Local folklore and legend
editStories of the house's haunting go back to its time as the Bull's Head public house, when workers were afraid to make coal collections from the cellar as their candles would be blown out and Sarah Jane Allen, daughter of the publicans, saw the apparition of a woman in a dirty white or grey dress. Dorothy O'Beirne, the granddaughter of Ms. Allen, told researchers that, "Granny, who of course was young then, regularly saw a woman's ghost at the head of her bed as she awoke early in the morning."[1]
While the building was being used by the Southampton Student Players in the latter half of the 20th century,[2] members of this theatrical group responded to sightings of a shadowy figure passing through a bricked-up doorway and other phenomena by holding a séance.[1] The medium leading this séance, who was a member of the group, claimed to have made contact with a prostitute called Ruth Dill, who, while working in the building during its time as a brothel, murdered a sailor and threw his valuables down a well.[1] The séance reputedly broke up when the spirit terrified participants by throwing their table against a wall.[1][3] Despite the lack of supporting historical evidence, this story has passed into local legend popularized by regional theatrical groups and authors.[4][5][6]
In 2009, English Heritage listed the house in their spectral stocktake of haunted locations, relating reports from museum staff starting in the mid-1990s of footprints appearing overnight in the gravel on the cellar floor near a bricked-up doorway. The footprints varied in size, depth and shape, with some made by pointed shoes and some by pattens, and were randomly placed, rather than in a walking sequence. The prints would reappear when raked over and more appeared as time went on.[7][8]
- ^ a b c d Fox, Ian (1993). The Haunted Places of Hampshire. Countryside Books. p. 99-101. ISBN 978-1854550859.
- ^ Coles, R.J. (1981). Southampton's Historic Buildings. City of Southampton Society. p. 45.
- ^ Chilcott-Monk, J.P. (1980). Ghosts of South Hampshire and Beyond. G.F. Wilson. p. 38. ISBN 978-0900810237.
- ^ "Ghost of city's past", Southern Daily Echo, 31 October 2002, retrieved 2015-02-06
- ^ Scanlan, David (2009). Paranormal Hampshire. Stroud: Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1848682573.
- ^ Legg, Penny (2011). "Around the City". Haunted Southampton. Stroud: The History Press. p. 20-21. ISBN 9780752455198.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ Marsden, Simon (2005). "The South-East". This Spectred Isle: A Journey Through Haunted England. Swindon: English Heritage. p. 52. ISBN 978-1850749301.
- ^ "English Heritage reveals most haunted sites", The Daily Telegraph, 27 June 2009, retrieved 2015-02-06