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137: Haunted AF-Hotels, Castles, and B+B's!
18 Plays1 year ago
Hell yeah it's time for another Haunted AF series episode!
It's a tour of haunted abodes from the Hotel Coronado, to the village of Beauty and the Beast (Maurice, Jacques, all so very Francais there!), to a castle crawl of dark pasts and ghostly encounters!
So you can check out, but can you ever really leave?? Not if you stay in a historic hotel or ancient castle! there is a possibility you will end up there for eternity! Mwah ha hahah! Ok but really we kinda want to go to all of the places, but maybe mostly in daylight?? ok thanx bye!! :) Catch you next week!
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Transcript
Podcast Introductions
00:00:01
Speaker
Startcast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting. How do you think the world will end? Alien invasion? Nuclear disaster? Another more deadly pandemic?
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm Jackie Maranti and I'm the host of Cause of Death 100 Seconds to Midnight. I talk about the things that could obliterate mankind. I call it pre-apocalyptic non-fiction.
The Doomsday Clock and Global Catastrophe
00:00:32
Speaker
The Doomsday Clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight from January of 2020 to January of 2023.
00:00:41
Speaker
On January 24, 2023, the Board of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the clock even closer to midnight. Now, it's set at 90 seconds to midnight. The closest it's ever been. From nuclear disaster to environmental threats to food and water crises, find out how mankind is destroying itself one second at a time. If you haven't listened to my podcast, you should.
Haunted Castles and Cryptids Podcast
00:01:34
Speaker
Alright, you are listening to Castles and Cryptids where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck. And the hosts are Canadians.
00:01:42
Speaker
as well. And I'm Elena. I'm Kelsey. And I'm Chucklin. No, we can't believe what episode. We're almost to 140. It's 137. What is happening here? I love it. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. It's hard to believe sometimes that we've done this over a hundred times, like well over a hundred times now.
00:02:09
Speaker
especially the amount of audio issues like seem to keep pausing tonight.
00:02:15
Speaker
Kelsey, can you resend the email with the actual link in it, please? But just in the sweetest way possible. I was like, oh, yeah. I'm done. Well, I was just looking at it. Normally, the little email preview shows link, and then I can see the first part of the link, and I couldn't see anything. And I was like, OK. And I click into the email, and it just has the subject link, and then it's a blank email. And I was like, OK.
00:02:41
Speaker
And I, so I went back out and I went back in and was like, okay, it's not me. And then it's like, I'm going to give it like a minute and a half to see if she figured it out and is going to resend it to me or so. Wow. You really gave me the benefit of the doubt there. That's awesome. No, I definitely did not realize I believe I was distracted by, um, the like music videos Pat was putting on, not the mashups this time. It was some, okay.
00:03:11
Speaker
beautiful soundtrack music from the Baldur's Gate game this time. Anyway, and I like made the email and then like, I think I walked away. Yeah. I came back to the room and it was like, oh yeah, I sent that didn't I? I was like, yep, says an email sent. But there was nothing, just the subject line link. Nothing in it. No link for you. Yeah. Oh my God.
00:03:40
Speaker
Which is crazy because it's such a good topic we're doing.
Haunted Hotels and Paranormal Tales
00:03:44
Speaker
We're doing some more haunted hotels and other accommodation. Yeah. Hell yeah. Should be really fun. I love our haunted AF series. It's always fun to do.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, and there truly is so many. It's funny sometimes. So like M from and that's why we drink who does the paranormal will be like, sometimes I feel like I'm going to run out of stuff. Or at least Christine's like, I know you feel like you might run out of paranormal topics. But like, there's just so many that like, you know, yeah, yeah, you could go on forever. But
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, especially these ones that can be like fun because you can go there. Everyone can go there usually. So yeah, the hotels. Yeah, some of them offer tours, which is really cool. Right. But lots of times you can just you can just stay there and it's creepy enough, I guess.
00:04:54
Speaker
I know. It's like, do you go for the good night's sleep or do you go for the paranormal investigation? You might not get both. You can't always have your cake and eat it too. Hear your ghost and sleep well too. I don't know. It'd still be fun, especially if you do know the haunted rooms in some of them.
00:05:19
Speaker
I have one. I ended up doing like three of them. My last one has specific room numbers which I was really happy about. Yeah that's always fun. I always think about which room numbers it is too like if there's a pattern because you get like
00:05:35
Speaker
There's, Stephen King has 1408, which is his short story turned movie. And then in The Shining, it's room 237. So it's like two completely different numbers, but then like, I'm always looking for like patterns and like the haunted room numbers. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I think I had one that also has a few haunted rooms you can stay in.
00:06:00
Speaker
If you can afford it. Oh, shoot. Yeah. Some of them are expensive. Oh, yeah. The luxury, my friend. I was stopping at the booze store and was like, that's a pretty bottle. The one behind the counter, it's like this red pinkish.
00:06:21
Speaker
bottle or whatever I'm looking at. I was like, oh, what is that? And then I'm reading the sign and she's like, oh, champagne. And simultaneously reading the label thing that says like Brute Rose or whatever it is, it's like $650. I was like, oh. That's why it's behind the counter. It's champagne. Champagne. Yeah. Yeah. Champagne.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something Jay-Z can afford. Okay, my dog. I don't know if you could hear it, but he was now being the pest as he scraped the floor. Oh, I didn't hear anything. With his, oh, okay. He just does the, you know, they like to scrape the floor like there's blankets they can rustle up or snakes they can rustle out, dogs. And then he just sat his ass down heavily, but yeah. Only I was privy to that.
00:07:11
Speaker
Gordo does to the coffee table. It's like black and white marble. He tries to scratch it as if he's going to somehow scratch the pattern off and make it more comfortable. So the other day, I think it was yesterday, he was just scratching and scratching and scratching for like two minutes. And I kept going, Gordo, nothing's happening. And he's... And then he finally laid down. That's weird. It's the smoothest surface.
00:07:42
Speaker
It's fake marble, it's got plenty of scratches, it's nine years old, I don't care, but it's just funny that it's gonna happen. He does it all the time and sometimes it lasts a few seconds and then he lays down, sometimes it's minutes. He thinks something magical is gonna happen, I don't know. But sometimes I wonder when Finn's doing it if he is trying to like
00:08:10
Speaker
not sharpen, but whatever with his nails, because I'm always he doesn't let me cut his nails or trim them. But like, yeah, it doesn't make sense. I don't get Gordo trying to do it like that. The only time Fen paused the table, which is wood, so we tried not to let him because as I just said, he doesn't.
00:08:32
Speaker
like his nails getting cut, so they're often very too long. He'll be sitting with his butt up against you or Pat or whatever, whoever he wants the pets from sitting right on your feet, and then you stop petting him. Then pause the table in front of him like he takes it out on the table. You stop petting me? Well, I'm going to paw this table right now, which always gets our damn attention because, yeah, you're pawing our fucking coffee table. Shut up. That sucks.
00:09:02
Speaker
So bizarre though. Yeah, I'm excited. You said you have two or three. Ooh, we're going to get to a couple then because so do I. Yeah, I.
00:09:16
Speaker
I found mine on, what was it? The first site I went on was historichotels.org. They had a little section that was just about haunted hotels.
00:09:34
Speaker
around North America, which I thought was really interesting because it was about historic hotels. Yeah. It wasn't a haunted hotel, like, listicle or anything. It was a full website and each of the hotels had, like, drop downs. It was like you could read about the history of the hotel and then there was one about the ghosts and then there's one about images and links to, like, ghosts. I love that. So I thought that was kind of interesting because I wasn't expecting
00:10:03
Speaker
that to pop on. Sounds like the kind of thing I get lost when I'm supposed to be doing real, like when I was in travel, like trying to find a hotel for this family. Look at this hotel and look at this hotel and look at this hotel. Like I'm the worst person to narrow things down like that sometimes. I think I ended up looking up how much it would cost to stay in one of the hotels. I can't remember which one it was. Yeah. And it was
00:10:33
Speaker
I think it was like $300, but it was US a night for two people for one room for like one night. Sounds about right.
00:10:48
Speaker
Also my stupid heat just came on or something and it was freaking me out making things rattle over here. I'm sorry, I kept looking over my shoulder and poor Kelsey was probably like, what? It's fine. Nothing's been going on. I'm just already creeped out.
00:11:08
Speaker
I got some information off of one of the hotels actual, their own website. They had a pretty good history and pretty detailed about the hauntings. So they're really leaning into it. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. That can be the hardest part to find information on the hauntings. Yeah. Sometimes they don't want it advertised that. Yeah. Yeah. You get a lot of generic like,
00:11:37
Speaker
You hear noises and this and that, yeah. Yeah, that's like my first couple are like that. My third one at least had some more details, which I liked.
00:11:51
Speaker
I like that. I like a mix. I like a mix of giving, you know, you get the history first because it often influences the hauntings. Someone died there. They stick around. Yeah, very true. Oh, totally. So my first one is Hotel del Coronado. It was
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah, it was built in 1888, a long time ago in Coronado, California. 135 years about. Wow. It's just crazy. It's really old. In Coronado. OK, wait. California. Oh, yes, OK. Because Coronado Springs is a hotel. Disney or something? It just sounded familiar. I was like, OK. OK.
00:12:46
Speaker
I did put some pictures on the drive. So the Hotel Coronado, it looks almost like a resort you would see in
00:12:56
Speaker
Mexico or probably like Dominican. It's beautiful. It's very sprawling. It's on the beach. There's beautiful beach and perfect blue water. Like Caribbean beaches, eh? Yes, it's gorgeous. It's all white, like white outside and then red tile roofing it looks like.
00:13:20
Speaker
Nice. But it's huge. And all these little almost looks like, like chalet kind of attachments where it's not just like one big square building, it almost looks like a bunch of there's different layers and peaks. Okay. Have a look. Yeah, it sounds really cute. Yeah, it looks beautiful. I would love to stay there definitely looks like it should be in Mexico, or something like that, though. More so than what I would think of as a hotel.
00:13:50
Speaker
Oh yeah, a beach resort. Right on the beach, oh my. Oh yeah, mountains in the background almost, like damn, picturesque. It's beautiful. So this place, I didn't really get much history on it. I think there's a bit, like if you look it up specifically, but for hauntings,
00:14:16
Speaker
There's a few. The most common is this ghost that is a young woman who actually is known to have arrived at the hotel on Thanksgiving date in 1892. So four years after it opened. Oh damn, right. Okay. Yeah, it's old. Yeah, which is surprising. Like it's beautiful. They must have refurbished it and updated it since because
00:14:46
Speaker
It does not seem like it's that old in the picture. The upkeep, spectacular. Yeah, it looks gorgeous. She was alone and described as unhappy. According to employees, it said that she was waiting for a gentleman to join her. One of the things I read said it might have been her estranged husband or her ex-husband. Uh-oh. Yeah.
