Another strange “paranormal “experience I was involved in was many years ago. I was a Police officer for all my working life , one night I was on mobile patrol in the small town of Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire. The following is a true account of an incident that occurred there, but first….
The Rochdale Canal runs through Sowerby Bridge, and on its bank there is a nice pub called the Navigation Inn. The Inn dates from the 15 th Century and was the site of the Moot Hall before it was a Public House, It was It has been the scene of many strange occurrences. I used to frequent the inn on the odd occasion, and even when the pub was full of customers strange things used to happen, the kitchen of the pub was behind the bar and up some steps,amd you could see into the kitchen from the public side of the bar ,the lights were always on in the kitchen, the shelves in the kitchen can be seen from the bar, sometimes even when the kitchen is not being used shadows could be seen flitting across the front of the cupboards and tins of condiments etc would slide along the shelf as if by magic whwn the kitchen has no staff working .
Back to that evening . It was a warm summers night ,At about 0200 am the control room sent us on a “Shout” to the Navigation Inn, the landlord who lived upstairs could hear intruders in the bar area, as we were not too far away we responded , along with another mobile and together we arrived. No lights or two tones, just a quiet approach.
We parked up a short distance away and approached on foot , as we approached we could hear the sound of banging and crashing coming from the bar area, The landlord was leaning out of an upstairs window , he told us that the noises had been going on for a good ten minutes, he was scared to go downstairs to see what was happening.The curtains were drawn in the bar and we could not see inside, the lights inside were off anyway . We seperated and searched the whole of the premises outside, there was no sign of any forced entry and all the bar doors and kitchen access door were locked , the banging noises were getting louder and it was apparent that something was going on in the bar. As everywhere was locked we could not get in, and the landlord refused to come downstairs to let us in as the access was down a staircase next to the bar door.The pub doors were double locked and bolted from the inside so we could not open them from the outside anyway .
Anybody inside would need to get out, so we called for another mobile, when there were six of us coppers outside, we eventually convinces the landlord we could not get in and he had to open up and let us in. He came downstairs armed with a large steak hammer for tenderising meat of all things and let us in, he unlocked the door to the bar area where there were still noises coming out. As we entered everything went quiet. The lights were put on and inside the bar area was in carnage, chairs upturned, tables tipped over A decorative coal scuttle by the fire had been tipped up and lumps of coal were all over the floor, In the kitchen tins and packets of foodstuffs were scattered around and the cutlery drawers were open and cooking utensils thrown around.
We thoroughly searched the whole premises, there was nobody there apart from the landlord himself, he had been upstairs leaning out of the window talking to us when we had heard the noises coming from the downstairs bar area so that discounted any involvement he could have had . We did all notice however that the temperature in the bar was far colder that anywhere else in the pub,
The Landlord was well aware of the pubs reputation and had experiended the odd strange goings on but had never been bothered , this was on a whole new level and he sold on and moved soon afterwards.
We never discovered what had been the cause of the above, but the landlord did say that recently there had been an increase in the sightings of moving shadows in the kitchen , the kitchenware moving along the shelves etc .
So there you have it .
David