I was a city girl moving to the country for my Husband's
job and had befriended a lady who worked in the kitchen as
a cook. My first experience at the Court House Pub at
Dungog, was one of surprise as I sat for the first time at
the pub bar.
I had ordered a drink and was sitting around
listening to the local banter when a fellow appeared out of
nowhere behind my friend's daughter. He had a long dark
beard and a leather hat. He took a sip from a tankard and
vanished. I exclaimed to the people I was sitting with,
that there was a man who'd just appeared and vanished. They
laughed said that I'd probably seen the ghost of the
bushranger that had been hung. One of the local's then told
me how the Court House Pub was named. (I am not sure if
this is a true story but it is revered as a local legend)
The Court House is the site of where a bushranger had been
hung and whose body had been laid out on the very bar where
we sat. Apparently the magistrate was not in town and so
the locals and the authorities took matters into their own
hands. After the hanging they celebrated over the body.
I had turned a little pale at the thought, but thought
nothing of it until about a week later, when talking to my
friend in the kitchen and to leave, we exited through the
dinning room (the dining room is off a hallway at the back
of the pub and has access to the kitchen). I became very
cold even though it was 35C outside and inside, and had
this overwhelming urge to run and leave the room.
My friend
said that the dinning room was seldom used as people felt
more comfortable eating elsewhere in the pub as long as
they were not in the dinning room. I said to her that it
felt like something was in the corner of the room. After
that, I would never walk through the dinning room on my own
and my friend had said that she had always exited through
the outside kitchen door, even when serving meals.
Another experience I had had at this little pub was that
for whatever reason, and I cannot explain this, I could
not, no matter what, bring myself to go up the staircase to
the rooms above the pub. In all my two years of going to
that pub, I could never set foot on the stairs that led up
to the next level. Even when asked to, I would flatly
say 'no' and still would today if asked. I have always felt
a presence at the top of the staircase looking down at
me. And a coldness accompanied by the hair on the back of
my neck rise.
I would often express my feelings about the place being
haunted to the publican that owned the pub at that time. He
would laugh and say that there was no such things a ghosts
and that he lived there and had no such things happen to
him, but a lot of people who came to the pub to stay, would
say that they too felt it was definitely haunted.
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