'An overcrowding ghostly gathering'
This old timbered public inn is situated on Bridge street and is close by to the river Wye, it is one of the oldest inns in Hereford today and has a rather famous ghostly reputation, this inn as been the centre of many paranormal investigations and ghost events have taken place at this inn on regular occasions, the pub has also featured on BBC radio and television and has been in all the local papers regarding its ghosts. The inn is rumored to house at least fourteen ghosts and it is sure to hold so much energy and past memories to those who have previously walked on its old wooden floor ,but for a building that originally dates back to 1550 it is still in a remarkable condition and it still has many of it's original features including the impressive and magnificent wall paintings that are in the main room on the first floor, these fine pieces of work were first uncovered in 1932 whilst the inn was under the ownership of The Stroud Brewery and the paintings which consist of people breaking the ten commandments are thought to be as old as the building, the first three commandments were destroyed many years ago and now the commandments begin with the fourth that reads 'Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day ', these commandments have an association with the Christian religion but of a negative nature.
The room in which these paintings are on show is literally a patchwork of history and has many individual parts to the room that are from different periods of time and the uneven timbered floor is said to have come from ships that never sailed which would explain the unsteady feeling upon walking through the room, this room is also the most haunted room in the inn and has been the centre of all ghostly occurrences such has moving objects and footsteps and on one occasion an unexplainable apparition has been caught in the window of the room on a photograph taken outside the building on a paranormal event, this ghostly form was peering out of the window and seems to be a man wearing a black hat , nobody was in the room at the time the picture was taken so it still remains a mystery.
The Black Lion became an inn in 1778 when the first landlord to serve a pint was Thomas Drew, most of the inn's custom would of came from travellers coming from the south and traders coming from Wales, at this point in the time the inn was a coaching inn and had stables for the visitors horses. According to local tradition the building had previously seen service as part of a monastery and tunnels are said to have ran underneath the inn leading to the City's cathedral, the building as apparently also been a brothel and an orphanage, although the veracity of these claims is difficult to ascertain.
Many alterations have been made to the building over the centuries and amazingly it as survived through all the countless renovations and still keeps it's historic appearance, the inn originally had a stables, garden and a brew house where the pub's own ale would have been brewed. The inn is the owner of many ghost stories, the face of a little girl is seen peering through the window, the girl is known as Alice and is possibly one of the children that was in the orphanage, Alice is seen normally around 4am in the morning, pictures, glasses and many other objects are moved on regular occasions and there is allegedly a spirit of an unwelcoming man in a hat and dark cloak who likes to make himself known on a regular basis, was this the ghostly man seen in the window? The one thing that really gives the customers a chill is whilst they are eating in the restaurant area of the pub many have been tapped on the shoulder by unseen hands which as you can imagine gives them quite a scare, some have been so freaked out that they refuse to return to the pub.
The owner of the inn was once in the main room upstairs by the door when the spirit of this man walked through him, the owner felt an ice cold sensation, fortunately this freaky experience only happened once. When ghost events have taken place at the inn they have achieved positive results every time, light anomalies which are more known as 'orbs' have been photographed on digital cameras and these lights have also appeared on night vision camcorders and mobile phones, footsteps and banging have been heard and objects have moved. The Black Lion inn is considered to be the most haunted place in Hereford and the inn is so haunted that some locals won’t even walk past the building late at night as when it is dark the old inn appears very spooky to the passer-by !