At the foot of the Skirrid Mountain in Monmouthshire, in the village of Llanvihangel Crucorney about five miles north of Abergavenny, stands a stone inn with a dark reputation. The Skirrid Inn, also known as the Skirrid Mountain Inn, claims to be the oldest pub in Wales. It also claims to be one of the most haunted buildings in Britain. The two claims are linked: the inn’s long history, as it is told, includes a courtroom, a hanging judge, and a beam over the staircase from which condemned people were hanged.
Both claims need care. The inn is old, and it is certainly associated with a remarkable number of ghost stories. But the exact age of the building, the number of people said to have been hanged there, and whether the famous judge ever presided there are all disputed. The Skirrid is a place where legend and history have been woven together for so long that they are hard to separate — and that, in a sense, is the point of the place.
The Oldest Pub in Wales?
The Skirrid Mountain takes its name from the Welsh word for a landslip or a split, and local tradition calls it the Holy Mountain. According to one story, the mountain cracked in two at the moment of the crucifixion. The inn takes its name from the mountain, and it stands in its shadow.
The inn claims a history stretching back more than nine hundred years, to about 1110 or 1100. Documents are said to name an inn on the site from around 1100, and some accounts give 1110 as the date of the first hanging in the building. The inn is listed in the Ye Olde Good Inn Guide, whose author James Moore suggested it could be one of the oldest surviving pubs in Britain.
That claim is disputed. The current stone building is generally thought to date mainly to the seventeenth century, and Cadw, the Welsh historic monuments authority, is reported to hold that the inn does not date to before the 1600s. The most that can safely be said is that an inn may have stood on the site much earlier, and that the present building is substantially seventeenth-century. The claim of a foundation in 1100 or 1110 is part of the inn’s tradition, not a fact established by the building itself. The distinction matters, because the Skirrid’s story depends on its age. A pub that has stood for nine centuries can plausibly have been a courtroom, a rallying point and a place of execution. A seventeenth-century building can still have been all of those things, but the story becomes shorter, and some of its earliest chapters fall away.
A Courtroom and a Hanging Beam
According to local tradition, the upper floor of the inn was used as a courtroom. The most famous name attached to that courtroom is Judge George Jeffreys, known as the Hanging Judge for his brutal rulings during the Bloody Assizes in the late 1600s, after the Monmouth Rebellion. The story says Jeffreys dispensed justice at the Skirrid and sentenced more than 180 people to death there.
Historians debate whether Jeffreys ever presided at the Skirrid at all. That debate is recorded in several accounts of the inn, and it should be noted whenever the story is told. What is not in doubt is that the inn is associated in tradition with a courtroom on its upper floor, and with hangings carried out inside the building.
The hangings are said to have taken place from a sturdy oak beam above the main staircase. The condemned, according to the tradition, were hanged from a rope attached to the beam, and the beam still bears a notch or rope marks said to have been left by the execution rope. A noose is displayed behind the bar as a reminder of those times. The number of people said to have been hanged varies from account to account: 180 is the figure most often given, but 182 and 200 are also reported. The variation is itself a warning. No list of the hanged has been produced, and no single number can be verified. The figure should always be given as a claimed number, not as a count.
The offences for which people were said to have been hanged ranged from sheep stealing to treason. That range, if accurate, would reflect the harshness of the law in earlier centuries, when many offences carried the death penalty. It is also the kind of detail that grows in retelling, and it should be treated with the same caution as the total itself. Local legend also holds that the inn served as a rallying point for supporters of Owain Glyndŵr, the Welsh leader who led a revolt against English rule in the fifteenth century. That story is part of the inn’s folklore. It is not supported by a contemporary record linking Glyndŵr to this specific building.
The Ghosts of the Skirrid
With such a history, real or legendary, it is no surprise that the Skirrid Inn has a formidable reputation for hauntings. Staff, guests and paranormal investigators have reported a wide range of experiences, and the inn has appeared on television ghost-hunting programmes, including Most Haunted, whose host Yvette Fielding has called it her favourite Welsh location for ghostly activity. The inn also hosts organised ghost hunts and overnight paranormal events.
