LLANDOGER TROW – May 2008

Investigation Site

Llandoger Trow Public House
King Street
Bristol

History of the Site

The Llandoger Trow public house is an historic building that situated on "Kings Street" in the centre of Bristol which is one of the most interesting streets in the area, with a veritable museum of architectural buildings of varying dates and styles. It has stood in this location since around 1664 and is named after a village some 20 miles up the Bristol Channel called Llandoger. This is where they used build Trows (a flat-bottomed barge).

The building has always captured the attention of many as they walk past, and also was unfortunate to capture the attention of a WWII bomb, which partially destroyed the building. Fortunately, 3 of the original 5 gables remain, and so the public house still servers ales from many local breweries.

There are many stories surrounding the public house, but none as so intriguing as the rumor that Daniel DeFoe had met Alexander Selkirk in the Llandoger on whom he based his book Robinson Crusoe.

Investigating Team

The members of the team present for this investigation:
Marlene
Sandra
Gill
Sue
Pete
Guest investigator: Becky
A team from Ghost Challengers

Paranormal Activity Eyewitness Reports

The ghost of a young boy who was crippled, known to have lived and died in the pub is said to haunt the Llandoger, and it has been reported that many people have heard him on the stairs.

2 men have also been seen on the pubs CCTV, one sat in the lounge area of the bar, the other in the Jacobean room. Thinking that they were customers in the pub after hours staff set off to ask them to leave, on entering the room they discovered that whoever was there had disappeared.

Many noises have been heard by staff and customers alike in the old part of the bar area, as well as there being reports that a ghost of a woman is said to haunt the Llandoger.

Investigation Report

The team arrived at the pub at around 10.30pm and due to it being a Saturday night, found that the place was full of customers inside and out. They met up with the team from Ghost Challengers and moved all of the equipment to a private room. Due to the amount of people around, the team decided to visit the cellars first and setup one of the "Lock Off" camera's as it has been known for the ghost of the woman to be present in this location.

Once the pub had closed, Sandra and Gill performed the base line tests, but they found that due to the evenings busyness, the place was extra warm and therefore the temperatures taken were not a true guide. The EMF readings in the first room also appeared to be quite high, especially in one particular corner. The team tried to find the source of this but were unable to.

Sandra, Richard and another member of the Ghost Challengers decided to use a Ouija board, whilst Gill and Becky watched. Whilst they were doing this, Marlene, Sue and Pete went back to the cellars. They sat in on of th rooms and started calling out for the spirits to come forward. The team found it very dark, damp and cold, but that is generally the conditions of most cellars of this age. After a while, the team returned back upstairs disappointed that they had not been able to get any responses.

Once they had returned to the warmth of the bar, Pete placed another motion camera next to the wooden lady.

The teams all met back up and discussed the results of the seance. The glass moved several times to some of the letters, but unfortunately they did not spell out anything that the team could understand.

After a short tea break, Marlene, Sandra, Sue and Pete went back to the cellar and joined hands to perform another seance. There was a security light in one of the corners that was activated by motion, and when they asked out if there was a William with them in the room (a name that came to some members of the team in the room), the green light would go on. The team asked for William to do it again, but nothing happened. Marlene looked towards the back wall of the cellar and could see a tall black shape, the others looked over and Sue was able to see it too. The team tried calling out and asking for a response for a little longer, but they never seemed to get anything else.

Upon returning to the bar, they shared their findings with the others. Richard decided to take his team down into the cellar and perform another seance to see if he could get any responses. The SGPIT decided that whilst they were doing this, they would go to the Wooden Lady and perform their own seance. They circled around the statue and linked hands and it wasn't long before Marlene started to laugh, but the sound she was making was that of a child's laugh, which the team found very strange. Marlene continued to talk to the statue in the child like voice, but the rest of the team could not help but laugh at what was happening. They then moved to another joining room and the team found that within seconds, they were back to a very straight and somber mood as if they had not been laughing just a short time before. This, the team found very weird.

Marlene and Sandra went and sat on the stairs which were known for hearing footsteps whilst there no one around. There was a "Lock-Off" camcorder placed on the stairs at the beginning of the evening on the basis that this would be able to capture any unexplained movements. As the pair sat on the second floor stairs they believe they heard a faint sound that did sound as if someone else was on the stairs.

Both teams met up and exchanged their findings for the evening, before they called the vigil to a close at around 4.30am.

Conclusion

The team had been really looking forward to this investigation with the Ghost Challengers, and also being at the Llandoger Trow Public House with its massive history and interesting paranormal reports.

With regards to the Ouija board, Richard had the seance that something was present that wanted to harm him. it was a little frightening for Becky because although she was not taking part, she was wearing a Tee-Shirt with a '3' on, and the glass always seemed to be going to this number on the board. She also noticed during the seance, a candle that was on the table seemed to tilt to one side. They are hoping that this was captured on one of the camera's.

Down in the cellar, the shadow that both Marlene and Sue had seen (Arrow pointing in picture above) was great. They both described seeing the same thing, and also with the security light going off during their seance, the team were pretty convinced that there was definitely a presence in the cellar.

With regards to Marlenes "laughing" fit with the wooden lady, this was not the first time that this had been reported, as another team had experienced the same experience on a previous visit. The noise of movement on the stairs needs to be investigated, as the team have not had time to go through the camera as of yet.

All in all it was another great investigation for the team, and they are hoping to revisit the location again soon.

***We would like to thank GHOST CHALLENGERS for inviting the SGPIT to the Llandoger Trow and hope to do more investigations with them soon.***

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