The White Hart Inn.

The White Hart Inn in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, has a somewhat interesting and unusual history – a haven for highwaymen, and for those customers who became too rowdy, the landlord kept a bear in the cellar to keep them under control. Today a stuffed bear is kept in a hole in the floor to pique the interest of the weary and/ or thirsty traveller, visible through a glass cover. The pub has a reputation of being the most haunted pub in Britain. It is claimed the pub was used to hold prisoners prior to them being executed at the nearby Ashby Castle. Reports of spirit activity include the clatter of horses’ hooves outside, sometimes the sound of a horse in some distress, sometimes both, but no horse is seen when puzzled customers come out into the street. Some staff claim to have seen a gentleman ‘dressed in clothes from before World War 1’ seemingly familiar with the layout of the pub, drinking from a small bottle – a long-dead customer? A former landlord? Other sounds include laughing children/ phantom children, growling and scratching underneath the floorboards, as well as an ‘elderly lady’ – perhaps the woman in a ‘Tudor period’ red velvet dress mistaken for a re-enactor by the English Heritage staff at the nearby castle? According to a blue plaque outside, the White Hart was also a noted hostelry for highwaymen in the early 18th Century, including Tom Barrett, one of the prominent ne’er do wells of the “band of daring robbers” that included Dick Turpin. The other members included Job Marney for Yorkshire, Dan Mead who hailed from Boston, Bob o’ Rotherham, and Nob Anson. An associate named Coney used to get rid of the ‘swag’ for them. In 1838 Thomas Boulter, highwayman, was captured at Birmingham when he went there to sell some jewellery. He was imprisoned in a private house, where he managed to loosen a beam and escape through the hole thus made. He stole a horse and got to Leicester, and then to Ashby, afterwards making his way to the South Coast, where he was captured, and eventually executed. Boulter once held up three travelling carriages in a few minutes, and escaped on his mare Sunshine after a race with his pursuers. An inquest in September 1866 was held at the White Hart Inn, before Mr. J. Gregory Esquire, touching the death of John George Paynter, who was found dead on the Ashby and Leicester turnpike-road. Several witnesses were examined, amongst them Mr. W. Joyce, surgeon, who said that he had made a post mortem examination of the body, and he was led to believe that the deceased had died from congestive apoplexy from being struck a blow to the head and falling. — Verdict accordingly. Sixty years later in May 1898 a mare belonging to Mr. F. Kibblewhite, proprietor of the White Hart Inn, Ashby, was startled when in the field near Ashby Castle, shortly after galloping round the field, attempted to jump a gate, but its hind leg, touching the top bar, caused it to fall. The animal died within about half an hour. An inquiry was held at the Queen’s Hotel in August 1902, by Mr. H. J. Deane, coroner, concerning the death of Frederick Crewe Kibblewhite, landlord of the White Hart Inn, Market Street, Ashby de la Zouch, who died at his home. It was stated that the deceased took something out of a bottle, and it was found that he was suffering from the effects of an irritant poison, ‘death resulting therefrom’. The jury returned a verdict that the deceased died from the effects of poison, and that such poison was taken whilst he was in an unsound state of mind. Is Kibblewhite the bottle-sipping gentleman who roams the rooms in the White Hart, mourning the death of his mare? Is the horse in distress that of Kibblewhite, or the phantom steed Sunshine, belonging to Boulton the highwayman, or the horse of Tom Barrett or even that of Dick Turpin? It isn't true the bear walked into the White Hart Inn, and the landlord said "What'll it be?" The bear stretched up to the bar, rapped his sharp claws on the bar counter and replied "I'll have a pint of.............................. bitter please." The landlord started to pull the pint and replied "Why the long paws?"