Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Ghosts of the White Horse Inn, Tonbridge....

For a few months now I've been hearing noises in my bookshop, coming from upstairs. Floor boards creaking, things moving around, loud bangs as objects drop to the floor. Very spooky happenings. Or is it that some new office staff have just moved in upstairs; that would be the easy way to explain it to the sceptic! Do you believe in the paranormal, do you believe that there's someone out there, that disturbed souls wander around our town. The building where Mr. Books stands is actually part of a row of houses which are at least 500 years old, not far from here people would have been tortured and executed and murdered at the 1,000 year-old Castle. In fact the site of the Old Fire Station is about where the live stock where slaughtered and sometimes public executions where held in medieval times, tortured souls. Warners solicitors offices were previously Bank Street School, before that they were the Workhouse, where people in abject poverty went when they had no other choice. Many of them died before their time of disease and the strain of the hard existence. More tortured souls. So it's not surprising then that there should be at least one ghost in the Mr. Books building, which used to be the market traders' pub, The White Horse Inn. Now you might think that this is just a publicity stunt, that no ghosts exist. Tonbridge blog is actually a big sceptic about these matters but even I cannot deny that I have had a cold shiver when ever I've gone into the upstairs rooms. The previous occupants moved out after only a year, the recruitment consultants, who where there before that went bust and mysteriously left everything as if they had had to up sticks in a great hurry. White boards were left in mid training sessions, coffee cups were left undrunk, windows were left open; dust was left to settle and before long the rooms resembled a shrine to a different age. Ok I am exagerating slightly, but the current occupants have told me that they've felt a presence in the room at the very top of the building, that radios have suddenly lost most of their sound if they've been played too loudly, as if someone was trying to tell them something, as if someone, or something, was being disturbed from its sleep. T blog will report more on these ghostly presences if they'll let meeeeeeee.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How sure are you about Mr Books shop being the old "White Horse Inn" ?
Im not really doubting your research but I have heard other suggestions of where it was.