The Black Swan Hotel, Devizes, Wiltshire

The Building
The Black Swan is a 17th Century coaching inn set in the Wiltshire market town of Devizes. It makes a perfect base to explore the sacred sites of Wiltshire – Stonehenge and Avebury as well as the White Horses carved by ancient people into the sides of the rolling downs. 

Ghost Stories
Various small things happen in the inn – lights go on and off, etc, but occasionally something more remarkable happens. A few years ago, a television news crew were staying at the Black Swan. One of the men got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When he came back he saw the figure of a young girl dressed in white, sitting in his window. When he tried to talk to her, she vanished. Ghost hunters have taken photographs of the rooms and one of them in the cellar seems to show a face in the wall. Another one has the picture of a woman in old fashioned clothes with a ring tied onto a ribbon round her finger. The photograph has a zig-zag white streak down the middle of it that photographic experts can’t explain. The woman’s face is obscured by this. 

The Black Swan oganises ghost weekends led by local expert John Girvan. He leads visitors round the most haunted parts of Devizes and lets visitors dowse the site of the 12th Century execution gallows. John also gives a talk on his paranormal experiences and allows you to meet the mysterious man in the bottle.