00:15:11
Speaker
After waiting five long days and no gentleman appeared, she unfortunately took her own life at the hotel, like in the grounds. Oh no, because her man didn't show.
00:15:28
Speaker
The classic, true. Yeah, there wasn't really details about this, but it was mentioned in everything and including on the, I think on the, that historic haunt, historic hotels website.
00:15:43
Speaker
And everything, yeah. So her body was actually found on the steps that were leading between the hotel or resort up to the ocean. So on that pathway with a gunshot wound to the head. I think one of the sources I actually read said it appeared like she might have been murdered and it wasn't self-inflicted.
00:16:10
Speaker
they didn't really just imagine yeah how the investigation was done then like it might not have been up to snuff probably the gun was nowhere to be found but it must have been a suicide yes mark it off um so after her death police couldn't find anything to actually identify the woman so they actually released a description of her uh and it was telegraphed to police agencies around the
00:16:40
Speaker
It says around the country, but I think it was just around like the county area, probably just around California. I don't think it was all across the US. Yeah, that would seem a little excessive maybe at that time when people can't travel that fast or send the telegrams and stuff that fast.
00:16:57
Speaker
So newspapers actually began to refer to her as the beautiful stranger, and eventually she was identified. Like the Madonna song. Oh, I don't listen to Madonna, so I don't know. It was in an Austin Powers movie, that's why. Oh, okay. Oh my god, I guess it's not that old, but you know, it came out when that one came out. I think it's in the second one. Oh, okay.
00:17:23
Speaker
So after her description was released to newspapers, she was identified as Kate Morgan, who was just 24. And she was, it said she was a domestic worker from a wealthy Los Angeles household. So she was from the area, she was from LA, and this was in California, so she hadn't traveled far.
00:17:48
Speaker
I don't really know why she was a domestic worker. She had been able to check into the hotel and who paid or what was going on. Maybe she was trying to get out of that work. Yeah, I don't know. Kate's death continues to intrigue hotel visitors and her original third floor room number 3327 is the most requested room at the resort.
00:18:16
Speaker
which interesting three three two seven and i said the one the shining is like two three seven although i know they change it from like the book to the movie so yeah they do don't they
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, but one of them is definitely 237, so that is creepy. Yeah, this is 3327. It's the most requested room, and guests who stay there report flickering lights. They say the TV turns itself on and off, breezes that come from nowhere, items that end up moving on their own, and doors randomly opening and closing by themselves. Fun.
00:19:00
Speaker
Oh, sorry, quick anecdote. No, just doing that. No, I was just reading the the clan lamps book that the two Outlander actor guys wrote and they like traveled all around Scotland and they were in some
00:19:18
Speaker
castle or something talking about this ghost and somebody was like oh yeah yeah ghosts or whatever and then he said like the the door behind them just slowly like opened and then quickly closed as if the ghost like left the room like offended oh my god awesome yeah okay rude
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah that was so cool and he just like casually mentioned it like any of the other experiences they had while touring around I was like damn. Did I even joke about it? A ghost uh whenever the pedestal by our front doors goes off you know you walk through somebody left a sensor on you walk through and it starts beeping when it starts beeping nobody walking through we go oh god
00:20:01
Speaker
Yes, I would too, for sure. Because it happens like 40 times a day, so you just go half a ghost. Oh, gosh, yeah, yeah, it might just be the machine. But yeah, I remember my friend Anna at our old building. And it was creepy, because at this point during COVID, like whenever I was in the building, it was never fully staffed. It was like, you know, half a ghost town. And she was like, creep me out. Oh, and she said she had seen some
00:20:27
Speaker
I don't know Native American ghost or something one day in the toilets. I don't know if she was pulling my leg. She's Latina. She's a feisty one, this Anna. So she could have been having me on. But yeah. Right? And then like, and then the bathrooms had a weird little like,
00:20:46
Speaker
And the last stall that had a nook and it had a shower in it.
Humorous Office Anecdotes
00:20:50
Speaker
And I don't know if it was because it was the old, it was the contact center. So like, I don't know. I had a lot of rooms in it, but like, I don't know why I had to have a shower. And it's like, you have to stay overnight to work a call center job. Just like, not like we're 911 or need a decontamination room. Right. It's just a creepy stall to have at the end of your.
00:21:13
Speaker
Although sometimes I'd almost be glad to have another freaking stall even if it was a shower because now that we are in the basement we have like a tiny little bathroom with three stalls for like the freaking 20 to 30 women that work in our like little department and then people because we're in the bottom
00:21:33
Speaker
level where the cafeteria is, then people come when they're on lunch and they come and use our bathroom too. Someone's like, I should tell them to stop taking their basement shits down here. None of our toilets work well.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah. It's my network. It's the only washroom we get is the public washroom. So it gets nasty every day. It's disgusting. You're like, well, that person literally peed all over the seat. Like, were you standing up like a dude and just sprayed it everywhere? Like, what? Your work sucks too. They won't give you good vending machines anymore either. Or like, yeah, they took away the vending machines. So we have
00:22:16
Speaker
uh we basically what donated money the first time to like start getting food and now it is like self replenishing based on what we pay into it to buy snacks it's just like so sad they're like oh that's so unhealthy it's like okay you literally also like sell snack food and i've like seen the health vending machine set up at like doctor's offices and like literally even my like the bottle depot i go to buy my work has a freaking vending machine because like
00:22:46
Speaker
If there's nowhere to eat around there, it's good to have something you don't have to go out of the building for. It's okay. We stock it with the good stuff. We have instant noodles. We have KD. Okay. Yeah. All right. Ramen bowls. We got some good stuff that you would put in a vending machine. So maybe, maybe sometimes it's an upgrade.
00:23:11
Speaker
All right rant over. All right so yeah room 3327 Kate's room they also experience sudden temperature changes and unexplained footsteps and voices. People have reported yeah people have reported the ghostly figure of a young lady dressed in a black lace dress
00:23:37
Speaker
And one guest reported her initials appeared in the steam on the bathroom mirror. Oh, but they don't know what the initials were?
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, which has got to be creepy for you to say because I keep thinking like you must feel like you're talking about your sister. Oh, it's okay. So no. Oh, okay. Yes. Sometimes it can be spelled very different. That's fair. Wait, this is K A T E.
00:24:10
Speaker
Oh, okay. Because even the girl who plays Claire, her name is like Katrina Balfe, but it's spelled all like Celtic-y. It's like Catriona or one of those. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's creepy. But also that ghost has some fashion sense because always you get the gray lady and not the black lace lady. Like that's pretty awesome. Nice. They always seem to be wearing white, don't they? Hi, Gordo. Right.
00:24:37
Speaker
Maybe that's just easier to manifest white and like colors must be hard. Maybe. Do you watch that show ghosts that it was I used to be I think it was one of those like the office that was a British show and it's like a girl inherits an old home from her family member and she like hits her head and then can see all the ghosts that are living in there from all the different like centuries. I was I watched some of it at my parents place. Okay.
00:25:06
Speaker
It's pretty good. There was a new one last night and one of the hippie ghosts, they joke that when they stop being ghosts and move on, they get sucked off to another place. I'm curious. Yeah, it's silly, but it's funny. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, sorry.
00:25:28
Speaker
So the hotel actually offers a nightly ghost tour called Haunted Happenings that actually shares staff and guest experiences along with photos and videos of activity that they've collected over the years and other spooky history about the place. Nice.
00:25:52
Speaker
There was actually a book written about the hotel and the author of the book, which was entitled Beautiful Stranger, The Ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel Del Coronado written by Christine Donovan.
00:26:12
Speaker
She actually spent a long time researching the ghost phenomena. She says that not all stories are grand or that interesting, but she says, quote, it is the decidedly non-dramatic aspects of most of the stories that has made a believer out of me.
00:26:35
Speaker
Also said, for instance, a doctor emailed me that during his stay, his shoes and socks, which he always carefully placed by his bed at night, would end up all over the room by the time he woke up. And he's obviously a very tidy person. And he places them at the end of his bed.
00:26:53
Speaker
That's me in a hotel room. Let's keep it neat and tidy. She said, in my mind, that's not enough of a story to have made up. And in addition, it fits very well with other paranormal accounts. I've heard about objects being tossed about a room for no apparent reason. Oh. Yeah. I like that. Creepy.
00:27:16
Speaker
The author of Donovan has herself not seen any ghosts, but she says, I always say there are two kinds of people in the world, those that would like to see a ghost and those who wouldn't. I'm definitely in the second group. I thought that was funny because she researched them and went there a lot. And then it's like, I haven't seen one and I don't want to.
00:27:42
Speaker
I think that's pretty insightful because yeah, sometimes people discuss how maybe the die-hard skeptics that do see things you would think would make them believe. They still can't believe because in a way that would kind of make them go a little crazy if they had to admit that it was real kind of thing. I would be scared shitless. Right? I think it's that when you haven't had a paranormal experience, you're like, it sounds so interesting, but then people that have had one, they're like,
00:28:12
Speaker
No, it depends. The next one is the Hotel Montelillon. Yeah, this one is kind of... Most of the pictures it...
00:28:33
Speaker
Like it's on the street and it's like very, it seems quite tall. It's probably what, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, maybe eight floors, seven or eight floors it looks like. Okay. Montelillon. This is it, it was? Yeah, Montelillon. It was built, also really old, built in 1886 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
00:29:03
Speaker
Oh, so it is kind of Frenchy. I was like, it sounds like it means new lot or Mount Lion or something. Cool. Yeah, this I also didn't have. There's probably lots of actual history about it if you looked into that, but I'm petting Gordo's ear.
00:29:29
Speaker
This hotel developed quite the reputation for being one of the most haunted places in New Orleans. Most famous of the stories is that of a young boy named Maurice, I'm going to say Begere.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah, so the most famous is this ghost of this young boy named Maurice. He stayed at the hotel with his family during the 1890s and his parents Jacques and Josephine
00:30:13
Speaker
like old timey names, Jacques, Josephine, and Maurice. Could they be any more French? His parents loved going to the theatre and regularly went to the French Opera House located along Bourbon Street.
00:30:32
Speaker
And while his parents were out, Maurice, who was just a toddler, was left in the care of a nurse, you know, like nanny. And the family was staying at the hotel at the time. And Maurice was with this nanny while the parents were out at the opera. And he sadly developed a fever and ended up passing away. I guess I don't know where. Yeah, very sudden.
