Guy Fawkes Inn Hotel

25 High Petergate, York, YO1 7HP

3-star historic inn with 13 individually styled guest rooms across the main building and a 16th-century cottage

The Guy Fawkes Inn hosts several distinct supernatural presences, the most frequently reported being two child spirits known as the Cholera Children. These young ghosts are attributed to victims of a cholera outbreak in the 1700s, and their presence centres on the Belfry Suite. Guests and staff have reported seeing the apparitions of two children in this room, their forms appearing with enough clarity to be identified as young figures before fading from view. The children do not appear malevolent. Their manifestations occur without warning, leaving witnesses startled but unharmed. The visual nature of these encounters distinguishes the Belfry Suite as the inn's most actively haunted location. In the bottom bar area, a more striking apparition has been reported by multiple witnesses over the years. Known as One-Eyed Jack, this figure appears dressed in a 16th or 17th century red frock coat, wearing a wig and tri-cornered hat, and carrying an old-fashioned pistol. He has been seen pacing up and down the bar area. Whether his name derives from a missing eye or an eye patch is not known, but the consistency of his described appearance across different witnesses lends weight to the reports. He is sometimes accompanied by the figure of a grumpy older man. Additional spirits mentioned in connection with the inn include a Grey Lady and a figure known as The Priest, though detailed accounts of these apparitions remain scarce compared to the well-documented child spirits and the bar apparition. A woman has also been reported wandering the corridors and staircases during the night. The layering of multiple hauntings across different areas of the building reflects the centuries of human activity within these walls.

Spirits: The Cholera Children (two child spirits), One-Eyed Jack (bar apparition in red coat)...