The most often named ghost is the Hanging Judge himself. He is said to haunt the upper floor, where visitors report hearing footsteps pacing the floorboards, the sound of a gavel, and a disembodied voice reading verdicts. Whether Jeffreys ever sat in judgement at the Skirrid, his name has become attached to the building, and the reports follow the name. The hangman is also said to haunt the inn.
Other reported figures include a heartbroken woman, sometimes called the Lady in White, who is said to mourn a son who was hanged at the inn and is seen near the fireplace, drifting through walls and vanishing. Guests also report a heavy presence on the stairs, sudden cold spots that seem to move through the rooms, a feeling of being watched, and the sensation of an invisible noose tightening around their necks.
One of the most repeated stories concerns a guest who stayed overnight in one of the rooms above the bar and woke in the morning to find red, rope-like marks around his neck, as though he had been hanged in his sleep. The story is widely told, but it is anecdotal, and no medical or independent record of it has been published in the sources consulted.
There are also said to be friendlier ghosts. Father Henry Vaughn, a local clergyman, is named among them. The main resident ghost, according to the inn’s former owner Geoff Fiddler, is a woman called Fanny Price, a Victorian landlady or barmaid who died of consumption in the 1800s, and whose gravestone lies about three hundred metres up the road. Fanny Price is associated in particular with Room 3, and with a smell of lavender. Room 2 is said to be the most haunted room in the inn, although Room 1 is also reported to have many experiences. Other reports include glasses flying from shelves, disembodied footsteps, horses heard cantering outside, dizziness and nausea on the stairs, a shadow walking up and down the corridor, a dark figure at the end of a bed, and even a ghost cat.
A Pub That Is Still a Pub
It is easy to forget, among the ghost stories, that the Skirrid Inn is still a working pub and inn, with rooms for guests, food and drink, and a regular clientele. Its address is Llanvihangel Crucorney, Abergavenny, NP7 8DH. Visitors come for the history and the atmosphere as much as for the hauntings, and the inn does not hide its past. The beam is still there. The noose is still behind the bar. The stories are told freely.
That openness is part of the inn’s character. Some haunted places are careful about their ghosts. The Skirrid is not. It leans into its reputation, and that is one reason the reputation has grown. A place that welcomes ghost hunters will, unsurprisingly, collect ghost stories. The honest way to visit the Skirrid is to enjoy both parts of it at once: the stone building, the mountain behind it, and the long, tangled history that may or may not stretch back to 1100; and the stories that have grown around the staircase, the courtroom and the beam. The building is real. The beam is real. The stories are real as stories, told by real people. Whether the judge, the hangman, Fanny Price or the Lady in White are still there is a question the Skirrid leaves, as it always has, to the visitor.
What Is Documented and What Is Not
Documented: The Skirrid Inn stands at Llanvihangel Crucorney, near Abergavenny, at the foot of the Skirrid Mountain. It claims to be the oldest pub in Wales, with a claimed foundation around 1100–1110, but the current building is generally dated mainly to the seventeenth century, and Cadw is reported to hold that it does not date to before the 1600s. Tradition associates the inn with a courtroom on the upper floor and with hangings from a beam over the staircase. The inn has appeared on Most Haunted and hosts ghost-hunting events.
Unverified or legendary: That an inn stood on the site in 1100 or 1110; that Owain Glyndŵr used the inn as a rallying point; that Judge George Jeffreys presided at the Skirrid; that 180, 182 or 200 people were hanged there — the number varies between sources and no verified list exists; that the marks on the beam are rope marks from executions; and all reported ghostly experiences, including the Judge, the hangman, Fanny Price, Father Henry Vaughn, the Lady in White, cold spots, moving glasses, and the guest who is said to have woken with rope marks around his neck.
Sources
- https://halloweenuk.com/the-10-most-haunted-places-in-the-uk/
- https://www.classic.co.uk/nas/food-and-drink/quirkiest-pubs-in-the-uk-3877.html
- https://pub-reviews.co.uk/legendary-historic-pubs-in-the-uk-famous-british-taverns
- https://britbrief.co.uk/entertainment/television/welsh-pub-named-among-uks-most-haunted-with-tower-of-london.html
- http://thetrueparanormal.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-skirrid-inn.html