Skepticism and Belief in the Paranormal
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker
Later the family would return to the hotel every year. I don't know if it was like on the day he passed away or what but they returned there every year it seemed hoping to spot the spirit of their son and according to legend they saw an apparition of Maurice who said quote mommy don't cry I'm fine
00:31:22
Speaker
Oh my god. Yeah. The site reportedly left his mother in tears, but she was happy to know that her son was at peace. And many guests have also reported seeing the spirit of Maurice up on the 14th floor, along with a maid who is known as Miss Cleen. Miss Cleen?
00:31:50
Speaker
Is that actually her name? Is that what you guys have named her? Mr. Clean's sister. Paranormal researchers once asked Ms. Clean why she stayed at the hotel, and this maid responded that her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had all also worked at the hotel. She said she was picking up after housekeeping to ensure high standards, which I mean, that sucks.
00:32:18
Speaker
when you spend your afterlife at work, but I would never. I'd go, I would fucking hate that. I would not be picking up after housekeeping. Yeah, I wonder if they know though. It's like, yeah, when the ones that seem like a residual haunting like that where they're doing the same thing they did in life and yeah, like, okay, maybe they're
00:32:48
Speaker
consciousness isn't here maybe it's just their energy maybe some podcasts think they've debunked that energy can be left behind because the physics looking at you the constant don't they say energy can't be created or destroyed it can only be transferred so something like that and so that it was like the basis for like
00:33:13
Speaker
Well, then how could the energy last on? I didn't understand it. And I must say that maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it as much. Cause I'm like, boo, don't debunk everything in one sentence. Especially like, like I say, it's one of those people where he was like, I've had paranormal experiences. Sorry. But yeah, people have had like experiences, but they're still like, but you know, it couldn't be a ghost. It has to be something else. You're like,
00:33:41
Speaker
But what? Something we can't explain, obviously. So my last one is the one I have the most information on. It looks like typical hotel. It looks like it was kind of built on like a corner lot. Maybe has two entrances, one on each side of kind of the street. And it's got this huge sign on the top. It's called the Hotel Monte Vista.
00:34:09
Speaker
a huge, huge sign, like really high in the air, not just like on top of the building, but like, I don't know, like 10 feet above the top of the building for some reason on like. Oh, it looks crazy. Maybe it was maybe it was during the time when they made the Hollywood sign and like they actually made a couple other like there was a university that had a big B like on its hillside and stuff.
00:34:40
Speaker
I don't know, but. Oh, he's pointing something. The bottle gap. I'm noticing a theme here with these, uh, Spanish sounding names. Is this in California? No, this one's Arizona. Oh, oh, sorry. Okay. Okay. All right. No, that's interesting. Cause historic, you don't always think of like West cause it's the newer parts of the country usually. Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, this is slightly newer. It's still almost a hundred years old. It'd be coming up on its hundred years in a few years here. Dang. Yeah, it's located in Flagstaff, Arizona along Route 66. Fun. Yeah, there was lots of stuff when I was looking it up. It was like stuff to look at on Route 66 and all this stuff.
00:35:36
Speaker
That would be a fun road trip. I mean, just, yeah, scenic in an eerie way, I'm sure.
00:35:44
Speaker
So the hotel itself opened on New Year's Day in 1927. And it's actually listed in the National Register of Historic Places. And it's now fully restored to its former glory and open to the public. And it's seen thousands of guests and even a few celebrities have stayed there, which is kind of cool. Yeah.
00:36:12
Speaker
I wonder if they still stay there. It doesn't seem like the celebrities, but one celebrity did have a ghost encounter there that I have information on, which was kind of cool. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that doesn't always come up. Yeah. There are some celebrity ghost encounters, but they're few and far between, so.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, they don't always come up and research. Yeah, so this hotel was actually one of the very few American hotels that was built entirely from public taxes after this man named V.M. Sliffer started a local fundraising campaign to build the hotel.
00:36:59
Speaker
They wanted to build it because lodging was scarce in this becoming more of a tourist area, and there was no real where really for visitors who wanted to stay overnight.
00:37:11
Speaker
have anything like that. Yeah, so he was like, let's start a fundraiser as a town, we'll build this hotel. I mean, sounds like a good reason. Yeah, somebody would be put in charge of it, but like no specific one person like fronted the money for it. It was like done as a community. Interesting. Yeah.
00:37:33
Speaker
I think once opened, the hotel became very popular with tourists and even with locals who coined the phrase meet me at the Mont B, which is cute. Yeah. So the destination there, their lounge and everything. Yeah, very cool.
00:37:53
Speaker
In its first year, the hotel also made history. This was cool. And hosted Mary, I think it would be Costigan's daily three hour radio show from Room 105. And she was actually the first American woman to be granted a radio broadcasting license. She was the OG Broad of Broadcasting.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, so she hosted this, and it was the first year the hotel opened, she hosted this daily three hour radio show from Room 105, which was kind of cool. Yeah, she walked so we could stumble blindly. Onto our few listeners. I don't think we could do it for three hours a day.
00:38:46
Speaker
It's this is just it yeah telling me like we'd have to go to take that we have to go on live or something It would be like pretty daunting right now cuz you feel like you can't talk Like hold on I have to pee
00:38:59
Speaker
Well, there is that. But if there, if you take out that, then you and I, we are pretty good at talking for quite a long time, but yeah, it's so crazy. I don't know how interesting it would be for some people. You have to like feel the noise by themselves. Like probably, you know, like here's another song. Uh, here you go. Like that'd be me. Yeah. I don't know what she did topics on. Uh, I didn't say, but yeah. Pretty cool.
00:39:27
Speaker
Um, probably like daytime TV is now like a news and headlines, that kind of stuff. Oh my gosh. Like, uh, yeah. War of the world's broadcast. No. And then another interesting piece of history with the hotel was that during prohibition, the lounge of the hotel actually ignored
00:39:53
Speaker
prohibition and began to run a profitable bootlegging operation and then a speakeasy. Yay! Speakeasy. Easy on the speaking. Back in 1931, the place ended up getting raided by local officials and shut down, only to resume operations two years later when prohibition ended.
00:40:17
Speaker
And then between 1935 and 1940, it said that the hotel lobby and lounge held the only slot machines ever in Flagstaff. That sentence, when I was reading it from the source, kind of implied that Flagstaff doesn't have any slot machines now. I hope it does. That would be kind of boring. But like saying it was the only one ever still to this day.
00:40:47
Speaker
Yeah, but they got rid of the slot machines in 1940. Well, maybe they just pushed it all up north to Vegas cause they obviously have leaner gambling laws there, but not in every state. Like, you know, you get Vegas and they get like, yeah, Atlantic city. They have big casinos, but other than that, like, yeah. So I'm not too sure, but that was also made it really, really popular there, uh, and made the hotel really popular.
00:41:16
Speaker
Uh, then with the rise in popularity of Western movies going on, um, the hotel was a prime spot for celebrities to stay while they were filming nearby. Cause it's Arizona, like beautiful and everything. Easy to shoot there. Oh, the landscape. Oh yeah. Yeah. One of the ladies at work. I don't know if you'll know the noise or I can do it, but her, her like ringtone sometimes is the like Western, like, Oh,
00:41:47
Speaker
like the standoff. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Where I was like, oh, there's Birkett's phone. Wow.
00:41:57
Speaker
I like that. It's so cliche. Iconic. Yeah, that too. Yeah, so this was a really popular place to stay, I guess, and the hotel hosted guests. I don't know who some of these people are. Jane Russell, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, I know, and named Crosby. Bill was sounding more familiar as the list went on.
00:42:28
Speaker
It's like when, when Gloria is like, stop name dropping J or something like that, if that's what you're doing. Cause like, she doesn't recognize all the names and I'm like, same. Is that a member of the Rat Pack? So in one of the rooms, actually a scene from Casablanca was filmed actually.
Celebrity Ghost Encounters
00:42:50
Speaker
I don't know which one. And it didn't tell me which room, but.
00:42:56
Speaker
There's a piano scene. I don't know. Isn't that a bar? Hotel bar? I have not seen. I have not seen Casablanca yet, but I want to. I was going to say probably the majority of my reference also comes from Modern Family, but go on. Yeah. One of the first ghost reported sightings at the hotel was actually from John Wayne in the late 1950s. Oh, cool. Yeah.
00:43:26
Speaker
Interestingly enough, so on my mom's side of the family, through marriage, we actually are related to John Wayne. Oh my god, no. Somebody in my mom's side of the family is like married into his family or something. Second cousin, twice removed. We do have a connection to John Wayne. Anytime we were in like drum hell or anything and there was like a freaking
00:43:55
Speaker
cardboard cut out of John Wayne in any sort of cowboy store. My mom always took a picture with it and she's like, this is my relative. And then I'd be like, through marriage, not actually related.
00:44:08
Speaker
That's funny. I know we're like kind of big on the cowboy culture here. Sometimes I'll joke that this province, like Alberta is like the Texas of Canada sort of. Well, there's a lot of cattle and, you know, oil. There's similarities. We can't deny that. But the freaking Calgary Stampede.
00:44:28
Speaker
yes yeah we have rodeos but i'm like there's like john wane cutouts this i did not know yeah if you go to like drum heller and that kind of stuff um there's dinosaur bones down there i would love to go back like i don't know if i've been to drum heller and the hoodoos which you talked about on our uh urban legend uh like arizona and
00:44:54
Speaker
Right. Well, we're just above Montana. It's a similar landscape. It's the very desert. Yeah, but I thought that was really cool. Yeah, the canyons. That is awesome. I wish I was related to some of that cool. He was probably like, hey, what's up, poltergeist? No, I can't do the John Wayne. My whole thing is, if you used to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway, Ryan Stiles did a good John Wayne impression. Okay. Partner. Yeah.
00:45:24
Speaker
I do have a little more information about what John Wayne specifically said about what he saw, but I thought it was interesting that like one of the first ghost sightings that was reported was from him and then the ghost sightings apparently go back as far as the late 1950s. So it's not anything new. It's like really old there.
00:45:46
Speaker
And the hotel, I guess, is the longest publicly held commercial hotel in the history of America before it was sold into the ownership of a private individual in the late 1960s. So yeah, I mean, it was publicly held by Flagstaff for like over 30 years. Because it wasn't privately owned by someone.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, it was like through like fundraising. So I guess they probably just had like some like management appointed or maybe like a board who looked after it, but. Right. Yeah. Like, like the historical buildings get. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so getting into the ghosts, cause this had the most detail. It was fun. What did he say? Not yet. I think I have that down like further. Um,
00:46:44
Speaker
So there's, yeah, some of these are real weird. Um, the first one's probably one of the weirdest and that is there was a long-term border or like long-term renter who ended up staying at the hotel. I don't know how long he was there for. Um, he had a habit of hanging raw meat from the chandelier in his room, which, yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
That is so gross and also sounds slightly familiar, which is the only reason why I'm not more shocked. Isn't it gross? Yeah. Yes. I don't understand if that would do anything. It couldn't possibly be curing the meat or smoking it really that effectively. Yeah. I don't know what he was doing or where he was getting this meat from, but it happened in room 220. We do know that.
