York’s Most Haunted

“Ha! You’re going to get killed by Ghosts!”

This ominous prediction was what my housemate said to me on informing him that I had, in a moment of madness, agreed to spend the night in The Golden Fleece, the most haunted pub in York. The things I do for a free dinner and a full page byline.

The first thing I did on being pressganged into this caper by the Vision Features Team was call my mother. Mother, god bless her (or Cthulhu, or whoever it is she’s into this week) is a self-described spiritualist and enthusiast for all things paranormal. Thus, she could barely contain her excitement at the news that I would be spending the night in a establishment which had featured on TV’s Most Haunted.

I, by contrast, share little of her enthusiasm for the Supernatural, expressing a healthy scepticism regarding such things as go bump in the night. Of course, being a cynic is all rather easy when you don’t have to spend the night in a reported hotspot of ghostly activity, alone.

So it was on Thursday 24th October 2013 that our merry band of three student tabloid hacks set out to the Fleece to enjoy the aforementioned complimentary grub, and encounter a few spirits; Rum, Vodka, that sort of thing. Upon arrival we were greeted by the good humoured bartender Guy, who gave me a brief tour of the two rooms I had to choose from. The first, Lady Peckett’s Room, was pleasant enough, but I opted for the Minster Suite on the top floor, complete with its own living space, spacious bathroom and resplendent gothic four poster bed. I asked Guy if he had any background information regarding peculiar goings on in the room, to which he replied with a recurring story by largely female guests of a man who sits on the end of the bed, sometimes watching, sometimes attempting to choke them whilst they are completely paralysed. After he departed, my housemate, who had largely just come along for the ride, attempted to rubbish these stories by embarking on a detailed explanation of his experiences with the phenomenon of Sleep Paralysis, but somehow this did little to comfort me about the prospect of the night ahead.

Whatever debate exists about the validity of paranormal experiences, the food at The Golden Fleece is indisputably corporeal, and delicious to boot. Whilst my companions enjoyed the delights of The Golden Fleece Burger, I opted for the Yorkshire Pudding, four sausages and mash. Despite having spent just over a year now in God’s own country, I felt like I had yet to truly experience a proper Yorkshire Pudding. That all changed at the Fleece, whose gargantuan puds are roughly the size of a baking tray and serve as a sort of makeshift bowl for the mountain of fluffy mashed potato, quality sausages and delectably rich gravy.

Enough about the food though, you want to hear about ghosts. After dinner and a few glasses of Merlot, my nerves steadied to some degree. I was finally left alone, and it was then that a creeping sense of dread started to seep into my previously calm, happy-go-lucky demeanour. I realised at that point that I was actually going to have to go through with this, all night, and why in god’s name did I pick this terrifying, enormous room.

With my courage quickly beginning to falter, I resorted to curling up on the sofa and watching E4, all whilst receiving regular texts from the Editor, including this particular gem:

“Don’t be scared of the monsters, just look for them. Look to your left, to your right, under your bed, behind your dresser, in your closet, but never look up, he hates being seen.”

I tried to laugh it off, but I checked anyway. There was nothing on the ceiling.

I was interrupted from this by a knock at the door. It was John Yates, The Golden Fleece’s proprietor, here to welcome me personally to his establishment. Our conversation quickly drifted off the topic of the Fleece when he announced himself as a fellow Gloucestershireian, beginning a fifteen minute conversation on the relative merits of the good old country. He was also keen to bring up the long list of celebrity guests who had frequented the place over the years. Bringing out his iPhone to show me a picture of Rory Bremner posing with the Fleece’s skeletal mascot Saul Goodfellow, known for propping up the bar of an evening with a glass of the strong stuff. Bremner notably featured the pub in his travel series Rory Bremner’s Great British Views. Other celebrity guests included Harry Hill and Craig Charles, who reportedly “always pops in for a drink” when he’s in town. John was also keen for me to inform you all of the regular acoustic music on at the Fleece, which as a fan of acoustic live music myself I can certainly get behind.

So with that Mr Yates left me to it, but not before informing me that he would be shortly sending up a man named Marcus to give me some more detailed information about the specific hauntings at the Fleece, and so I waited with baited breath for his arrival.

Marcus turned up about ten minutes later, and was by all accounts an affable, loquacious chap. He sat down, pint of ale in hand, introduced himself as a Pagan Druid and began to calmly inform me that, the room I was in was probably the least haunted in the Fleece, the Lady Peckett’s on the other hand, which astute readers will remember was my other choice of room, was inhabited by a demonic entity of some power, which manifested itself as a wisened old man. This expanded on what John had told me earlier about Lady Peckett’s room only recently being rediscovered during refurbishments a few years ago, having been bricked up and wiped from the blueprints at an unknown time. This is based around a particularly unsettling story which is perhaps best left untouched upon in our famously family-friendly publication, but rest assured, I can see why a demonic entity of some power would choose to make the room his regular haunt.

I enjoyed my chat with Marcus, and whilst he did assuage some of my fears about the room, he ominously added “of course, maybe I just don’t interact with anything in here, you might have a different experience” and assured me that if I heard any stomping in the night, it was just the Demon.

I’ll be honest, I’ve slept better. What basically happened was I read The Angry Island by A.A. Gill, an exceptionally funny book which I’d brought along to lighten my mood, until it fell out of my hand and I passed out. A slightly tedious interlude was had when I woke up a couple of hours later to find myself face to face with my deceased former business partner, who informed me that I was going to be visited by three spirits, with the aim of forcing me to see the error of my wicked, rakish ways. This may sound like an interesting turn of events, but frankly, it seems to have become something of a weekly occurrence for me and I was eventually able to drift back off to sleep.

In the end, my night at The Golden Fleece proved to be an interesting experience, and it really is a lovely place although the circumstances of my stay meant I wasn’t able to fully enjoy myself. Did I see a Ghost? Experience anything Supernatural? Well, no, not really. But of course, if I had, if something had happened, would you believe me? Probably not. Were I unfortunate enough to have actually seen something during my night’s stay in The Minster Suite, would I not save myself the ridicule by wanly smiling and proclaiming that I hadn’t seen anything, that ghosts and phantoms and all other manner of spooky ghoulies were nothing but poppycock and superstitious balderdash? Would I not keep what really happened, what I really experienced, to myself, never again to speak of it until my dying day? Wouldn’t that be what you would do? Sleep well.