The George

The George (2nd visit)

7th November 2008

On November 7th 2008 Phoenix paranormal had the pleasure of being invited to The George in Norton St Philip for an paranormal investigation

The village of Norton St Philip is located approx 7 miles south of the Georgian City and is set in the scenic Somerset hills. The actual village has about 1000 residents to date. Norton St Philip is a place with a lot of history. A small battle was fought here during the Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. The George Inn is one of the oldest Public houses in the country with an entry in the record books for this achievement.

The George Inn. This very old public house has an international reputation as one of the most ancient inns in the country. It used to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The date given for its building is suggested as 1223, and a continuous licence is claimed from 1397. This would have been a licence allowed by the Prior, since the earliest Governmental licences for alehouses date from 1552. The date of 1223 pre-dates the building of the Priory, nine years later. It may have been that, when the monks moved here to found the Priory, they first built on this spot to provide temporary living accommodation. Whatever the accuracy of the dates, it is certain that the monks built the present George Inn, and it served, during the life of the Priory, as its guest house.

Up until a few years ago, you could enter from within the George a well-constructed tunnel, some 5 feet high. For what its worth, this tunnel has been traced with a divining rod all the way to the Priory. A while ago, a dog fell into a subsided portion of the tunnel some way towards Hinton. Tunnels of this sort are not uncommon, though there are various theories for the use of this one - running liquor, a dry pathway under the snows of the bitter winters experienced in those days?

Originally, it is thought, the George was a one-storey stone building. With the growing importance of Norton as a centre for the wool trade, the large upper storey was added to provide extra accommodation and space for a wool store at the top of the house, with the necessary hoists to lift and lower the wool. Structurally, the court-yard, the little gallery open to the air leading to the bedrooms (in the medieval manner), the turreted staircase and the stone ground floor frontage, are the most interesting features.

About the Monmouth Rebellion

On the 26th and 27th of June 1685, the village found itself in the middle of the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion against his Uncle, the Roman Catholic King James II.

Monmouth had landed at Lyme Regis on the 11th June with 80 men. He moved triumphantly through Taunton and Bridgewater, gathering men as he went, until at one time, his troops numbered between six and seven thousand. But they were untrained and ill-armed. The Royal Cavalry ran rings around them at Keynsham Bridge, intercepting Monmouth's planned attack on Bristol. It was a depleted and disheartened rebel army that trailed south past Bath, in the hope of picking up more recruits in Wiltshire, and came to rest for the night in Norton. That night may have been restful, but the next day wasn't.

Monmouth arrived with his followers into the village in the late evening of the 26th June 1685, from the direction of Bath. He made the George Inn his headquarters, with billets being sought for his men, and stables for the horses, throughout the village. Of special interest are four guns that have been lugged up the steep inclines of approaching the village. Norton has effectively become an armed camp.

The story has it that while Monmouth sat at a table in a room on the first floor of the Inn, a shot rang out, the bullet shattering the window and just missing the Duke. The would-be assassin must have been a brave man, since he courted certain death. On the other hand, the reward for Monmouth, dead or alive, was considerable. The circular mahogany dining-table at which he sat, with an inscribed brass plate, was until the 1970's on view in that same room.

The skirmish. Even as Monmouth was preparing to move on south, on the 27th, news came of the approaching advance guard of the Royal Army. Monmouth decided to stand and fight. He was a talented soldier, and judged he was in a sound defensive position. Monmouth set up a strong barricade in North Street, which in those days was the main road out of the village towards Bath. Here it was that the main fighting took place, with the King's troops trying to break the barricade, and blood flowing down the lane. The turning point came when Monmouth led a flank attack, infiltrating troops through the grounds of a large house which then stood immediately to the east of the road. A desultory artillery action, in heavy rain, lasted a further 6 hours before the King's army withdrew to Bradford-on-Avon. The skirmish had cost them 80 dead. The rebels lost only 18 men - a tribute to Monmouth's leadership. Cannon-balls have been ploughed up in the fields to the north of the village. The north end of North Street is still known as Soho, which was the battle cry of the rebels. In the manner of the time, the encounter engendered a song in the village that day: "Monmouth is at Norton Town / All a-fighting for the Crown / Ho! boys, ho!".

