The Mill at Leighton, Shropshire

The corn mill was mentioned in the Domesday Book as existing in medieval times. It has been extended into the present Georgian-style mill. Two millstones turned by an undershot wheel were supplied with water from a pond across the road. In August 1889 a tender was put out to repair the dam for the pond which provided the running water to turn the millstones. The 17th century blast furnace in the basement of the pub was excavated in the 2002 episode "The Furnace in the Cellar" on Channel 4's Time Team (see link below). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ZbSlRjgWw The fenced off area is used to store spare chairs and tables today. The undershot wheel formerly powered the bellows for this iron furnace which closed in 1760. It produced cannon balls for Royalist forces commanded by General William Waller. The manufacture of cannon balls is the focus of the main - benign - ghost that is present at the pub, who has been named by staff as Mary. It is not known if Mary was a member of staff or worked in the foundry. Loud scrapings in rooms above the dog-friendly bar and the pleasant dining area have been heard, but the landlords were standing behind the bar - nobody was upstairs. Footsteps from empty upstairs rooms have also been heard. Some customers claim they have heard heavy items rolling along the floor upstairs - cannon balls? An apparition in 'old-style' clothes has been seen either moving from the toilets and drifting up the stairs, or down past the millstones and through the wall into the furnace cellar. Staff have reported hearing laughter, and lights that were definitely switched off as the last customer left and the landlord or landlady locked up, have been found switched back on the next morning. One landlady stated she had her skirt tugged. In July 1903 John Francis, farm labourer, went on a pub crawl in a waggon and horses with his half-brother Herbert Price, milk seller, and their friend Thomas Roberts. They started in the Dragon Inn near Hilltop for a ‘drop of brandy’ then Francis was left in Ironbridge for a haircut and shave (and to sober up?), then the three moved on to a drink at Buildwas, ending up at the Kynnersley Arms where they gave Francis a ‘drop more brandy’, after which he did not speak and he was piled onto the waggon; Price and Roberts later discovered Francis was dead and they were "too upset to think of reporting the matter to the police in Atcham." The doctor declared Francis had died from a perforation of the stomach. This may be the source story of customers hearing - especially on a warm summer's evening with the windows open - a horse-drawn waggon on the road, which stops outside, sometimes at the front but usually at the rear of the pub. The door is heard opening and shuffling is heard as if someone is walking up the stairs. Except no new customer enters the bar area. Is this the spirit of Francis returning to the last place he was alive? In March 1935 Mrs. Annie Vaughan died, aged 79. She was the widow of Mr. J. Vaughan of the Kynnersley Arms and succeeded him as the licensee until November 1931 when their son Thomas took over the business on her retirement. Thomas Stephen Vaughan died in January 1935; he was the third generation of Vaughans that ran the Kynnersley Arms Hotel. Are the Vaughans still present in the pub, caught in some sort of time loop, forever calling 'last orders'?