The Chough (Bill’s Salisbury Restaurant), Salisbury

Now Bill’s Salisbury restaurant, the pub at 36 Blue Boar Row prior to 2013 was The Chough. The following description of the haunting at The Chough dates from 24 October 2009 and was published in The Ocelot, an independent entertainment magazine for the Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire area.

‘It’s amazing how quickly you change your mind following a brief chat with spooked staff and regulars down at the Chough pub in Salisbury. A place with more ghost stories than you could shake a proton-pack at; the Chough is reputed to be home to at least nine different ghosts of varying shapes and sizes – amongst them an army major who appears in the mirror, a small boy named George who may have even been hanged, and a lovesick maid named Dolly.

Recent investigations by mediums of the Berkshire and Oxfordshire Paranormal Society (BOPS) reported strange sights and sounds of people ‘dropping down dead’ near the lounge window, as well as bells ringing and loud whispering of names of the (presumably) deceased to the gathered séance, with ‘Geoffrey’, and ‘Henry’ being amongst those heard.

The Chough, which dates back to at least the 1300s, certainly has a gruesome history – recent extensions to the pub are now situated on what was the site of many courthouse hangings in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the former coaching inn was also used by authorities as a ‘halfway house’ for those about to be served brutal justice on the adjacent market square in front of hordes of bloodthirsty locals. It’s amazing what we enjoyed doing before iPods.’