Lion Hotel

The Lion Hotel is a coaching inn situated along Wyle Cop, and boasts prestigious guests such as the nineteenth century Prime Minister Disraeli, Madame Tussaud, and in 1858 Charles Dickens (one of the rooms at the front overlooking Wyle Cop is the Dickens Suite). One of the numerous sightings of ghosts is the Grey Lady at the foot of the oak stairway that leads up to the “handsome and commodious” Adam Ballroom on the first floor. Some claim a smell of lavender when the vision is seen; lavender implies cleanliness, purity, devotion, and healing. Her manifestation appears to be waiting for something – or someone. But what/ who? After a while she appears to turn and walk through a doorway – a doorway that no longer exists…..Her ‘journey’ has also been noted outside in the car park: looking up at the remains of the old archway, which is the old outer door. She then vanishes as she crosses the road. Perhaps she is the residual remains of Madam Tussaud? Some claim she is the ghost of a maid named Martha. Other claim they have seen the Grey Lady with a baby in her arms. The car park area dates back to when the Lion was a coaching inn as stables for the horses and buildings for the coaches, the daily (except Sundays) routes to Newtown and Welshpool and back originating from the Lion Hotel. It is claimed she awaits her lover to propose, but he never did, eventually she turns and walks away through the outer door. She has also been reported as wandering in the balcony area of the Adam Ballroom. The Adam Ballroom area has a second tale of foreboding connected with it: a locked/ sealed room above the same staircase. The story goes that something terrible happened inside, possibly a murder. Some staff claim an ‘oppressive’ feeling or presence and refused to enter the room. The owners eventually bricked the room up. However, guests have reported strange noises heard inside the sealed room. Reports – again from outside the hotel have been made by visitors looking up at a window from the alley outside: these claims include a lit candle, adding to the claims of strange noise. As well as the reports of the Grey/ Lavender Lady there are reports of ‘cold spots’ in the ballroom, and the sound of footsteps on the floor but nobody else being in the ballroom. Shropshire Hunt Balls took place in the ballroom. The floor of the ballroom was improved in 1907, when the hotel was taken over by Miss G. E. Roberts (formerly the manageress of the Feathers, in Ludlow). She also added electricity on the hotel and three new billiard tables in the billiard room, along with anti-vibration incandescent lights. The Assembly Room was reopened in 1913, the oak wooden floor having been polished and the “enriched plaster ceiling and mural decorations” repaired, renovated and re-decorated. The military ghost has also been seen in this room. Perhaps the ghost of Robert Clive, ‘Clive of India’ the general, who was the Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury between 1762 and his death in 1774. When Napoleon surrendered after Waterloo in 1815, Shrewsbury’s 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot guarded him during his exile on St. Helena. Perhaps these connections explain the military bearing of the ghost? A previous member of staff (Dorothy Horton) who was the chief linen mistress claimed to relatives she had seen a men dressed in black ‘Victorian style’ clothing, sometimes wearing a top hat and who knocked over her piles of folded linen. Charles Dickens perchance? She claimed a shared moment with the Beatles’ John Lennon, of seeing a moving painting in his room. The usual sound of creaking floorboards, muffled voices, bangs, and doors opening/ closing are often reported by staff and guests. The large cellar (accessible from behind the reception desk) in the Lion Hotel has passageways leading off from it. It is claimed one of more of these passageways have been bricked up but behind the wall(s) the passageways stretch for a considerable distance to unknown points of egress. One former member of staff claimed while working in the cellar feeling someone exhaling on the back of his neck. The cellar also holds a secret, it being once a chapel: the ghosts of two ladies praying have been witnessed in the cellar. Orbs have also been witnessed near to the doorway. The Tudor Bar opposite the reception desk has also had reports of spectral sightings – a soldier, claimed possibly to be from the English Civil War era but not definitive claim if he is a Parliamentarian or Cavalier. The Battle of Shrewsbury took place in July 1403 A.D. between the forces of the Lancastrian king, Edward IV and Henry "Harry Hotspur" Percy from Northumberland, King Edward IV being the victor. The adds an additional depth to the 'military' origin of ghost in the bar area. Staff have witnessed glasses move on tables and even smashing from the top down while on a shelf behind the bar. It is rumoured that in the late 1780s a traveller en route from Dublin, via Holyhead to London broke his journey at the Lion Hotel. He asked for a wake-up call at 0300 hours so he could catch the 0500 hours mail train. He went to sleep and could not be roused the following morning by the maid who called for the manager. The traveller was buried in St. Julian’s Churchyard, Shrewsbury. However, locals (the cobbler and diarist John Tarbuck and his niece) heard noises, screams, bangs and cries and demanded the coffin was dug up. When the exhumation was completed the coffin lid was removed – and inside it was scratch marks, the fingers and nails of the unfortunate occupant bloodied and torn. The unfortunate traveller probably suffered from a sleeping sickness (such as sleep apnoea) that gave the impression he was dead. The rumour persists that sometimes when people pass the graveyard at night, muffled groans can be heard.