My memory has just thrown up the first posts I sent from my strange stay at The Schooner.. Alnmouth… England’s most haunted hotel!
I’d been dithering for a while whether to book in there or not… {it does come with an insanely haunted history} and since I was headed up for a night at Chillingham Castle with Enigma Paranormal I took the chance and was amazed how smoothly I was able to book a room! Was only when I boasted of my success on Facebook.. the friends who operate Enigma messaged me ‘on no accounts book Schooner.. its a heap!’
Too late!! How bad could it be anyway, only a couple of nights…!
Anyway I got slightly distracted in Newcastle.. and Alnmouth isn’t the easiest destination to reach… so it was rather late in the evening when I dismounted the bus from Alnwick and followed google maps down the long, deathly quiet, dark main street to reach my destination.. there it stood, a whitewashed typically Georgian lump of a place which looked worryingly dark.. I was just about to panic when I noticed with relief the small reception desk was illuminated, my relief was short lived as I pushed against the front door and found it locked… knocking didn’t garner a response, I scoured the ground windows for any sign of life or at least a phone number I could ring… if my mobile hadn’t drained flat.. there was no sight nor sound nor hope..! Beyond the dimly illuminated desk was a void of inner darkness… the Schooner was shut !
That was when I met my first Alnmouthian! He was strolling around for a pint… and take away curry and was only half as surprised as me to find it locked. “They do this sometimes” he said, “have you give the door a push.. No, a proper push?” He gave it some sort of secret masonic type jiggle …and the door burst in open…!!
“You’ve most likely set the alarm off!!” I panicked, preparing to leg it before the local constabulary felt my collar… Long story short the fellow turned out to be a local bed and breakfast proprietor.. once I was stood with him in the Schooner lobby, realising no security klaxon had been activated, I could have kissed his feet in gratitude basically.. at least he’d got me in off the street, knew where the Schooner staff (??) would have left my key… (out on the desk incredibly) …and he stayed down in the lobby whilst I found my way upstairs and unlocked the room… which wasn’t half bad actually.. a little cold..!! There was a palpable energy in the place, though I was perhaps a little too flustered to properly appreciate that at the time… Alnmouthian explained the owners were running the Schooner as an Indian restaurant, were attempting to renovate the place and would most likely be in first thing the next morning!
I couldn’t believe the hotel would be empty.. but it was! I spent ages, rambling around the floors, peering into the open rooms that were mostly gutted out in preparation, knocking on closed doors in vain hope of finding a night porter.. no one in.. I had never been in a hotel scenario like this before.. the situation itself would have been eerie enough but there were some definite chills being picked up, mostly from the other sides of locked rooms….
So nothing for it, I was terrified to leave the building in case of getting locked out and not being able to jiggle my way back in again, so I settled into my room… no television.. that worked anyway …so with confidence growing I explored the place, didn’t feel too oppressive, and after all this is what I’d come for so might as well enjoy myself… I found room 28, the room a foreigner had murdered his wife… this room was completely locked, grouped with two others just off the upper corridor landing, the neighbouring rooms were open and stripped.. I took a chance and gave three loud knocks on the door of 28.. fully expecting a loud rap in retort, an air of menace emanated from behind the door… nothing responded…
About one in the morning I turned in, drowsing off into uneasy sleep…. around an hour later I heard the voices of a man and woman, some way down the corridor, having some sort of mundane conversation with each other.. immediately I shot out of bed assuming that at last …the hotel managers had come in.. I went out onto the corridor, thinking ‘hope they don’t think I’m an intruder‘ …there was no sight of anyone.. I walked all around the corridors, trying the rooms again, every room, knocking on doors again.. nothing, no response from any. Guessed that I had probably heard people walking past the Schooner outside so went back to bed… drowsed off, was woken again by those same disembodied voices, a man and a woman… having the exact same mundane conversation they had had earlier… Only this time they were irrefutably out on the corridor, they sounded nearer.. once again I sprung from the bed, flung the door open.. No one! The corridor though felt creepy as hell.. the vibe had changed, the sensation foreboding…. And when I heard them a third time, maybe half an hour afterwards, going through the same boring ruddy conversation but this time clearly outside my bedroom door… I just turned over and went back to sleep… after projecting some force of protection light energy at the door …just in case!
Dawn couldn’t come soon enough, at first light I ventured downstairs, explored the lower rooms.. and found the hotel management had left six pieces of dry sliced bread next to an electric toaster.. breakfast would be self service. This front dining room turned out to be an immensely haunted spot as well.. I saw a clear shadow cross the room at speed… and the mobile phone I’d just spent all night charging up drained immediately flat as I was enveloped in chills…
I spent the rest of the day walking the beach… found the villages older, friendlier pub…. The Sun Inn, and told them of my experiences the night before! The landlord laughed heartily. Went on to tell me that “most of the folks who book a room in the Schooner generally walk out, walk up here and ask if I’ve got a bedroom they can have! Anyway my pubs more haunted than that is… ” he conjectured!
When I returned to the Schooner the place was totally transformed… The Indian restaurant was open for business, all lit up, fully open…. {the place is cavernous once the back doors to the full restaurant were unlocked} …words were had with the management as to the accommodations but no discount was offered.. though I was assured there would be somebody on the premises that night.. there wasn’t.. after staying open until nine pm and only having two diners that whole time, they locked up and all cleared off to wherever it was they came from.. fairly rapidly I thought. Yes I was shut in on my own again… although this time they had left an electric urn next to the sliced bread and toaster… Noticeably that night, the Schooner was quiet as the grave… not a thing happened. There was a brief, emotionally, spirit, mediumy occurrence next morning whilst I was in the process of packing up and doing one last walk around of the hotel floors… (a modern era girl in a hooded red anorak made a little appearance from out of nowhere), and I hoped afterwards that that may have been the reason I had found myself in “England’s most haunted hotel” .
…it has to be stated that my friend Jacqueline visited the Schooner recently this year and found conditions much improved… she did encounter a little weirdness, spiritually meeting a “monocle wearing man”, sat ethereally in a chair in the lounge… and her dog ‘Rocky’, growled at something invisible in the bedroom… Apparently the breakfast was better!
Hubert Hobux 