Creepy photos give a glimpse inside a 400-year-old pub believed to be home to the most haunted object in the UK.
Ye Olde King's Head serves pints among its ghoulish artefacts including a clown doll which was bundled into a case on the wall after it was supposedly caught moving on its own.
On the opposite wall is a tall doll that was cast out of two antique shops and encased in glass after seeming to sing, hum and move.
While a portrait of a melancholy boy is hung from the wall after being blamed for causing paranormal activity in a Welsh home, reports Cheshire Live.
But the most spooky item of all at this bizarre pub is a new addition chained down in a glass box in its own room upstairs.
Dubbed the UK's most haunted item, investigators apparently caught the Grace Doll moving and talking on camera both audibly and through electronic devices.
It became known as the UK's Annabelle after making headlines in 2019 when it appeared to tell a ghost hunter that it wanted to "burn his eyes."
The Grace Doll was introduced to the hotel, in Chester, by paranormal investigator Danny Moss who has been studying it for more than four-and-a-half years.
“The most famous of those captures was when Danny approached it with a cross,” says Brett Jones, 30, who manages My Haunted Hotel.
“And it comes through one of the devices saying 'burn', and he asks 'what do you want to burn?' And, right on cue, it comes back saying 'your eyes'."
Outside the room where Grace is kept, a list of rules is printed on the wall, warning visitors not to enter the protective salt circle around the doll and not to provoke it.
“There's been over 50 different accounts now of it either physically speaking, or [of people] hearing an actual voice in the room,” Brett said.
“The Grace Doll is said to have four different attachments, the main one being of an old witch called Geanett which was caught about five years ago in Ruthin.
“From there on, this normal doll that was just used as a trigger item … gained this sort of weird attachment.
“Slowly, over a period of time, we started noticing it moving, we heard voices coming from it, and we were using different devices that we were also hearing a similar voice through.”
The voice seems to mimic a child, something Brett says Geanett or one of the other attachments does to lure people into a false sense of security.
Brett describes people fainting in the room and grown men reduced to tears by being in its presence. For some reason, it seems to have more of an effect on men, he says.
Behind the door, the room is incredibly quiet, and feels disconnected from the busy, creaking old pub.
Newspaper clippings are pinned to the wall, all articles discussing the Grace Doll.
An overpowering stench of wild garlic fills the little room. I ask Brett where it’s coming from.
He doesn’t know, he says, adding that he has noticed it coming and going for a couple of weeks now, and that when he first smelt it the kitchens towards the back of the pub were closed.
Brett draws back the curtain, revealing a glass box, lid chained shut, bells draped over it, illuminated in flickering orange light and a blue glow from a dim cross cut-out on the wall.
It's a small porcelain doll, a shade over a foot long. Clean and new looking, with blonde hair and a satin dress in burgundy. It doesn’t look frightening at all.
“That’s because its intention wasn’t to be a haunted doll, it was just something people took on investigations, and it’s turned into what it is now.
“We heard a child's voice the other day, a couple of weeks before that myself and Danny were in this room, and we heard the loudest bang.”
He tells me that the box is chained down not to keep the doll in, but to keep people from opening the box.
Some visitors have felt compelled to open the doll’s box, as though something were willing them to do it, he adds.
In another room, a goat skull allegedly used in a satanic ritual in Scotland looks over one of the beds. Brett says that knocking has been heard coming from the box.
Many of the instances Brett speaks of have been caught on camera, with cameras around the inn rolling 24-hours a day, hoping to catch any ghostly phenomena. Evidence on tape has included chairs rocking and doors slamming.
The cameras collect more than 3,000 hours of footage every week, which the team trawl through, publishing the highlights in their weekly YouTube show My Haunted Hotel.
The show follows real guests as they stay at the hotel, investigating the 14 spirits said to haunt the pub, as well as others who ‘pass through’, with an alleged ‘portal’ located in the bathroom of Room 5.
“We believe that this is the future of paranormal television because it's real,” says Brett.
“There are real people that stay here every night. And the one thing you don't see in our show is the hours and hours of work that goes into debunking what goes on here.”
The pub chief believes they "100 per cent have something here that we cannot explain" and that the building is one of the country's most haunted.
"We had a Twitter page put together a video recently that called us the most haunted hotel in the world. That was quite cool to hear," he said.
“We are incredibly sceptical, and we think that that's the way you should investigate the paranormal. If you go to do an investigation, and you believe everything you see, you're not investigating.
"You're just observing. So, we're very sceptical with it and we pride ourselves on that.
“As terrified as we get in the show, when something happens, the first thing we do is go ‘Right let's get to these cameras.’
"We'll check every single one to find out where that noise came from, and only when we know for sure that we can't explain it is when we will deem something to be paranormal.”
The paranormal reputation of the pub has made it a destination for ghost hunters.
Brett says that he has witnessed groups openly investigating down in the bar, pint in hand.
The pub also features a ghost-themed menu, including Sarah’s sausage and mash, which the menu claims to be the favourite dish of one of the resident spirits.
