarms over which was to no avail and so the last resort was to totally disconnect the alarm in the cellar.
An uncomfortable feeling and the sense of being watched is regularly felt, this was experienced by a worker who was upstairs in the kitchen, the poor guy was so frightened he ran downstairs shaking much to the confusion of onlookers who were surprised to see someone in such a state of shock. The main centre of all the out of this world phenomenon seems to come from the ladies toilets. Many times when people have gone in to the two cubicle toilet they have heard moving around and rustling from the cubicle next door only to soon find out that nobody was actually in the cubicle at all, how spooky!
The photograph below shows The Wellington being rebuilt, you can clearly see the old City wall.