00:47:38
Speaker
One thing said 210, but most of the stuff said 220. So I went with 220. Oh god, I'm just writing meat curtains 220. Did I ever tell you what meat curtains means? It's a terrible euphemism for lady parts. Yeah, I figured. I think I had heard that before from something. It's terrible, I know. The meat hanging.
00:48:07
Speaker
okay i don't know how else to address this this is very strange this is very it's very strange behavior i just pitched with like ed gean as soon as i heard i was like no oh yeah and i'm sure hotel workers have seen some things i cleaned a few rooms for a very short time and you could tell when some parties had happened there'd be like weed left over and like just a general mess and stuff right but like meat and stuff it's like i hear the australians have this game where they put their their bagged wine on um
00:48:38
Speaker
it's like those clotheslines that are like a central post and then they have the clothesline thing coming out so you can like I guess turn the top of it and it's kind of like I never did understand it until I watched a video and it's kind of like spin the bottle and when the clothesline stops whoever the the bag is hanging in front of they like just like suck and drink out of it I know I don't think that happens much post COVID but
00:49:07
Speaker
Probably not. Just things like wine udders are just like flack. But us commonwealth countries, we're a hardy, we're a hardy batch. We do some weird shit and we drink a lot sometimes. We keep our boxed wine in the fridge like civilized food.
00:49:25
Speaker
We Canadians pretend to be. Yes, better than that. Yeah, so I wish they had, I actually don't wish I had more on this guy, but apparently this all happened in the early 1980s. So I'm surprised there's not more knowing about him because that wasn't that long ago. That makes it worse. Yeah, that makes it so much worse somehow. Nobody noticed this.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was the 80s. Fuck, everybody got away with everything it seems. Right? Before cell phones and the internet. It was a wild time. Apparently he was found in his room like three days after he had actually died. That room probably. Between the meat chandelier and him dying and not being found for three days, that room must have fucking reeked.
00:50:20
Speaker
It sounds the worst. Yeah. And was it just normal meat? Oh my God. I have no idea. There's no details. Not going after his dad, the maintenance worker was doing some repairs in the room.
00:50:35
Speaker
and he ended up leaving to go get something and when he left he had turned the lights off and walked the door behind him and when he turned a few minutes later he found that the TV was on blasting at full volume and that the bedsheets I guess had been like ripped off the bed and scattered around the room like but nobody had been in there he was only gone for like five minutes something said so yeah and he had locked it behind himself
00:51:04
Speaker
Is this after the the corpse in the curtains? Yeah. It's creepy. Many people continue to report the TV acting weird on its own. They also report hearing coughing and other noises from the otherwise empty room and reports of cold male hands touching guests in their sleep. It's meat man.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yeah, that can't sound anymore to praise. Oh, cold mail. He could be patting cold mail out of your head and asleep yet. Night, night. So gross. Yeah, so that's room 220. I wouldn't recommend. Yeah, no thanks. I'm going to pass. Yeah. I'm also going to pass on this room. It's room 305, and it's also very popular.
00:52:00
Speaker
And it's said to be actually the most active room in the hotel, I guess. Oh, wow. Okay. Past the other room even. I guess so. Past all the other rooms. I have a number of them here that talk about them. There's a woman who appears in the rocking chair near the window, and guests and housekeeping have seen the chair move by itself and her knocking coming from inside the closet.
00:52:28
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know much more about the closet thing but um research did discover that years before there was an elderly woman who was also a long term renter and she would sit by the window for hours on end like every day
00:52:45
Speaker
So um yeah so they think it's her and reportedly from the cleaning staff um if they move that rocking chair like away from its place by the window um the next time they go back in the room it's back right by the window so it keeps getting moved back. It's her favorite spot yeah I guess I just don't love yeah I don't love the knocking in the
00:53:13
Speaker
closet right that's creepy it didn't say anything more other than like just sprinkling that detail in there and i was like but why the closet right sometimes you'd think our our dog heard some knocking that we can't hear and of course they can hear things that we can't hear they're sometimes past like oh i think maybe it's the coyotes because literally they'll come near around us sometimes yeah
00:53:41
Speaker
But we'll be sitting at dinner, we're all around the coffee table. He looks over toward the front door area, but there's no warning. It just all of a sudden like, woof, and he barks and sometimes we jump out of our skin. We're like, what the fuck, Sven? Yeah. He starts staring at the ceiling, and I'm just like, what are we looking at? Is there a portal to another dimensioning opening above me? And I can't see it.
00:54:07
Speaker
Great. The damn cats in that Dear David one were always staring at his freaking door into that creepy hallway. Don't love that. Another big room mentioned is the room right next door to the creepy rocking chairwoman. Hers is 305. This is 306.
00:54:35
Speaker
It's also, for some reason, a couple of these rooms had nicknames. This one's nicknamed the Gary Cooper Room. Don't really know why. But in this room, there's actually two female ghosts who are known to attack men.
Hotel Ghost Stories and Legends
00:54:51
Speaker
Just fun, I guess.
00:54:54
Speaker
It said that back in the 1940s, the Red Light District was near the hotel a few blocks away and these two sex workers were brought to room 306 one night and they actually ended up getting killed in the room.
00:55:13
Speaker
And then their bodies were thrown from the third floor window of the room, like out onto the street below. Well that's unceremonious.
00:55:32
Speaker
In the years since, many guests have reported being awakened in the middle of the night and being unable to go back to sleep because they felt like they were being watched. And most of the time, male guests report the feeling of hands being placed over their mouths or around their throats. And this feeling normally causes them to wake up and they're unable to breathe, like when that wakes them up that they can't breathe. Oh my God, that's scary.
00:56:03
Speaker
It's very like sleep paralysis. Excuse me while I swallow several times. Make sure I can still breathe. These two ladies have also been seen in the pool hall and the lounge. The lounge is also a lot of activity going on in the lounge. It gets mentioned quite a bit.
00:56:31
Speaker
The hotel actually has its own phantom bellboy. So he's roaming around the hallways and that kind of stuff. Guests report hearing a knock at their door and a muffled voice saying room service. But when they open the door, no one's there and like no one's even in the hallway.
00:56:53
Speaker
Uh, or anywhere nearby. And some guests have even seen the figure of the bell boy standing outside of room 210, which is called the Zane Gray Room. Um, yeah.
00:57:09
Speaker
This was the ghost, or I guess at least one of the ghosts that John Wayne who was staying at the hotel experienced during a few different stays he had had at the hotel. So he said he saw it more than once and during different stays at different times that he was at the hotel. Oh, so he liked that room.
00:57:32
Speaker
I guess so, or you just see him in the hallways, it seems like. John Wayne said that the ghost appeared friendly and that he wasn't threatened by its appearance or when he saw it. Employees of the hotel also see the bellboy frequently, and they describe him as a young man in an old-fashioned red coat with brass buttons, and they say they see him walking up and down the halls. They love to walk up and down those halls.
00:58:01
Speaker
So I do a lot of mine. Other guests have reported seeing a woman who actually wanders the halls also outside of room 210. Room 210 is just like very active, I guess. Supposedly the hotel staff avoid putting guests with pets in room 210 because dogs go crazy with fear and end up tearing up the room. So I guess they've had that problem in there. So they specifically avoid that room if anybody has a pet.
00:58:32
Speaker
That's very smart. The dogs are very sensitive. Maybe they like the meat, the meat chandelier room. I don't know which one they prefer. Oh my God. But maybe. I tell you if it was a freaking Jolly Rancher chandelier room, my dog and his sweet tooth is insatiable. Oh, just loves sugar. Oh yeah. Like, yeah, today I did the, oh, I'm home. I'll see you. And then he's like,
00:59:01
Speaker
He's sniffing you and he's sniffing your breath. What do you got? Anything? I don't have any candy to give you, buddy. You're a dog. Geez, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I bought some good smelling cider because he loves Pat's juice, which is like the wild berry juice. Anything that just smells like berries. Sometimes we'll buy some raspberries.
00:59:31
Speaker
like feed him some and he'll eat those. But like out of that, like he's also a sugar fucking sweet whore. Oh fuck. I don't know what I was saying, but like, yeah, he'll just eat any. And he's like, Oh, what you guys got something that smells like, Oh yeah. I bought the cider and it's the strawberry rhubarb flavor. And so then if, if, if you drink anything that smells good, he's sniffing your breath. Like, what's in it for me? And you know,
01:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're just very good at begging. That's all. Yeah. He's very cute. Yeah. But anyway, sorry. It's very good. The next place you'd want to avoid is kind of creepy. No, there's more scary places. Yeah. This is the basement. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Well, yeah. Because this one, it has a creepy basement.
01:00:30
Speaker
That would be where like the dungeons are. Or just the maintenance and laundry room. Oh, okay. That is terrifying. Hard labor. Yeah.
01:00:47
Speaker
Apparently, they report hearing disturbing cries of an infant in the basement, which freaks a lot of the employees out, heard mostly by the maintenance and laundry personnel. It said that some staff even end up running upstairs just to escape the sound of the loud crying.
01:01:09
Speaker
And even though they searched, there's never anything to explain like the cause of the noise. Like why would there be a baby in the basement? Yeah, but apparently a lot of them end up hearing it and it freaks a lot of them out. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
01:01:28
Speaker
And it's just like an annoying sound because it's designed to make you come and answer the baby's call because you're like ingrained to be like, oh, baby must protect it. It is like in danger. Yeah. In the cocktail lounge. This one's really short, but this one wouldn't be I guess if I had to see any of these ghosts, this one probably wouldn't be too bad.
01:01:57
Speaker
It's in the cocktail lounge and staff and patrons have witnessed a transparent couple that end up dancing together. They're described as being in formal clothing, they're laughing and smiling and always dancing together. Which just sounds lovely. So if I had to see any of these ghosts, it would be the cute couple in the lounge, I guess.
01:02:18
Speaker
The forever couple, it's the ones on the Titanic that are like, I could have been saved. The woman, you know, yeah, she's given a place in the lifeboat, but she stays behind with her husband and they die in the bed or whatever. You're like, oh, damn. This is like one reported death in the hotel, other than like the two ladies and then the people that just, I guess died there.
01:02:45
Speaker
This happened in the 1970s, maybe just 1970, when three men ended up robbing a nearby bank.
01:03:01
Speaker
and during the robbery, a bank guard actually shot one of the men. Despite this, the other two decided to drag this wounded man back to the hotel lounge so that they could all have drinks together and celebrate instead of taking him to a hospital.
