A Rat in my suitcase and the Skirrid Inn

I love all of these really wonderful places that we are so privileged to visit on this trip but not everywhere has internet or WIFI - not often can we get good reception or when on the road we often dip in an out of connectivity.

How did we ever live without these devices!

Since I last wrote we have stayed at the Skirrid Inn in Wales - the most haunted site in the country and the oldest public Inn in Wales.

Now we are in Sheffield and that is a whole other blog post - you will have to wait for that one tomorrow. 

But now I will get onto the last 36 hours.

Somewhere between Chestnut Cottage and the Skirrid Inn some sort of rodent got into my suitcase and found a box of alcoholic chocolates that I had bought as a gift to take home and ate through the protective plastic box and into the chocolates and then proceeded to nibble into my brand new hoodie that we had made for the Ireland leg of our trip!

I did not find this out until I reached Sheffield (did it happen last night?) and opened it up to find white powder covering EVERYTHING IN THE BAG!

Now, before you head goes 'white powder'?...it is coffee whitener which I always take with me cause I cannot stomach a lot of fresh milk.

What a mess.

I've had to wash my clothes in the kitchen sink and goodness only knows when they will dry.

Anyway - I hope Mr Rodent, you got drunk on the alcohol!👿

But back to the Skirrid Inn.

This place has been the highlight so far, in that it was totally NOTHING like I expected it to be.

It was only about 30 minutes across the bridge into Wales and in the middle of the village. The Skirrid mountain was in the distance and this place was pretty much a community hub.

In my mind I imagined it to be up on the mountain top, all alone, with nothing around it and here it was with a petrol station and shop right next door.

Nevertheless, this building has stood since the 1100's and is the oldest licensed Public Inn in Wales and although small, it has a huge heart and a LOT of ghosties.

SKIRRID means broken in Welsh, and it refers to the mountain that has that name - the story is that a giant came along and stomped on the mountain leaving an indentation of his big fat hairy foot creating two peaks.

These can be seen today.

Or if you prefer to believe the other story that the mountain side was struck by lightening at the very moment that Jesus died on the Cross you have a more respectable version.

This was on our bucket list as we had done a podcast about it on our TRUE HAUNTINGS PODCAST

which you can follow on iTunes and Spotify (please subscribe).🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Having dug deep into the story behind the Inn we knew what to expect, but, we wanted so badly to see this place for ourselves - who wouldn't want to stay overnight in a1000 year old building!

This place did not disappoint.

Every floorboard creaked and groaned - you could see through the floor to the area below. There was a hanging rope used for executions that dropped from the ceiling and between the floors that you could see as you climbed the stair case, and one of the rooms ( there are only three) was once a court room where the hanging judge, Judge Jeffries, would reside and pass judgement on those who had committed crimes in the area. Judge Jeffries got around!

It was well know that this judge loved to hang them first and ask questions later.

That's how he got his name - and the first and last person to be hanged in that Inn committed the simple crime of sheep stealing.

Apparently, from the 12th to the 17th Century it is alleged that 180 people met their fate as the gavel fell in Judge Jeffrey's court room, and then the condemned man would be hidden away in the prisoners' cell, which is now a room that is used to store cleaning gear, and then dispatched from the top floor dropping down for all to see - and then they would all go and buy beer!

As you do!

As the rooms were so cheap, we got a room each, room 2 and 3.

The other room was also booked out ( we had been hoping to be the only ones in the Inn that night) so we were a little wary that we may not be able to be too loud during the night as we were hoping to do an investigation and a live to or followers.

We firstly took ourselves to the cemetery only down the road to take a look at the graveyard and to find the grave of Fanny Price, one of the ghosts that haunt this site.

Fanny was the Inn keeper's daughter and she died of consumption at the age of only 35 years and is said to haunt upstairs.

We paid our respects and asked Fanny to join us during our investigation.

Then it was back for a wonderful pub meal and to wait until the Inn closed for the night to start the shenanigans.

Now, to find out how our investigation went you will have to head to our You Tube Page here:

Ghost Hunt at the Skirrid Inn - Wales

And you can check out the live we did.

We did more filming for an upcoming YouTube compilation of our trip too, so stay tuned for that one in the next few months.

It was a smashing night and we stayed up till after 1.30pm and then crashed - falling asleep sounding with no rude awakenings.

In the morning we went downstairs for a delicious full English breakfast and then it was on to the next adventure in Sheffield.

Were there ghosts you ask?

Was there activity?

Not much.

We did do a table tipping session and spoke to Fanny, who had a bit of a sense of humor. 

She was not keen to talk to anymore ghost hunters about her life.

She said after all these years she was done with it.

She really gave us little more.