The George is also linked to the infamous hanging Judge Jefferies too. In the aftermath of the failed rebellion Judge Jefferies conducted 12 executions on the village common, known as Churchmead or The Mead, as part of the Bloody Assizes. The route he took to The Mead is known as Jefferies Gate. The inn was later used as the headquarters of Monmouth's army after his retreat from Bath, and was further used as a court by Judge Jefferies

With a building so old and steeped in history with so many figures of importance that have stayed at this amazing place, how could we refuse an invitation like this.

Our team was split into two groups this time with group A being myself, Dave W, Dave H, Tracey and Mike arriving first and Team B being Chris P, Ann Oliver and Mark Phillips of Haunted Wiltshire arriving later on.

After we arrived at around 8ish and made ourselves familiar with the location and the rooms we had to play with we decided we would start at the top of the building in the Attic. This area has been mostly untouched since the top floor has been built and it gives you a good feel to what the the inn may of looked like before it was refurbished in more modern times. After we got our bearings we set up a few trigger objects and took some readings. The temperature seemed to fluctuate between 8 and 10 degrees. We also got some very good light anomalies too.

We spent a bit of time in the attic but decided to relocate to the Coach room. This is a lovely room that you enter from the outside of the building by steps that lead up from the road. It is a smallish but lovely and welcoming room with the most beautiful wooden bed in the centre of it. After taking more readings, we discovered that this room had an unusual EMF reading that seemed to be centred around this bed. The readings would be very high from about a foot from the floor to a foot from the ceiling and would peak and die in different areas of the room. My original thought was electric blanket, wires or cables or even readings from the room below. All drew a blank. We spent considerable time trying to come up with a theory to why these readings are so high and I even used a Circuit detector but it did not find any strong currents of electricity anywhere near these readings. It was about now that Team B joined us so we to a break to introduce the team to each other and then resumed our investigation. We thought it would be nice for Team A to visit the Attic where we started so they went up to the Attic to check the trigger objects and we thought in the mean time we would try some Scrying. This is where you use a mirror or water to stare at your reflection and it is thought that a spirit person can in print their image on your own. I am not very keen on this experiment so the rest of the team had a go. It is quite un-nerving as you can see the person scrying actually changing. I always thought it was only the person staring into the mirror that saw the changes but it is not.

After this we then decided to go to the Dungeon. All the team rejoined each other and we then spent some time in this room. Mark thought he could see a reflection in the mirror near him that looked like a man. It turned out to be just natural shadows reflecting though and nothing paranormal. A few light anomalies where caught in this room but it seemed very quiet. I left a trigger object in this room and we decided to relocate

We then decided to split again. Team A went to the Coombes room and Team B went to the Coach room. Again this was very quiet so I left another trigger object before leaving.

Now the bar was shutting we had access to the dining area. A few of us went over and while we were having a look around Chris and Ann decided to go to the Coombes room.

Ann is a psychic artist and in both the Coach and the Coombes room she picked up on 2 different spirit people. Chris also seemed to sense the person she linked in with in the Coach room but did not link with the person Ann sensed in the Coombes room. There is a separate page with Ann's sketches and description attached as a sub page to this report.

We all positioned ourselves in the biggest of the dining rooms and spent considerable time in there calling out and and trying to link in with the atmosphere. I did feel at some point that there was an energy building but apart from a few more light anomalies nothing paranormal happened. The most un-nerving thing was the door to this area kept opening itself but it is known to do that.. We were going to try some glass divination in the smaller of the dining rooms but as the time was ticking on we changed our minds and went to spend some time in the bar area before leaving.

While the team went off to the bar, Dave W went off to check the trigger objects. The objects in the attic and the Coombes room did not move but the object in the Dungeon did!!

The bar area was also very quiet so on that note and the fact it was now 1.30am we decided to thank Mark and Harriet for their hospitality and leave them in peace.

I would like to thank the team for their great support and hard work on this investigation and also Mark and Harriet for inviting us back in the new year to this beautiful location.