Ghostly Tales of the Bell Inn at Barton Gate (The Top Bell) I was recently contacted by David Painter who informed me that his parents ran the Top Bell Public House in Barton in the early 60s, but because of the unusual activity and strange goings on they experienced, they had left the pub after just one year. The terrible occurrences at the pub which included: ghostly appearances, loud footsteps on the landing and such things as ‘the sherry barrel taps being turned on during the night’ also affected a family pet and gun dog who would not go near certain parts of the building, and it all finally resulted in David’s Sister: Caroline, spending some time unconscious in Hospital with severe head injuries! David informed me that his parents Sue and Bill were now in their eighties and living in Monmouth in South Wales, but they would be happy to talk to me about their experiences. Sue and Bill are not considered nervous or easily frightened types given to embellishing stories, Sue was a Schoolteacher and Bill a successful Salesman. I spoke with Sue Painter, who was more than happy to relate some of the unusual occurrences and circumstances to me, and is happy for me to share the information. It seems that in 1964 Sue and Bill Painter went into the Bell Inn at Barton Gate (known locally as the Top Bell) as the new tenants, and the pub was owned at that time by the Ind Coope Brewery. When they first took over Sue said it was a difficult time for them as the pub only had a beer licence and they had to apply for a spirit license, which they eventually got, but it took a long time and a lot of messing about for them before it eventually came through. Sue remembers very clearly that on their first night in the pub, she did not sleep a wink, Sue said that she knows it sounds daft, but she lay awake because she was fully aware of a woman in a long dark dress standing outside the bedroom, door all night. Sue explained to Bill her husband the next morning that although she didn’t actually see the figure with her eyes….she knew that she was there and what she looked like? Sue was at a loss to explain it and Bill said she was just over tired. Sue told me this was just one of many strange feelings, noises and happenings at the pub during their stay. The family had two dogs but one: a gun dog, who was very well trained and obedient would not pass one of the steps in the stairway which led to a bedroom (which they later discovered had been occupied by the woman in black)she said the dog would not go near that room at any price. One day when Sue was working downstairs she heard her daughter (who was 6 or 7 at the time) crying loudly. When Sue investigated, Caroline told her Mother that she was upset because the little girl that she had seen upstairs, all dressed in white, would not come to her, she said she had tried to get her to come to her because she looked sad, but the girl in white would not, and had made Caroline cry? Sue said that the one year that they spent at the Top Bell was the most difficult time for them, everything that could go wrong did so, but they carried on working hard and trying to make things work, not really having time to sit and consider the number of strange events that were happening at the time. One day, during the school summer holiday, she was working downstairs at the pub, when her niece (who had been playing in a bedroom upstairs with Sue’s daughter Caroline) came rushing down to tell her to come quickly as Caroline had fallen out of the window? Sue rushed outside to find her daughter had fallen and hit her head on a new laid concrete path that had only been constructed the day before by workmen from the brewery. Caroline had cracked her skull open very badly and was in hospital for some long while in a coma. Sue and Bill were confused as to what had happened, the niece said she was playing on the other side of the room and she did not really see how it happened. The girls had been allowed to play in that particular room because the window was previously nailed or screwed shut. It seemed on investigation that the brewery workmen who had been working at the pub the day before had opened and worked on the window leaving it open afterwards. It also seemed strange to Sue and Bill that she had fallen onto the concrete strip which the brewery workmen had also only laid down the very day before? Whilst Sue and Bill were busy dealing with and visiting their daughter, their friends Les and Mavis Appleby from the Golden Cup in Yoxall looked after the pub for them. Son David said that they also reported strange noises and happenings at the pub during this time. When Caroline had been in the hospital for quite some time, the staff contacted Mr and Mrs Painter to say Caroline had regained consciousness. They went straight down to see her, and to start with Caroline had no recollection of what had happened, but then slowly her memory came back to her, and she did not like to say so at first, but she was sure that she had been pushed out of the window, and not by her cousin (she formed the opinion it was the girl in the white dress) Caroline did not like to talk about it because she thought people would think her daft for saying it. Sue said that this incident was really just about the last straw with the pub, and at this same point in time they had been working there for 12 months and now the Brewery wanted to greatly increase their rent for the next year. It seemed that despite all of the hardships, ghostly appearances and weird happenings, they had still managed to get the spirit license and slowly improved the trade of the pub considerably. The Brewery then just came back to them wanting to raise the rent to a huge sum for their next 12 months period. Sue said it was all too much and with Caroline’s accident having such an impact on the family they decided that they just had to get out of the pub immediately. Caroline eventually made a full recovery, and Sue and Bill Painter did not take another pub but went on with their working lives with their other careers. Sometime later, the couple were visiting the Golden Cup in Yoxall to go for a drink with their friends, when a woman who was sat drinking at the bar said ’Hello Sue and Bill, and when are you going back to the Top Bell?’ Sue said they would never go back there as the place was haunted, to their surprise the woman commented that she knew this! It turned out that her name was Osborne, and she was a daughter of Mr Osborne the landlord that had been at the Top Bell previous to them taking the pub in 1964. The woman told them that her Dad had been at the pub for many years, but it was not a happy time for her family. She explained that many years earlier her Mother: Mrs Osborne had died suddenly whilst asleep in a chair in a bedroom (they realised this was the room where the dog would not go, and Mrs Osborne was the woman in the long black dress). The woman at the bar also said that many years earlier a relative was living at the pub with a sickly child who died as a little girl, and they realised that this was the little girl in the white dress! Sue recalled it sent a chill down her spine to hear her thoughts confirmed by someone else who had lived there, and it brought back so many memories of all the odd goings on that happened during their stay at the pub. Editors Note: These are the thoughts and recollections of members of the Painter family. They have been kind enough to tell me their own story, and ask nothing of anyone else, they fully expect that people will make up their own minds about the happenings. They assured me they had no beliefs or leanings towards the existence of ghosts or otherwise, they simply tell their story as it happened to them. I thank them for sharing and respect their privacy.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 19:53:21 +0000
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