 |  | BBC South Yorkshire's
Greedy Cow reports... | |
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It's the season of long, dark evenings, full moon and frosts - and what better way to fill the time than to curl up by a log fire and tell ghost stories? Of course, at some pubs in our area, it might not just be the punters who are listening... after all, if you were a spook, what better place to linger? Most haunted Phil Skelton of Carbrook Hall, reputedly Sheffield's most haunted pub, took time out from his pint-pulling to tell me about his ghoulish set of locals. "There are four ghosts that we know of here," he said. "I was sceptical at first, but over time, little things - like seeing things move that really shouldn't be moving - persuaded me.  | Phil braves the haunted stairs... |
"Our main ghost - the one we're most famous for - appears at the top of the stairs. I saw him on a busy night, when I'd just popped upstairs to get something. "I was climbing the stairs when I saw him at the top. "It was a short, stocky man with long brown hair and wearing heavy, dark 17th century clothing. That was eight years ago. "Then last summer, a man came into the pub and told me that he used to hold band practices upstairs, before I took over the pub 14 years ago. One day they were practising, then the ghost appeared. The band ran out, terrified. It was the first time he'd dared to come back." Colonel John Bright Phil believes he knows the identity of his spooky guest. "We think it's the ghost of Colonel John Bright, who fought in Oliver Cromwell's army in the civil war," he told me. "He used to plan military manoeuvres with Cromwell in the Oak Room."  | The Carbrook: Only scary on the inside... |
The other ghosts at Carbrook take quite different forms. Phil explained, "There is a man who seems to move from the pub's main entrance to what was the old kitchen. "You don't see him if you're looking directly - it's something you can only see out of the corner of your eye." Phil thought he was imagining the ghost at first. "I thought I was seeing things until our barman said he'd seen it too," he said. One of the Hall's ghosts is a shy spirit. "The third ghost was seen by the last landlord - an old lady in a mop cap sitting in a rocking chair. I've never seen her, though." Phil doesn't seem bothered by the ghosts - there's only one who is a problem, and it's been barred from the pub - to an extent... "It's our only mischievous ghost. It's been banished into a wall behind the main bar - though we don't know who did that - but it still manages to cause trouble. Poltergeist attacks "It likes to throw things around a bit. Sometimes I'll be serving a customer and a bottle will just fly over my shoulder. It's quite shocking for the customers." more spooky pub stories from the Boardwalk, the Point and the Ball Inn >> | 
