THE GHOSTS OF THE WELLINGTON HOTEL

The Wellington Hotel, Boscastle in Cornwall, is a famous old coaching inn.  It has attracted more than its fair share of ghostly inhabitants.  Some years ago, the Hotel`s owner, Victor Tobutt,  was working at the reception desk when the figure of a man drifted silently past him.  Looking up he was surprised to see that the man wore leather gaitors and boots, a frock coat and frilled shirt,  such as might have been worn by an 18th century coachman, and his hair tied back in the old-fashioned style.   "There was nothing insubstantial about him" Victor told,   " he looked remarkably solid".  To his shock, the apparition disappeared through the wall,  but when he began to describe what he had seen to one of his employees,  the man completed the description for him.  Apparently he to had seen the ghostly visitor on moren than one occasion.

Another employee at The Wellington Hotel,  retired policeman Bill Searle has twice witnessed a misty shape wearing what appears to be a cloak drift nacross the landing and disappear through the wall of a guest room.  It is thought to be the spirit of a young girl who, crossed in love, flung herself in despair from the ramparts of the hotel`s tower.  Victor also believes that another part of the building is haunted by a murdered man,  and there is also an " animal friendly" spirit,  which was eagerly pursued by the small dog belonging to the writer of ghost stories who stayed in the hotel.  Ironically, the writer himself didn`t see it,  but his wife witnessed a shape move across the room,  followed by the dog excitedly wagging his tail !

Several of the staff and customers have also witnessed a dark shape float down the stairs and disappear into the cellar late at night.  Curiously, the two oldest hostelries in Boscastle bear the names of history`s most famous adversaries.  At the top of Boscastle`s steep "corkscrew" hill,  high above The Wellington Hotel stands The Napoleon Inn.  It is said that the inn served as a recruiting office in the Napoleonic Wars, but the sympathies and interests of many Cornish smugglers lay more with their French suppliers than with King and Country.  Legend has it that The Napoleon Inn was so named because it was actually used to recruit volunteers for the enemy !