01:03:21
Speaker
the guy that had been shot ended up leading to death in the lounge while he was enjoying his last drink or maybe trying to I don't know how successfully he was drinking yeah okay now this is reading like Pulp Fiction or something we can't go to the cops you gotta give your adrenaline shot
01:03:40
Speaker
Yeah. Ever since then patrons and staff have reported being greeted by an anonymous voice saying hello or good morning each morning when they open the lounge. So friendly. Right? The lounge sounds ISIS. He's like the Walmart greener of ghosts. Maybe there's haunted Walmarts. How are you doing? Welcome to the afterlife. Here's a smiley face sticker.
01:04:09
Speaker
Returns are over there. Yeah, so they are greeted with hello or good morning when they open the lounge in the morning. Bar stools and drinks are also reported to move on their own. And some report feeling the presence, like feeling a presence watching them while they're in the lounge. But it doesn't seem to be like anything bad.
01:04:39
Speaker
What the last thing is just kind of more general employees and guests have heard band music coming from the second floor lobby. And when they go to investigate like nobody's there, nobody's playing music.
01:04:54
Speaker
Very the shining staff report that they have grown so used to the different ghosts in the different rooms and areas of the hotel and all the odd occurrences that it's treated as more of a joke than it is to like worry most of them. Okay. Well, I guess it's not like super malevolent then.
01:05:19
Speaker
I guess other than the ladies that are trying to strangle the guys that sleep in the one room. Other than that, everybody seems fairly friendly. Yeah, they were a little problematic.
01:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, it did say that they can't pinpoint exactly who it is in the lounge. If it is that guy that was one of the bank robbers, because there have been like a history of shootings. And it also said cowboys on horseback in the lobby and drunken brawls, like in the lounge, they can't pinpoint exactly who it is in the lounge that's haunting.
01:06:07
Speaker
But they kind of assume it's that guy, I guess, but it could be somebody else. I thought it was funny that they're like, yeah, it has a history of shootings, drunken brawls, and cowboys on horseback. And it's like, what?
01:06:23
Speaker
Why are you riding horses in the lobby? It's all those all those Western celebrities. John Wayne or did John Wayne ride a horse through the lobby? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know, but it's one of the women in that Civil War spy novel I read, for lack of a better word. It was
01:06:53
Speaker
not Tinker Tailor Soldier spy, but what was it called? Seductress something spy. Anyway, there's one Southern Belle who ended up because they had a couple on the Union side and some on the Confederate to kind of give you the balance. And I think she was one of, ended up being one of the Confederate sort of spies and advocates or whatever, but she had like,
01:07:19
Speaker
Her mom was like, no, you can't come into this dinner party. So she'd like went out to grab her horse and then like rode it into the dining room. It was like, Oh, really? Can't I? And I was like, Jesus, this girl is like if she. Yeah, if this wasn't a real person, I would be like, she's a pretty good written, you know, heroine or whatever. Yeah. That'd be pretty wild to see. I know. I think her name was Belle.
01:07:48
Speaker
whatever. Some of them had some very great names also. Yeah. Yeah, that's my collection of hotels. Oh, damn. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your ending at all, but that was really good. It was fun. It was fun looking at all the pretty hotels being like, Oh, I'd stay there. The history and then yeah, you get an idea of who some of the ghosts can be and then
01:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, you get more of an idea of the different ghosts when you have so many different reports from one place, which is really cool. Yeah, the last one, like most of the information.
01:08:30
Speaker
for the Montvista was from like HotelMontvista.com. It was on their own website. They have a whole section about the ghosts specific. So I took that as like being the most true for like room numbers and like everything because that was from their own website. So I hope that would be pretty factual.
01:08:53
Speaker
if they're going to put that on the website. Yeah, that's not always usual for people to put it right on the website itself. Sometimes they don't want to advertise. This one seemed like it was- No. They were okay with it, so yeah. It was cool. Amazing. Interesting. I liked their little history they had about during the prohibition and that kind of stuff before was interesting.
01:09:21
Speaker
Yeah. Cause you got to know where like the ghosts might've come from or like why emotions would have been high at this place or people might've, yeah. They had leftover business. Like that's, that's the fun stuff. That was really good. Yeah. Damn. Well, I'll try and follow that. Um, no, you're going to have to. All right. Well,
01:09:48
Speaker
Stay tuned for part two. We'll be right back after a short break where we're probably gonna play a lovely promo from one of our dark cast brethren. We're all very much worth checking out, so stay tuned. Hi guys, I'm Courtney. And I'm Lisa. And we are the hosts of the Book of the Dead, a true crime podcast based out of New Jersey where we tell you about the most obscure cases that you may have never heard of.
01:10:19
Speaker
So join us in the Book of the Dead library for another chapter of the Book of the Dead wherever you get your podcasts. Bye guys. So welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that promo by a Darkcast member. I just don't know who it is yet, so I'll put it in the notes when it happens. Bye somebody. Right. I have to double check.
01:10:48
Speaker
who is going in there but we like to do that um yeah because we love collaborating with our dark cast peeps but anyway welcome back we hope you enjoyed kelsey's haunted hotel segment and you're ready for more gordo's even in attendance yeah he misses me i was at work all day it's like i'm gonna hang out with you you did have to work a lot
01:11:17
Speaker
this weekend which i worked the whole weekend i worked every day it was so busy yesterday we beat our sales goal by thirty thousand dollars holy cats yeah i wonder if that's because it was closed well no you well it's a long weekend for a lot of people yeah so
01:11:41
Speaker
Yeah, we're always really busy on long weekends. Today we missed our goal by $300, which was... Oh. Yeah. But yesterday, $30,000 or something. Yeah. Okay. Well, today we had the reduced hours, so that made a difference. Okay. Yesterday it was a full day, so... Yeah, I hear they give us the day off. Well, the day we're recording this. For family day, they call it in.
01:12:11
Speaker
the province of Alberta, but it's like a provincial holiday that they'll call it whatever. Different things at different provinces sometimes. It's a bank holiday as they say in the European ones whenever they were just called a bank holiday because banks are closed. That kind of holiday. Sometimes we call it a statutory holiday, which doesn't have a great connotation to it. So bank holidays may be a bit better.
01:12:40
Speaker
All I care about is that I got paid time and a half today. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We do many more days where they're all, everything has to be closed, which for a lot of retail stores is only that one magical day a year. Yeah. Christmas day. That's all we get. Oh, Lordy.
01:13:05
Speaker
Not even Boxing Day? The magical Canadian holiday of the day you get off after Christmas, presumably to get rid of all your boxes? I don't know. No, no, we're back. Yeah. I don't know. People work a lot.
01:13:24
Speaker
this province and everything can be open like really late because all the liquor stores are like, you know, oh, not provincially regulated like all ours and be liquor would be all closed by like 10. And stuff like that anyway. Oh, yeah, way later. Crazy.
01:13:44
Speaker
I just went out after supper to get the kid her fix of ice cream and everybody else was bitchin', they wanted chips. And even the self-serve part of the self-checkout was closed at the little grocery store. I was like, wow. Oh, wow. It's late. And sometimes then the automatic doors won't open at the liquor store there either.
01:14:10
Speaker
Like they don't have them have automatic after certain times of night. And I'm like, Oh no, that means I've had problems with people in the past. That's lovely. Right. Crazy. It's rough up here. Um, no. Yeah. Uh, but that's what happens when you're in a cold climate, just like the hardy people of Scotland.
01:14:37
Speaker
Good segue. Good segue. Gets fucking cold up there. They're a tough bunch. And yeah, they have a shit ton of castles, would you believe like 1500 castles in Scotland? So 1500. Okay, I wouldn't think of that many. I knew they have lots. Oh, right. Like fucking Great Britain, I think has probably the biggest
01:15:04
Speaker
collection, but is that the right word? No, but you don't even mean like, I bet they have like, a good portion. Yeah, so of course, a lot of them are castle hotels nowadays, which leads to a lot of cool hauntings. Yes, there's just so many that it's like, couldn't just pick just one with shares. Yeah, it makes for a fun, made a fun segment for me. I mean, if I had one, if I wasn't rich, I would turn it into like,
01:15:32
Speaker
a little Airbnb or maybe not an Airbnb, but at least a bed and breakfast, I think would be cute. Oh, hell yeah. I mean, likelihood that someone's actually living there still is low. But if it is livable, then you're like, might as well make some money off it. Yeah, I would live there and I would run a bed and breakfast. Oh, it sounds awesome. Amazing. And you could still podcast it.
01:16:01
Speaker
Possibly write horror stories, who knows? In a setting like that, anything's possible. She writes the next Frankenstein. Gordo's tail is freaking out, I can see it and I heard it go thump. Bye. You look so cute though.
01:16:21
Speaker
But I'm being adorable. Fully, fully laid down, you know, where they rest their head on the floor and just. Oh, I do love it when Fenn puts his head on his little paw. I think he looks so polite and studious. Cute. Like he's posing for a book portrait. Yeah.
01:16:48
Speaker
All right, so hopefully I did label anything well on the picture side because, well, they're all castle looking, so. Yeah. I see some of them. I see some names. Well, the first one we're going to talk about is called, um, Tulock Castle Hotel. At least I'm guessing that's how it's pronounced. It could be Tullock.
01:17:18
Speaker
Toulac. Now I'm just trying to think of how I would say it with like a thick island accent or something. Yeah. Toulac or Tullac is a 12th century castle. It's located five minutes from Dingwall. Dingwall. It's like they say on wine and crime. It's if it's in Great Britain, time for some geography. Yeah. All the fun names.
01:17:50
Speaker
Okay. It's not very far from Inverness either. Okay. I've heard of that one. Outlander, yeah.
01:18:00
Speaker
up in the north and this one wasn't until about the 1500s when it truly became known as Tullock Castle for whatever reason and now much of it's ancient and antique furniture remains and original ceilings and paneling which are just a sight to behold. I might have a picture of that one. I don't see this castle. I tried to get
01:18:26
Speaker
as many as I could but I might have missed that one because I was like writing and it's like oh wait I'm looking up stuff but then there's also pictures and then there's like a lot yeah um okay this one does have its own cemetery and many members of one family that owned the place at one time the Davidsons lay buried there um
01:18:54
Speaker
There was a quote that said, there was even once an old tunnel that ran from the Tulloch to the village of Dingwall and further out still to the site where Dingwall Castle itself used to sit. Although now inaccessible due to its collapse, part of the tunnel can be viewed through an air vent on Tulloch Castle's grounds. Creepy. I thought that was castle to castle like tunnels. Yeah. Weird.
