THE GOLDEN LION PUBLIC HOUSE – October 2007

Investigation Site

The Golden Lion Public House
Frampton Cotterell
Bristol

History of the Site

The Golden Lion has been a lovely village pub since early 1871. Back then, it belonged to its first landlord Mr Thomas Harris, and his wife. The Pub was then taken over by the Hall & Sons Lodway brewery, and the Landlord became George Burroughs.

The pub has seen the small village grow from a population of 2075 in 1871, to the population today of over 6800, but has still maintained the honour of being only one of 3 public houses in all that time.

Investigating Team

The members of the team present for this investigation:
Marlene
Gill
Amy (Guest)

Paranormal Activity Eyewitness Reports

The Golden Lion has not had many paranormal activities reported, but there has been the odd abnormal or unexplained encounter.

A few people have reported seeing the figure of a lady sat in a chair at the corner of the bar, whilst others have said they have heard the distinct sound of a woman singing within the ladies toilets, even though they had been empty, and the pub closed at the time.

The most amazing eyewitness report was that several staff have said they have heard laughing in the hallway, and that is happened only 2 days before our investigation. This could be coincidence, but it gives plenty of encouragement for a great investigation.

Investigation Report

The location of the Golden Lion Public house is well known to all of the team as it is considered a local and is passed by on an almost daily basis, but from an investigation perspective, it is only the second time that Marlene has been to the location, and the first for Gill.

Due to the upper part of the public house being occupied by members of staff, the team were restricted to investigating the ground floor only.

The team arrived at the location just before closing time, and had to wait for all customers to leave. They then sat for a short while after, and let the building settle down a little, before performing the standard baseline tests. The results are listed below:

Dining Room
TEMP: 21 degrees
EMFS: 7 to 9 (Very High)

Small Annex
TEMP: 21.3 degrees
EMFS: 9 to 10 (Very High)

The Lobby
TEMP: 19.9 degrees
EMFS: 0

The Kitchen
TEMP: 21.4 degrees
EMFS: 3 to 5

Bar area
TEMP: 23.4 degrees
EMFS: 7 to 10 (Very High)

Pool Room
TEMP: 20.5 degrees
EMFS: 1 to 3

Stage area
TEMP: 22.1 degrees
EMFS: 0

With all the baseline tests complete, the team decided to start the investigation in the small annex room. Within a few minutes of being in this location, Marlene felt that the presence of something right next to her face, and had the feeling of someone looking right at her. Gill also started to experience something within the room. She explained that she felt a cold breeze on her legs. With all this activity, Amy decided to take a second temperature reading and found that it had dropped to 18.5 degrees.

The team then moved on to the next location which was the Dinning room. The team were joined by 2 members of the staff that had been witness to the activities a few days earlier. Upon entering the room, both Gill and Marlene said that they could detect a strong pipe tobacco smell, that no-one else could, but within a few seconds the smell had disappeared. With nothing else happening in the Dinning room, the team decided to move on to the next area.

Moving into the kitchen, Marlene and Gill decided to use the "Night Vision" camera's, and thought that they instantly caught a large orb within the room, but it later turned out to be a moth. Hanging in front of the entrance to the hall from the kitchen was a large metal chain curtain, and everyone noticed that it was continuously moving. They checked for draughts, but couldn't find any, so where not sure what exactly was causing the movement. The team stayed in the kitchen for a short while, but again they were unable to pick up any activity or feel any changes in the atmosphere, and so moved on to another area of the public house.

After arriving in the restaurant area, they were joined by another member of staff and decided to sat and listen for abnormal activity. After about 5 minutes everyone believed they could hear footsteps above the room, and then a loud banging noise. The team asked the staff if there was anyone in the upper part of the building and the confirmed that all the people in the building were with them! They sat for a while longer to see if anything else would be heard, but again unfortunately this seemed to be the only activity.

The team decided to move to the hallway that led to the ladies toilet, and found that there was a cold spot by the door of the toilets, dropping to 15.9 degrees. Moving into the toilets, they asked out loud specifically for the lady that had been heard singing, to make contact with the group, and if possible to sing to them. As a result, the toilet door started to make creaking noises on two separate occasions, and also 2 members of the staff believed they could hear a humming noise, and decided they needed to take a break.

With everyone back in the bar area of the building the atmosphere between the team was very relaxed. At one stage Marlene and Amy believed that they heard the sound of a dog crying coming from the area near the office, she decided to take a photo and caught what seemed to be a bright light by the office door. Gill decided to use the Dowsing Rods to see if this produced any activity, and after asking if there where any spirits in the room, found that the rods instantly crossed over. With the staff looking at this experiment a little sceptical, Gill invited them to try for themselves. When the member of staff called out again, they too were amazed to see the rods cross themselves.

The team felt that they had covered all the area's of the pub that had interested them and decided to bring the investigation to a close at around 4.30.

Conclusion

The team were really happy with the amount of activity they had encountered that night, and with a little further investigation, the team discovered that in the 1900's the owners had a dog, and in fact the bar man had a picture of the owners (the man being a pipe smoke in the photo) with their pet.

All though with every investigation, the team were quite apprehensive as to what they are going to find, they all were not expecting the hive of paranormal activity that was found inside the Golden Lion, from the smells of Pipe tobacco to the hearing of humming in the toilets.

Unfortunately, besides all the various happenings, the team only managed to capture 1 orb on camera in the hallway, but will hope for better luck next time.

***We would like to thank The Landlord and Staff of the Golden Lion for allowing the team to perform the investigation, and can't wait to revisit the public house again with the rest of the team.***

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