The owners of a haunted hotel have shared a creepy video showing a rocking chair that appears to move by itself. Ye Olde Kings Head on Lower Bridge Street is Chester's most haunted hotel - and this is just the latest spooky encounter to be reported.
Dating back to the Stuart period in 1622, the building has bundles of history and is said to have no less than 13 ghosts haunting the place. Among some of the ghosts are said to be the tormented souls of civil war soldiers, Roman soldiers, young children, and even women who worked there when it was a brothel in the 17th century.
Even the foundations of the original building have a story to tell having been constructed for Peter the clerk in 1208. The creepy going-ons have caused such a stir that the hotel has featured on the TV show Most Haunted and more recently on Sky Pick's Paranormal. It was also named spookiest hotel in the North West last year, Chesire Live reports.
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It was bought by paranormal enthusiast Harry Achilleos 15 years ago and his dream has been to turn it into a top dark tourism destination, due to its spooky reputation. Sightings over the years are said to range from eerie mists to full body apparitions, with poltergeist activity reported in the bar, including pints being knocked over.
It is one of a number of reputedly haunted buildings in Chester, with a thriving ghost tour industry built up around them. Harry has now installed a series of 16 infrared cameras around the Grade II Listed building in a bid to monitor any unusual activity.
And amongst the latest finds is a video of a rocking chair which appears to be moving by itself. The chair, which has a creepy doll on it, is in room six at the hotel, one of a number of supposedly haunted rooms there.
Paranormal investigator Danny Moss, who has joined Harry and fellow team member Brett Jones to work on the My Haunted Hotel project at Ye Olde Kings Head, said that he and the rest of the team there had been stunned to see the footage of the rocking chair and had even attempted to debunk it without success.
Danny said: "Chester is one of the most haunted cities in the UK, without a doubt, and this 400-year-old building is reputedly one of the most haunted in the country. Harry has installed 16 infrared cameras with the hope of catching evidence of anything paranormal happening.
"It's become such a huge attraction locally. It's the ninth week of the cameras being installed now and the activity we have captured on camera has been phenomenal. We found the footage of the rocking chair moving at 3.28pm in the afternoon when there were no guests in the hotel. Harry got a notification on his phone, saying that there was movement in room six.
"He went back and told me and Brett and we even tried to debunk it but could not find an explanation for this happening as the chair is pretty heavy and would not be moved by a draft or people moving around it, for example. I'm quite a scientific person and I will always look for a rational explanation. When I can't find one then that's when I know it's real."
Hotel owner Harry added: "Setting up My Haunted Hotel has always been my dream and now this has finally happened I just want to prove that this is the most haunted hotel in the UK."
For more on the evidence captured from the hotel, which has six horror-themed bedrooms available for hire for overnight ghost hunts, visit the My Haunted Hotel website. Episodes of the hotel's YouTube paranormal show can be watched here.
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