01:19:21
Speaker
I mean, I love underground. Yeah. Corridors and stuff. I like them, but they're kind of creepy. Oh, yeah, yeah. No matter the case. Of course, a tragedy happened at the castle. This was after it was purchased by Duncan Davidson in 1762. One day he was accidentally found in a rather compromising position with one of the family maids by his shocked teenage daughter.
01:19:50
Speaker
Oh, scandalous. Right. The poor lady Elizabeth Davidson, that's the daughter, in what is now Room 10. The young Elizabeth, by now utterly panic-stricken, fled, but before she could reach her room, now Room 15, she tragically fell and broke her neck, dying instantly. What? Oh, I thought you were going to say she killed them. Right. That's a common trend.
01:20:19
Speaker
Yeah, but instead she fell and broke her neck. Weird. No, that's a horrible story. Damn it. So her ghost is there. She is known as the green lady. Okay. Yeah. I know, not a white lady. Yeah.
01:20:38
Speaker
And the hotel bar is apparently named after her, which is cool. Oh, that's cute. I know I want to go there. I mean, of course. But also they say feelings of great sadness emanate from her, like her spirit if you encounter it and she will often be whispering. Why? Yeah, I would. Right. I mean, that's just not something that really happens anymore. People just running and then they fall and break their neck.
01:21:07
Speaker
It's a very dramatic story, hey? You're almost like... Yeah, I feel like that just doesn't happen anymore. Could she trip down the stairs? I mean... Yeah, I feel like we need the rest of the details.
01:21:20
Speaker
Maybe she threw herself from the tower, but they just said this story instead. Maybe, yeah, suicide was probably frowned upon. Yes, but as often I've found with Scottish history, and I'm sure you've heard, it gets very dark. Yeah. What did I hear? Because I did just read the Clan Lands book written by the
01:21:46
Speaker
The two guys from Outlander there, and they go all around Scotland. They talk about the clans and Scottish traditions, blah, blah, blah. And they bicker like an old married couple and it's hilarious. And I think the one quote was that Scotland was born fighting. Cheers. It seems like all the clans. OK, so also the Green Lady has a portrait in the Great Hall. So yeah, it stares at you creepily as you walk by, of course.
01:22:17
Speaker
Okay, I had that in one of the ones I was thinking about covering. It was in one of my listicle kind of things I was looking at. Yeah, it was about a portrait. No matter where you were in the room, its eyes were following you. I love that because it's so easy to imagine portraits doing that. Yeah, very creepy. Pardon me.
01:22:44
Speaker
Also, a maid is seen pacing the Great Hall or sometimes in what's called the pink room. So she's perhaps distressed about her part in Elizabeth's death if it's the same debauched maid. Yeah. Has no word of what happened to them after. There's also balls of light seen here and other eerie orbs and sounds like clicks, bangs and thuds.
01:23:16
Speaker
creepy yeah clicks is weird yeah so a spooky room is room 8 if you want to experience something supernatural okay yeah it's like your best bet well also probably those other rooms I mentioned that were the other incident happened yeah
01:23:41
Speaker
um but one man awoke in room eight to find his chest tightly compressed and when he looked two small girls were sitting on it oh no yeah creepy that i don't like if i ever woke up and like somebody was
01:23:58
Speaker
At the foot of my bed, I'm pretty sure I'd like shit myself. Immediate, yeah. Need to do shit? Yeah, like adrenaline to a thousand. I wouldn't, I would freak out. Oh yeah, it's immediate and like...
01:24:15
Speaker
The chest thing is very sleep paralysis. Yeah, awesome. And there's was another report of it that was on TripAdvisor by a person who was staying with their cousin and, excuse me, the original poster heard knocking all night and then
01:24:35
Speaker
Um him and the or them and the cousin saw entities in the room and saw something sitting on the end of the bed weird It's always it always throws me off when I i'm looking up anything haunted or stuff Like that are in our series different places and they have trip advisor Yeah as a source. Why is this a source? It's so weird. I mean
01:25:02
Speaker
I guess it's something you do want to know about the room you booked. Yeah. That's pertinent information. Room was haunted but clean. 8 out of 10. There is one they reference another podcast that's like, it was like a five star. What was it? Five star? Whatever it was, it was like, five out of 10, like got stabbed here once would go back. Did you hear that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure they say. I heard that. Yeah.
01:25:32
Speaker
Otherwise very nice. Yeah. All right, so this one should have. God damn it, I know I put a picture of this one up across his fingers. It's called The Witchery by the Castle. Yeah, I did see this. Oh, that looks pretty. I love a clawfoot tub.
01:26:00
Speaker
Oh my god, the interior of that one is so crazy. Yes. I love a freestanding tub, not a shower tub combo. Oh my god. Because they can't have it be like a bunch of modern architecture inside a castle. No, they can't.
01:26:21
Speaker
This one's, yeah, I love the name, the witchery by the castle. It's like we had the witchery market here, like, I don't know, which was bored. It's an unusual name. Yeah. But it has some meaning. So it is a quaint yet luxurious restaurant and hotel set in the quote, shadow of Edinburgh Castle, as one source put it, which I loved.
01:26:48
Speaker
It's inside the 16th century Boswells Court, which also just happens to be the site of hundreds of death by burning at the stake. Ooh. Ooh, shit. Probably what's called the witchery. Make a haunted. Right. Some sources say that about 1,000 people were killed on Castle Hill, which is a lot.
01:27:17
Speaker
It's even believed that more alleged witches were burned during James VI's reign than any other time in Scotland's history.
01:27:30
Speaker
Salem ain't got nothing on Scotland. No. Yeah. I know we always talk about like Salem witch trials and everything, but I guess I forget how much of that came from like Europe and everything and people immigrating over into the US. Bringing their old troubles with them. Yeah. Yeah. I loved covering that in there.
01:27:55
Speaker
fifth episode when we did a bunch of witch tracks from different places. We did. A long, long time ago. Not that Salem is not fascinating, but like yeah, I feel like the other ones get overlooked sometimes for some reason. Yeah. Um, but yeah, now it's a bed and breakfast with a restaurant called, get this, The Secret Garden. That's the restaurant. Oh.
01:28:23
Speaker
And it said it was built on an abandoned schoolyard. I was like, okay, but also, which is burning? But maybe there's the restaurant area? I don't know. Oh, no, no. We probably can't afford to stay there, but hell, we got to go for dinner. Yeah, it'd be cool to stay in a castle.
01:28:47
Speaker
Yeah, castle adjacent. I dig castle adjacent. There's so many. Surely we can afford one of these places. Right. Oh, pardon me. Yeah, I found this fun fact about one of the witch trials. Jane Douglas' Lady Glamis was executed on Castle Hill in 1537 for allegedly plotting to poison James V.
01:29:16
Speaker
Like the witches who would come after her, she was burned at the stake and is said to haunt the streets of the old town, seeking justice for what is now believed to be a politically motivated murder." Oh, okay. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of actual hauntings there for as many deaths as there seems to be, but everyone assumes it's pretty haunted. And violent deaths. Yeah.
01:29:40
Speaker
They talk about that. It's not not normally regular deaths. It's like violent things or stuff. I mean, there's got to be. Yeah, maybe there's a feeling there, but maybe because it's not a place where a lot of the victims were like attached to, they're probably just brought there for their death. Like, I don't know. Maybe it doesn't have as much of a significance. Then we have Dalhousie Castle and Spa.
01:30:10
Speaker
Okay, we got to go there. Donate to Patreon. I will review this.
Quirky Place Names and Castle Ghosts
01:30:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'll do whatever they want. So this one's in the Midlothian town of Bonyrigg, which is fun to say.
01:30:29
Speaker
It looks fun. There's a place in, they mentioned the, I don't know if it's a real residence, but there's the one in Outlander that the one lady lives at is called Ballriggan. Yeah. I mean, it sounds stupider in my accent. They probably say it with their cute Scottish one. But yeah.
01:30:54
Speaker
I mean, we do have a place in Alberta. We already, we've probably mentioned it on the pod. That's just called Balzac. Yeah. So weird place names. Um, okay. So here at the Dalhousie one, we have a gray lady. Ooh. Okay. Yeah. Lots of those. Yeah. This one's apparently the lady Catherine. Uh, most people agree anyway.
01:31:23
Speaker
who so she was the very young as in like 16 years old probably um mistress of a laird locked up and left to die in a turret by the jealous wife so oh shit okay right like fairy tale fucking dark bullshit
01:31:45
Speaker
Yes, there's your jealous wife one. So now the gray lady is said to wander the halls forlornly looking to find peace and is most often seen in the turret, the staircase, or the dungeons. Huh. I don't know why the dungeons. Um, sorry.
01:32:08
Speaker
owned by the same family for 800 years. It's the girls of Dalhousie. Yeah. And guess what they are? Right? That's crazy. You know, I want to inherit that. Yeah, I was born with the wrong family. It's held by the chieftains of clan Ramsey, like Gordon Ramsey.
01:32:30
Speaker
Who is Scottish if people don't realize? He just sounds more Londoner now because he lived there for a long time. I always think Ramsay Bolton from fucking Game of Thrones. I never think Gordon Ramsay when I hear Ramsay. Oh, no. He's tainted Ramsay for you. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah, so this one had a drawbridge once as its only entrance. So that's awesome. Damn. Yeah, that's pretty cool.
01:33:00
Speaker
Oh my god. Just like pull it up, be like, no, you cannot enter. You shall not pass. Yeah, anytime it's that time of the month, I don't want any visitors. The castle is closed. Yeah, that'd be handy during COVID and stuff. Yeah, just shut down your house. No, this one's like got some really cool features. It has a
01:33:26
Speaker
actual hidden bar behind a bookcase in the library. I like that. I mean, that was the bookcases with the library ladders. Like, oh, super amazing. Like Beauty and the Beast fricking. Yeah. I like when, yeah, there's that one writer I've been reading lately. I think I told you this Susanna lady who is, you can tell when they're big readers themselves, they're like,
01:33:56
Speaker
They're like, oh my God, this character really appreciates a library that looks like a set of Beauty and the Beast. I'm like, yeah. Of course your readers appreciate that too. If I ever had the opportunity to get on one of those ladders and then like kick off and go to the other side of the room, I would do it just to see if it actually works. Oh my God. Cosplaying that in the little bell outfit.
01:34:22
Speaker
Um, so, okay. Hidden bookcase, uh, hidden bar rather behind a bookcase. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. It also said the dungeon was quote unquote bottle formed and that prisoners were lowered in by a rope and that the marks will still be seen. Yeah. So I'm guessing it's pretty narrow entrance. Wow. That's different. I've never heard of that before. No.
