Swan Inn	Cellar Staircase
Burnley Express newspaper report

The Swan Inn, St James’s Street, Burnley, Lancashire. Saturday, August 12th, 2006.

 One of the town’s oldest buildings, standing for over 300 years, which has seen life as a prison and a makeshift morgue.

The Clitheroe Paranormal team – which now boasts two resident psychics - just couldn’t resist a visit to Burnley’s Swan Inn. Burnley Express reporter Dominic Wiggan found it impossible to turn down the invitation to join them.

 I quickly flashed the torch over my left shoulder and franticly scoured the brickwork looming over my head. There was nothing I could reach; yet something had just brushed past me. Four of us stood silent in an old cellar which very few staff ever dare to venture. Hardly surprising considering the fact that the small, cramped, dank and very, very dark coved room was once used as a makeshift morgue centuries before. With the lights on it seemed harmless enough - years of neglect and filling with piles of old junk. Yet, knock those lights off and the transformation is breathtaking. It feels empty, desolate, and dead. The mind cannot help but conjure up the reams and reams of lifeless bodies that once lay strewn upon the floor. A bricked up staircase is where the dead were brought in. It aches with sorrow. A rustle breaks my chain of thought as well as the eerie silence. It’s so dark I cant even be sure anyone else is down here with me. “Did anyone hear that?” I venture. They did. And they hear the next few. Then I’m slightly knocked off balance. Someone just walked past me. I flick the torch on and spin round. I’m stood against an arching wall. I look for an old hook, a brick out of place, anything that could have brushed me. But there was nothing. Trust me, dear reader, someone brushed past me. Four becomes two as the group splits up. I’m “lucky” enough to stay in the cellar. The noises become more frequent as the temperature fluctuates wildly. My partner in the cellar suddenly lets out a small yelp. Again torchlight floods the room as she explains something has just brushed past her head. The roof, which lies at least a foot above her, is discounted. Just what is going on down here? Just as we hope, or not, that the situation is building to a crescendo, everything stops. Again it’s lifeless. We feel alone and abandon the old morgue, passing the small room between the bar and poolroom which at one time was used to stockpile coffins.

We had arrived at the Swan Inn a few hours ago and had already searched the majority of the venue. It may appear small from the outside but appearances can be very deceiving. Upon arrival a small group decided to scout the storage rooms underneath the pub. A creaky, old staircase that could have been dragged straight from a haunted house leads us into the barrel room, where a very bizarre wooden mask sits atop a shelf. The owners claim to have no knowledge of the carving and although the resident psychics pick nothing up from the mask, its limp face is enough to get me moving. We wander into a small, tight corridor when a psychic freezes. “He’s telling me to stop,” he says. My eyes dart around. “He is telling us to go no further.” Unperturbed the group continue. I hesitantly follow. The psychic visualises a line of men being led along the corridor in shackles, perhaps a hark back to the days when the building was used as the town’s prison. The pub was built around the end of the 18th Century and the first landlord was a magistrate, Christopher Edmondson. Back then magistrates heard cases in their own home, so the lock-up will have been used to hold prisoners before they were tried. A small, bricked up room catches the group’s attention. I swear I saw a flash through the gaps in the stonework, yet little else happens. We later discover that the group’s other psychic also has an experience in the tunnel. Her recount is disturbing. “What a horrible place,” she says, clearly shaken. “A man has grabbed me by the throat to stop me going any further.” As she wanders back to meet up with the rest of the team she notices a dark figure rush past the stairway. She refuses to return downstairs and informs the group she was also aggressively told to leave the coffin room earlier as she picked up the name Dr Hartley. She is uneasy, but is determined to continue the investigation. I take turns to check what the psychics are up to. They never share a word during the investigations, and comparison of notes is rigoursly saved until the very end. On separate occasions, both feel the presence of a tall, powerful man. He is striding around the location of the old police cells, which now house the men’s toilets and a storage cupboard. Their descriptions are shockingly similar. A hooded figure prowls the area. He feels strong, in control. This is very much his domain. The group feel this would be an ideal place to experiment with the Ouija board. Being a complete wimp, I step aside and let the hardcore members take part. A call out to the spirit world is made. Nothing…hang on…. no way…. did that glass just MOVE??? I leap off my chair and sit on the ground, close to the table. Can my eyes be deceiving me? I check everyone’s hands, and they are hovering so lightly against the glass they cannot be pushing it. Another very slight turn. A suggestion is mooted that the spirit trying to break through might just not be strong enough. The group are flying now and want to keep the momentum flowing and quickly turn their attentions to table tipping, with the idea that a spirit flows through a person’s energy to make a table move. Frustrating nothing is picked up.

 The team decide to go for one last push…a séance. “I must be mad,” I thought as I sat down to take my place in the circle. As the psychics drift off to try and make contact with the spirit realm two members of the circle, including myself, feel a sharp breeze creeping up our legs. It wraps itself around our hands. A temperature reading machine confirms the sudden drop. Then it spreads, circling the group. “He’s toying with us,” offers a psychic. “He’s stood over us, laughing and mocking our efforts.” The group concede defeat. You can only find those who want to be found. As the investigation winds down a few gaze at the live camera feed that has been focused on a small staircase where people have reportedly seen a little girl sitting. The night vision screen is alive with lights flashing past. Dust? Flies? Or maybe orbs - supposedly the first stage of a ghost manifestation? Earlier in the night the psychics separately picked up visions of windmills, people pushing barrels of hay and small, round hats. It meant nothing at the time. Bet then one the girls went into the ladies toilets. And the drawing on the wall tiles? Yep, people in small, round hats pushing barrels of hey with large windmills in the background. I shake my head in bewilderment. The Swan is steeped in history and holds many secrets.

Maybe one day they will choose to reveal themselves