The Storyteller: Who were the ghostly laughing children in the Old Exeter Inn?

In the early days of my group TIP (Torbay Investigators of the Paranormal), we were fortunate in that most allegedly haunted properties were quite happy to let us in to have a look around, as they were just as curious as we were to know what was causing the odd activity they were experiencing. 

Then along came Most Haunted, who were quite happy to throw money at property owners in order to gain access so they could make their dubious TV programmes. 

Suddenly, the same places that before welcomed us with open arms were now happy to do so, but at a price. This didn’t sit well with me as it required sharing any cost amongst the group, meaning our hobby was no longer free. 

Sadly, that side of our activity became restricted to invitations to visit private houses where the occupants were being tormented by presences they couldn’t explain, and so they requested our help. Investigations of this type have to be handled in a slightly different way from those in a bigger property, restricting access to selected members of the group only.

Imagine my excitement when, back in September, I received a phone call from Elaine, who handles PR for the Old Exeter Inn, Ashburton, asking if I’d like to come and investigate the property as another group had pulled out and they had a date set for it. 

Above: The Old Exeter Inn Ashburton 

As it turned out, that date ended up being postponed until the other weekend when it became part of our Halloween celebrations... and what a fabulously fascinating experience it proved to be, full of odd coincidences, right from the outset...

Back at the start of the summer, just when I was launching my season of new Ghost Walks, I was contemplating adding Ashburton to my repertoire, so I visited the Old Exeter Inn with a view to holding one of my free storytelling sessions there in the hope I would attract an audience eager to share their stories with me, which I could use on any subsequent walks. The manager I met was very positive about the idea, offering to display one of my posters, and suggested I come back in September once the busy time of year had finished, thinking my event might drum up some interest for the autumn period... a few weeks before I intended to return, Elaine rang me out of the blue, totally unconnected.

During the course of our initial conversation, we discussed the possibility of me holding one of my evenings there as well as doing an investigation, so we arranged to have a face-to-face meeting in the pub to discuss further. The first chosen date I had to postpone, due to some paid work coming my way at short notice. Instead, we met for lunch the following Monday.

As Elaine and I were making plans, in the space known as The Confessional, in walks none other than Stephanie Austin, a local author of murder mysteries set in Ashburton, whose work I was aware of as I had just been reading some, in particular one that involved references to the legendary river ogre known as Cutty Dyer, which had caught my eye. I had even been contemplating including some of her inspirations in any future walk that I might devise in the area. After being introduced, Elaine explained that Stephanie was holding a book signing for her latest novel in the pub in a couple of weeks time, so she felt that involving us both in the same meeting would kill two birds with one stone... but it did more than that, as both Stephanie and I had been mulling over the prospect of a walk, centred around the characters and locations mentioned in the books, in and around Ashburton, and the result of that brainstorming meeting was the joint walk we did on Halloween, as outlined in previous articles...

Above: The Storyteller and Stephanie Austin plotting in The Confessional 

The Saturday after our walk was the rescheduled date for our investigation, preceded by my evening of storytelling. That same day, Ethan Pennell, of Dartmoor Folklore Map fame, was holding an event at the nearby Field System gallery and workshop space, another Ashburton property worthy of further investigation, ably assisted by students from a Plymouth University fashion course who were illustrating several of the legendary females off the map whilst he shared their stories with a gathered audience.

Once their event was done, they retired to the Old Exeter for some well-deserved refreshments, adding a suitably spooky atmosphere to the start of my proceedings. I held the attention of a mixture of new and old members of the group, regaling them with stories and experiences, while we waited for the pub to close before the main event could begin, and the two events dovetailed together quite nicely.

While they waited for a chance to investigate, some members had a preliminary look around the downstairs area before waiting patiently to be granted access to upstairs, where some interesting activity had been reported, but for one member of the team, their particular investigation started as soon as they stepped over the doorstep...

Sarah C, accompanied by members of her family, equally sensitive to spirit as she is, had only just said “hello” to everyone when she said she was being drawn outside by an entity that had accosted her as soon as she walked in. Making her apologies, she set off on the trail of what turned out to be a most interesting story...

Once the pub was closed, we were allowed to explore upstairs, where we had to be mindful of the resident pub cat, Witherington, who took the invasion of his personal space by so many strangers in his stride.

Above: Witherington the resident cat looking very chilled on his bed

Whilst I led various small groups up the rickety original staircase, in turn everyone else busied themselves with the areas downstairs; now they had been emptied, gathering evidence of the various spirits, excluding the ones behind the bar that frequented one of the oldest pubs in the world. Back in the day, it was frequented by some of the most infamous seadogs that history has to offer, namely Drake and Raleigh. In fact, Sir Walter was actually arrested in the Old Exeter, enjoying a pint, and marched off to the Tower of London, where his eventual fate was being beheaded at the behest of James I, jealous that he was a favourite of his predecessor, Elizabeth I. We couldn’t help but wonder if any traces of their various nefarious activities had left a mark on the fabric of the building...

As we checked out the upstairs areas and my good friend Matt filmed some of the proceedings, several of us heard a very odd sucking noise—not the sound of the door opening that kept upstairs and downstairs separated; we ruled that out, but a sound I’ve heard before that often precedes something moving between the earthly and the spirit plains, like an apport, but on this occasion nothing obvious presented itself. At one point, as Matt and I were climbing the stairs with another group, we both heard the sound of children laughing, sadly not captured on camera, but no children were present... and that’s a sound that has been reported by other residents...

Once everyone had explored the whole property and had made copious notes of their findings, it was time for my favourite part of the investigation, the debrief, where those notes are shared. Gathering in one of the many snugs in the pub, it was time to find out what my sensitives felt was haunting the Old Exeter Inn... but I’m afraid you will have to wait until next week to read about that...