01:34:49
Speaker
It's like the inventive ones on Game of Thrones, the sky cells at the veil where they just have the one lack of wall they can roll out or whatever. Yeah, that scares me. Horrifying. What was this? What was this about? I forgot what ghost I was talking about here. OK, so the gray. This is more on the gray lady.
01:35:19
Speaker
Her wrestling dress has been heard. She taps on doors and shoulders and is sometimes even seen sitting at the end of a bed. Oh, and she hates bagpipe music when she's near bagpipes tend to play out of tune. And another ghost is one Sir Alexander Ramsey. Oh, haunting his family's house.
01:35:49
Speaker
Yeah, he there was a little bit on him because you know, I like the history tea in 1400 Dalhousie Castle was under siege for no less than six months by Henry IV. Sir Alexander Ramsey was able to fight him off but was later abducted and starved to death at Hermitage Castle. Shit. Okay. So yeah, guess what he lived here and then died elsewhere.
01:36:16
Speaker
It sucks. Starving somebody to death is awful. Right? Like the one mistress that was locked up in the turret or whatever. Yeah. Starved. Sir Alexander Ramsey has also been seen wandering the castle grounds. So he haunts here. He haunts his home, yes. He's killed elsewhere, but he's like, I just want to go home. His remains were found one and a half centuries
01:36:46
Speaker
later when people were cleaning out the Hermitage Castle. He was finally given a proper funeral then, but his ghost prefers hanging out at his old home. Guests have also been complaining about a ghost that's pulling their hair, but all ghosts at Dalchassee Castle mind their own business and are harmless, which is quite amazing given the violent past." So they're nice.
01:37:14
Speaker
That's good. I mean, if you're going to visit somewhere that's haunted, you hope it's all nice, nice ghosts. Yeah. Fucking poltergeist. Otherwise it's less relaxing spa experience. Yeah. To top it all off, one of the...
01:37:33
Speaker
not gonna sound like their PR person. It's my travel background. I was like, Oh, look at this hotel. Yeah. But like one of the restaurants is on the site of the former dungeons apparently. Oh, okay. Oh, there might be a picture of that. I don't know. I got a picture of some dining room. Now I can't remember which one is from. Yeah, it just says dining room.
01:37:58
Speaker
I think it might have been this one. It said also, there's a package. If you stay five days or longer, you can take a falconry course. Oh, okay. Interesting.
Historical Castles as Tourist Attractions
01:38:12
Speaker
So high class, British. And as a popular wedding venue, you can have an owl bring the rings to your best man or chosen ring bearer. What?
01:38:23
Speaker
What is this, Harry Potter? It totally is. The train from Harry Potter is in Scotland. They're just like, we train owls at this hotel, castle. Fucking magical planes. Castle slash spa.
01:38:47
Speaker
Oh my God. You can just imagine. I'm doing these notes. I'm just, that was all I ever did when I was in travel. Just dream about the different places. I was not so good at like the actual selling, selling people on it. It's so hard. It's hard enough to buy, pick a hotel for yourself. Darn imagine like some person you don't know. And then you have to like try and pick a hotel for them. You know what I mean? That's fair. I think that's probably one of the hardest things you can do is try and plan somebody's vacation for them.
01:39:16
Speaker
Yeah, it made me wonder what it'd be like being a real tour because I'm like, that's something that's really hard to sell. It's a big decision for people. They're spending a lot of money. They're very picky. All right. But maybe easier to sell if it's a freaking castle. Yeah, maybe. It's a bit drafty and the upkeep is a bit much.
01:39:47
Speaker
We're sure you can do it if you turn it into a historical site and rent it out. Yeah. Just claim it's haunted, even if it's not. Yeah, the revenue has got to help with the upkeep, so you want to make it into the hotel. I got a bird. Oh, funny. All right. Next we have Bankfoot Inn, which is on the southern edge of the Highlands.
01:40:16
Speaker
It's a long stone structure and an accommodation. Um, not quite a castle, but you know, big old stone lodgings. Oh, okay. I see the picture. Yeah. Um, it's located in the Perthshire
Castle Hauntings and Tragic Tales
01:40:34
Speaker
countryside. It has had paranormal teams investigate after multiple reports of ghosts or sorry, guests experiencing things. Pardon me.
01:40:48
Speaker
Here they were able to somewhat identify several different entities such as like the one that was a little girl spirit and one that was an old woman. Then one dark entity they just nicknamed the Thing so he wasn't very nice. No, I don't like that. No.
01:41:11
Speaker
Also, voices are often heard in the laundry and objects get knocked over all the time with taps turning on and off. Weird. But yeah, there's not too much on that one. Nor this next one. Apparently. It's a shorter blurb. This is Ochin or Ochin Castle. Not too sure in Dumfries and Galloway.
01:41:40
Speaker
It's pretty old, built in the 1300s. This is the original castle now lying in ruins, but something called a home farm was built here in 1849. And there's a lot of big old stone houses, like Lallybrock and Outlander that weren't castles, but were big old stone estates.
01:42:04
Speaker
This one has a young child that haunts these halls, usually seen in the morning, just descending the stairs or out in the gardens. Living your best life, after life. Yeah. And then we have Borthwick Castle, which I kept writing as Bothwick, and then had to go back and correct myself.
01:42:33
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah, Borthwick. I don't know. It's kind of weird, weird one, but it's a restored 15th century castle about 21 miles or so from Edinburgh converted to a hotel in 1973. This one's ghosts include a servant girl who had given birth to Sir William Borthwick's son and was so unfortunately executed for her troubles.
01:43:01
Speaker
jesus yeah like well who got her pregnant right but no they just kill her and the child because they suck and the child okay right that's fucked up so she haunts the bread room which like i don't know if that's for the for the um wallpaper or for the blood who knows but yeah
01:43:28
Speaker
It reminds me of when they sell the Flanders family a haunted house on the Simpsons. And they're like, oh no, Marge is like, I should have told you they all died here. And then they all like, it's Flanders. He takes it really well. And they're like, oh, do you think he got killed here? The little rod and tie. Oh my god. I don't know why that came to me. I'm sorry. OK, yes, she haunts the Red Room. The Red Room.
01:43:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I thought. Maybe it was the little boy that made me think of the other little Flanders. There's another ghost though that hangs out here. It's the Borthwix Chancellor. So the Borthwix family had a chancellor who was caught embezzling money and then burned to death. Holy crap. Also is here.
01:44:19
Speaker
This is some crazy deaths in Scotland. Like, fuck, starving people, burning them to death, putting them in bottleneck jails. I know. I'm sad they didn't get to keep a lot of their traditions and stuff, but like their history was quite brutal, like the clans and the fighting and the killing. And this is even without talking about any of those massacres or anything like that, you know.
01:44:49
Speaker
Ah, it's all that shit that inspires Game of Thrones. Literally. So here, voices, clicking noises, and light anomalies have been reported by visitors, whilst—whilst, that's right. Legend has it that the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots, wanders the halls at night. Okay. Famous one.
01:45:12
Speaker
I guess this is because in March of 1566, while Mary was heavily pregnant, her second husband, Lord Darnley, brutally murdered her secretary at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. Fun.
01:45:28
Speaker
Having witnessed the event with her own eyes, Mary no doubt saw that she needed to rid herself of and find an alternative to her troublesome husband. That's one way to put it. Let's abandon this guy. I know, I know. That's why I'm like, I have to include some of those history quotes because, wow. After the birth of her son, she evidently filled, at least filled?
01:45:53
Speaker
at least one if not both. Oh, one if not both of those needs with James Earl of Bothwell. History tells us that Mary and the Earl not only went to work to formulate a plan to get rid of Darnley, but also began a love affair. Off the murderous husband. Okay. Yeah.
01:46:11
Speaker
In October 1566, Mary learned that the Earl had been wounded in a minor altercation and was convalescing in one of his castles. At great risk to both her safety and reputation, Mary dropped everything to be at her lover's side. She and a few select attendants rode as far as 50 miles to Hermitage Castle. Oh, that's where that other guy just starved to death, right? Sorry. On the Scottish borders where they stayed for two hours before making the journey back.
01:46:41
Speaker
the return two hours okay i don't think that was worth it 50 miles 50 miles each way back then would take how long for you to only be there for two hours i guess that's how fast your horse is i don't know yeah that's like basically an all-day trip just to be there for two hours
01:47:04
Speaker
right that's true um and then on the return trip mary caught a chill and the subsequent fever nearly killed her yeah definitely not worth it um it is perhaps this event that has prompted ghost watchers to claim that the regal figure in a white dress seen on the deserted grounds of now ruined hermitage castle is the ghost of mary so like they actually think they see her at a lot of different castles yeah yeah yeah
01:47:33
Speaker
Yeah, and this was, I'm like, forget it, we were talking about Borthwick Castle, which, whatever. Half the pictures were like people's wedding pictures. It feels like they're always, they're all getting married at all these castles. Yeah, there was a lot of wedding pictures that I could have. Yeah, there's like at least two of them here I already see that are like brides and grooms getting pictured. I'm like, oh. I mean the backdrops, but yeah, the death.
01:48:04
Speaker
Yeah, somebody burned to death here. Oh, let's get married. How romantic. They burned to death. Hey, we love the macabre. Okay, no, but to tie it back to why they think she haunts. Borthwick? Yeah, I think that's what we're on. Her new husband was unpopular and after the castle was surrounded, she escaped through the window disguised as a page boy.
01:48:32
Speaker
And oftentimes a young boy goes that walks across the churchyard at night just might be her. People think it's her. I don't know. And now I want to know if she ever got rid of this horrible husband, but I'm sure there's many movies about her that I can watch. Yeah. It's a very interesting history.
01:48:52
Speaker
Okay, so also in the rather aptly named Red Room, Anne Grant and her lover, young Borthwick, were killed and possibly hidden up in the walls after their death. Oh gross. Just like, hit their bodies. I don't know. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, but also very Edward Allen Poe. Yeah. Yeah.
01:49:19
Speaker
So this is fun. Some women who stay here wake to find themselves feeling like they're being pulled from their beds. So. Oh, you just said that sounds fun. Yeah. Super fun. I wonder if that's like, yeah, people coming to pull Mary out of bed. I don't know. Wow. But also, OK, this one actually is fun. In the Great Hall, a red bearded Scotsman waves a broadsword around.
01:49:48
Speaker
So that sounds pretty cool. I'd pretend it was Jamie Frazier. Just fighting the air? What's he doing with this? I don't know. Oh yeah, probably kicking someone's ass. Killing someone. All right, there is the next one, the Cathedral House Hotel in Glasgow.
01:50:16
Speaker
This one was built in 1877 and used as a hostel for inmates released from the Duke Street Prison. I don't know why. Nearby, I guess. Why did they need a hostel? Like a halfway house kind of deal? I think so, yeah. I think it essentially maybe served the same purpose because, yeah, once they get released.
