TWO PUB owners have been left spooked after their CCTV camera captured creepy footage of an alleged ‘ghost child’ patrolling their closed boozer.
Husband-and-wife duo Michael and Steph Savage had finished closing up The Church Inn in Swinton, Greater Manchester last Wednesday when they heard movement downstairs.
The couple claim to have heard a series of laughing and banging noises – and were shocked to see what had been caught on camera.
Footage from the pub’s in-house CCTV, taken from behind the bar, shows the empty pub doused in darkness with punters long gone, and the only light being the odd car headlights passing the windows.
In the top right corner of the footage however, at a table set near the bar, an unidentifiable presence appears to be drifting around.
Upon closer inspection, a vague shape looks to be wandering back and forth by the table, seemingly pacing nonchalantly.
Very muffled noise can be heard emitting from the footage, although what exactly the noise is, is indiscernible.
Michael, 37, and Steph, 26, were shocked as they watched on, scrambling for an explanation but struggling to find one, as this marks just the latest in a slew of creepy goings-on at the pub.
The couple claim that they can often feel a ghostly presence at the bar, adding that
glasses are often smashed without explanation and names are often heard being called.
The boozer, which was originally built in the early 1600s, has several reports of spectral activity – including one in the the 1980s when a ghost supposedly “attacked” two men in the pub’s cellar.
It is recorded that the pair were attacked after hearing “phantom voices” on the telephone alongside eerie footsteps, with one of the men even requiring stitches after an undisclosed head injury.
The report reads: “Attack in the Cellar. Location: Swinton (Greater Manchester) – Bull’s Head public house. Type: Haunting Manifestation.
“Date/Time: 1980s. Further Comments: Two men were attacked in the cellar by an unknown presence, one requiring several stitches to a head wound.
“Phantom voices have also been heard on the telephone, and footsteps have been heard echoing around.”
The couple have claimed to have brought in a paranormal team in 2020, who informed them that there was a heavy presence of spirits, including a man, a woman and three children.
Steph took to social media last Thursday to share the unnerving footage, writing: “11:23pm last night.
“Nobody in the pub, all doors shut and we were in bed, [sic] heard a noise and sounded like people talking, so checked the cameras.
“Everyone knows my pub is haunted but what the hell is that moving around near the table?”
The post received hundreds of likes and comments as viewers were left spooked by what they saw – with some even claiming the outline resembled a child.
Vicky Hodson wrote: “Eek. Goosebumps.”
John Glass commented: “Plenty of spirits in that pub, (pardon the pun). All living rent-free.”
Dione Winstanley said: “WTAF, looks like a child.”
One commenter tagged the pub’s previous landlord, writing: “Didn’t our Tom used to speak/play with a little girl on the stairs when we lived here?”
Louise Schofield joked: “That’s definitely all the spirits!”
Speaking to Steph today she said: “We closed the pub as usual at 11pm, myself and husband were in bed and we could just hear movement down there, like a banging noise and laughing.
“So, [we] checked our cameras straight away – there was nothing at first and then that appeared, so we just screen recorded straight away.
“But the noise you hear on the camera is from the cameras, not from ourselves. Now, the pub is usually silent – you just hear traffic but as you can hear there’s quite a bit going on.
“You can always feel a presence. My staff have thought they’ve heard their names being called, glasses smashing etc.
“[When] step son was two years old, he used to take his cover on the landing and say he ‘didn’t want to play with her anymore, he just wants to sleep’.
“He used to hate going to sleep because ‘she’ used to keep him awake and wanted to play.
“Then, we had a paranormal team in lockdown and they said there’s an extremely heavy and strong presence of spirits – a gentleman in the cellar, two children in the bar area and a woman and child in the flat area.
“With us living here for three and a bit years, we’ve heard and experienced quite a lot of things.
“I was adamant I could hear a baby crying in our function room and even made my husband go and check – it was that realistic but obviously wasn’t.
“We weren’t frightened but intrigued to see what it actually was. With the history, it was just fascinating to actually see movement.
“With people stating it could be a spider, my cleaner is here every single morning, and cleans there.
“We even came downstairs to check if it was just to clear our minds but no evidence of a web, spider or anything to do with an animal.”
