The Crown ghost is a mystery – but quite friendly.
Tom and Hazel Green didn’t believe in ghosts until they took over the Crown public house at Great Staughton three months ago. Now, they are not so sure. Clothing has mysteriously disappeared, to turn up later in the place where it was left. Bottles have clinked in the bar when the family has been upstairs in bed. And a portable radio suddenly seemed to turn itself on, when it hadn’t been used for a week.
The nearest thing to an out-and-out disaster came when Mr and Mrs Green were in the bar one night, discussing ghosts with some of their customers. Above the bar is an electric clock, securely fixed to the wall. “Someone asked me if I believed in ghosts, and I said that I didn’t really,” Mrs Green said. Then the clock came off the wall. It didn’t just fall off, it shot off. There were two big Irishmen in here that night. Well, one of them went as white as a … well, a ghost!”
The pub is well over 200 years old, and might be older. Mr and Mrs Green hope to be able to trace the history of the building to see if they can find any evidence.
There was the time that the couple were in bed, asleep. Their son Tommy, who is assistant manager of a hotel at Welwyn Garden City, was yet to arrive home. “All of a sudden, we heard the sound of beer bottles being rattled and clinked around in the bar. Tom got up and went down to see what was wrong. He thought a burglar had got in. But when he got there, there was nothing, and the doors and windows were still all firmly shut. We had left the hall light on for Tommy. It had gone out. So my husband turned it on again and came back to bed. But Tommy told us that it was off when he got home later that night,” said Mrs Green.
Another time, Mrs Green left a pile of clean underclothes on the sideboard and served customers in the bar. When she went to get them they had gone. “Karen, my daughter, and I searched every drawer in the house, but they were not there. Then, a week later, they appeared again, in the same place.”
Cambridge Daily News, 23rd January 1971.