01:50:42
Speaker
It was demolished in 1958 to move in more housing and now only the boundary wall of the prison remains of the original structure. The prison saw quite a few executions, actually 12 in the 20th century alone, so that feels rather recent. It was bought by Shane and Laurie McKenzie in
01:51:11
Speaker
2018 and turned into a hotel. And its residents ghosts include a Susan Newell who was executed for allegedly strangling a paper boy. Oh, okay. I don't like the news. Extracts read all about Yeah, I will not. Um,
01:51:36
Speaker
Also, two kids are seen there, and they're possibly the kids of a woman who drowned her children in the tub on one of the higher floors. Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess that happened. And often the ghostly kids are seen playing and giggling and like brushing up against you and playing tag running around. I'm like, okay. That'd be creepy.
01:51:59
Speaker
I know, I'm like, wouldn't it be so cute but also terrifyingly creepy? Can't decide. This one was a name that reminds me of my kid's elementary school. It's called Norwood Hall Hotel in Aberdeen. My kid went to Norwood School. Okay. Yeah.
01:52:29
Speaker
is built in 1881 on the Pitt Fiddell's castle site. This is dating back to the 15th century, and its colonnaded entrances give it a Victorian vibe. I love a good Victorian vibe. There's like three known ghosts here. James Ogston, the hotel's old owner, his wife, and his mistress.
01:53:00
Speaker
we're sensing a pattern here yeah oh god everybody just had a mistress uh uh bought in 1872 and then only rebuilt like oh he bought it in 1872 the james augston and then apparently only really rebuilt it to meet in secret there with his mistress while his family lived across the river and the other house damn
01:53:30
Speaker
I know. I hope the other house was nice too, because that's just rough. Yeah, right. There's a whole, like, hall and it looks pretty nice, like. Yeah, I can't remember now. They all seemed gorgeous that I was just like, look at you and look at you. Yeah. So yeah, the James guy is often seen by the fire in the dining room.
01:53:58
Speaker
And the mistress is seen on the stairs and the wife is seen in the kitchen hall or the dining room. I don't know how they know which one's the mistress, which one's the wife. Very confusing to me. I really didn't look into any of that after. Maybe in like pictures or something? Yeah, I guess they know his name, so it's not that out of the realm of possibility. The next one is the drovers in in Loch Lomond.
01:54:29
Speaker
It's the one from the famous song. And this one is, oh, it's one of Scotland's oldest licensed locations. So like one of the oldest places they could sell alcohol legally. Probably not. Probably not the oldest ever. I've been making whiskey there for a long time. Yeah. But yeah, it opened in 1705. So it's pretty old.
01:54:59
Speaker
And at the drovers in room six has lots of activity. It has the spirit of a small girl people see there. And she barely rudely drips cold water on your bed sometimes when she stands there. I don't know why. Oh, wait, I do know why. She drowned while trying to fish her doll out of the river. No. That's nice. Oh, that sucks. I know.
01:55:27
Speaker
Horrible, horrible. And they said that a young family froze to death while lost looking for the hotel. So I don't know if you see their ghost, but also is pretty awful. Yum. Socks.
01:55:43
Speaker
It's all like, beautiful castle! Horrible history! Or to use the title of one of our lovely dark cast network shows, Horrifying History! Okay, I'm pretty sure there's pictures of this one up there, too. It's Earth Castle in Stirlingshire.
01:56:06
Speaker
So kind of like air with a TH at the end. Exactly like air. Oh, I see it. Yeah. Well, it's pretty impressive. I don't even remember now. They're all so fucking gorgeous, just in different ways, in my opinion. Yeah. Like beautiful snowflakes. Yes, this one's old AF, built in the 14th century, once owned by the Bruces, like the famous Robert
01:56:36
Speaker
It said Robert de Bruce, which confused me just a little bit because you usually hear Robert the Bruce, but same, same. It's Robert the Bruce was the eighth descendant of a Norman Knight who was called Robert de Bruce after a Norman castle known as Brewess or Bricks. That's all we need to know. That's how he ended up with two first names.
01:57:02
Speaker
Um, but this one's now a wedding venue, a spa, an outdoor dining spot. Um, obviously gorgeous. Yeah. We need to go there immediately. Uh, so some spirits here linger from apparently a tragic fire that happened on site. Don't know much more about that, but it did say the most haunted rooms are rooms 9, 21 and 24. So.
01:57:31
Speaker
there is that because room nine has a nanny that died in the fire and the kids run up and down the halls and haunt around that room it said um room 21 was the one the maids used to use as their lodgings hopefully not too many more than one it's just one room yeah but
01:57:57
Speaker
Apparently one of them was unfortunately raped and killed here by the master of the castle Sure And room 24 has a child that is often heard but never seen But just also as an afterthought they added that rooms 2 3 and 14 have all had reports of just ghostly screams in them Okay, that'd be creepy Just screams
01:58:27
Speaker
Yeah. Are they coming from the room where the one got raped and killed? You would think that would be the case. Yeah. Yeah.
01:58:40
Speaker
And the last one is a not a hotel, but it's the Scots or not a hotel, not a castle. I'm sorry. I'm like, you know what I mean. No, it's the Scotsman Hotel in Edinburgh. It's the former Scotsman newspaper headquarters and the for the Edinburgh Evening News also. So now it's just a five star hotel that apparently several dearly departed reporters and staff still
01:59:10
Speaker
like to haunt at like the printer who died in an accident at work and a forter but they don't really have too much more about them after that so wow end it there because i'm sure they could go on and on what it said lots of hauntings
01:59:30
Speaker
Yes, I like having all the different stories. Probably most of the places in Scotland, it's easy to assume or safe to assume it's probably had at least one unfortunate death. Yeah, I always hear that Edinburgh is really haunted. Like, I don't even think I talked about their castle, but I've heard that. Yeah, it's haunted. And then I think we talked about the vaults.
01:59:55
Speaker
that were under that bridge and they are pretty haunted. And so I'm like, oh, I already know. I'm so fascinated with it. But yeah, you know, I had to stop myself because, you know, you're like haunted hotel Scotland and it's like, here's a list of 12 haunted castle hotels. And here's another one of like 10 and like, they're not all the same ones. And you're like, Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah.
02:00:22
Speaker
But yes, I just enjoy my castles. Kelsey's done. I'm just tired. I need a day off. Thank God I only work four days this week. I have time and a half today, so they always only give you four days instead of five.
02:00:49
Speaker
Just to kind of run it out, eh? Just when you're full time. Yeah. Oh, okay. So you don't get ahead anything, which sucks, but. Kind of a dickish move, but companies are like that. Yeah, but I have a long weekend next, this coming weekend. Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. So at least I still get my long weekend.
02:01:12
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad. I feel, I always feel so bad when I'm like, I can record any day this weekend. And you're like, I cannot. Oh, but, um, yeah, speaking of upcoming weekends off, it's what it's, I think it's Pat's, Pat's birthday is coming up soon. But then also near before my birthday, there's the craft beer fest coming.
02:01:36
Speaker
And yes, I did get two free tickets through work because they usually give away several free tickets to the first people that email them. Okay. Yeah, that's like the eighth or ninth or something. So like,
02:01:55
Speaker
Well, I have my I have my schedule up to the week before that. But that'd be really fun if that would be something you could do. I think it's a Friday and a Saturday. So maybe we could do one of the nights. Let me see. So I'd be off working. I should be off that weekend anyway. So I should be off at least the Saturday.
02:02:26
Speaker
I'm not normally off Fridays, but... No, I don't always like to do things on Fridays because I'm always fucking tired from the whole week. Yeah, but I should be off on the Saturday. Oh, that would be fun. Saturday and the Sunday, yeah. A Saturday outing. I don't know what we're doing for my mom's birthday though, because she's the day before you.
02:02:51
Speaker
yeah we're we're doing like a thing for her at what Trav and Kate said they were gonna book something on for um the joey's on Mayfield here by my work and invite some of her like closer friends out and do like a a big birthday dinner there um i don't know when exactly they have planned if it's going to be on the weekend or on her actual birthday or what
02:03:17
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah, just let me know for sure. I'll take somebody. Yeah, I think I'm gonna take extra couple days extra off my like, yeah, the birthday, actual birthday weekend too. Yeah, hate working your own birthday. It always sucks. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a Thursday. So I was like,
02:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, let's make this a long weekend. I went the days off in a month or two, other than like, yeah, sick day here or there, so.
02:03:49
Speaker
Yay for springtime and doing things and going out again and seeing each other. Right? Yeah. It's very needed. Home bodies all the time. Yeah. The weather's nice. We can go out and do something. Yeah. I felt like it's the first time I've seen the sunshine outside of like on my lunch break. You know what I mean? Because like the day actually get longer. It's very, very nice. Yeah.
02:04:15
Speaker
awesome sounds very good well i don't know if i'll cut out any of that but if i did then basically you're just trying to plan some gift-togethers and yeah the weather's getting nicer and we're all very grateful for that so um check out i don't know we're yeah next we're recording our patreon so i think that's going to be a interesting one with some food
02:04:41
Speaker
you know, tampering food poison crimes. So that can go very many different directions and I think it's going to with our different cases. But Gordo, if you heard that, Gordo says, check it out. Yeah, but he was pretty loud. He just walked in the room, stared at me meow three times and then walked back out.
02:05:03
Speaker
What do you want? That's funny. Maybe he knows we're done because when they record on Drinking the Kool-Aid, the one host, her dog, Sydney, knows when she starts saying the outro that it's time to get up. It's like when Pat turns off his Xbox and our dog has a Pavlovian response that goes, I know it's time to go for my walk now because dad turned off the Xbox. He hears that, doodle it. Yeah.
02:05:30
Speaker
So maybe Gordo just knows that we're wrapping it up. Maybe. Just he can tell. Yeah. All right. So yes, next time we will be back for another crimy time. So I think that's going to be a fun one. We're doing like stuff involving witnesses, maybe people in witness protection or
02:05:58
Speaker
maybe they weren't protected enough maybe they should have had witness protection oh this is all very telling i have it basically written as people who knew too much crimes murders which oh yeah obviously can be very very cryptic and conspiracy filled and all that so oh yes i did just pick a pick a topic or a case so yes
02:06:24
Speaker
I think. Nice. Well, we will catch you guys next time. Yes. Don't forget to rate, review and tell a friend because that's the best way. Yeah. Yeah. Word of mouth. Please tell everybody how much you love us. Yeah. And I love that we're getting more followers on Spotify. And if you guys could just drop us a rating.
02:06:52
Speaker
Now that you gave us all, that'd be awesome too. Yeah. All right. But until then, we'll catch you next week. So keep it cryptic.