The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Horrifying True Story of The Wheatsheaf Inn | The Most Haunted Pub in the UK

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

Save 10% on your Manta Sleep order with this link - https://tinyurl.com/Tape10Lib Use the code TAPE at checkout. Deep in West Boldon, England, stands The Wheatsheaf Pub—an unassuming location with a terrifying past. Featured on A Haunting and once voted the most haunted pub in England, this chilling hotspot has been home to poltergeist activity, ghostly apparitions, and sinister forces that defy explanation. What really lurks in the shadows of The Wheatsheaf? Join us as we uncover the truth behind one of the UK’s most infamous hauntings. Thank you to Peter Laws for joining me on this one, check him out at  ⁨@IntoTheFog⁩   Support the channel with Patreon - www.patreon.com/thetapelibrary How Haunted Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lIpfixqckyFbIhCx8oXZJ Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in audio form on all of your favourite podcast providers. Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. Additional footage and audio from Evanto, Artgrid, Epidemic Sounds, Singularity, Midjourney and Pexels. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and the youtube audio library.  All other footage used under fair use. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Wheatsheaf Inn 02:29 West Boldon 03:49 Manta Sleep Ad 04:50 Welcome to The Tape Library 5:25 Renew 9:29 Communication 12:46 The Psychic Night W/ Peter Laws 19:43 back to our scheduled programming 21:10 The Battle Begins 27:09 Hidden Secrets 31:19 The Exorcism 36:43 Rashomon 38:05 A Psychic View 55:18 What Really Happened? 1:02:24 Wrapping Up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You knew he was around you, you didn't have to ask yourself that question. When she told us about the little girl? I mean, that was so unreal. I mean, there was only us knew about that. There's no doubt in my mind that there was evil spirits or something evil. Haunt the pub. It might start with a man walking into a bar, but I assure you this isn't a joke. The year was 2003 and a man called Clive was walking into his local pub for a quick pint after work.

He'd had a long day, and all he wanted was to unwind a little with some friendly faces. It was a quiet night, but many of the regulars gestured hello to him as he walked in. Clive asked for a beer from the barman, placed his coat down on a stall, and said he would be back in a moment. Clive had been holding in a piss since the moment he left work that evening, so he headed to the toilet. The toilets in his particular establishment were up a set of stairs. Some note a slight weirdness that as you walk up these stairs in this rickety old building, the sound of the bar below just kind of drifts away, but quicker than you would expect it to. A detail that likely no one picked up on until all the strangeness began.

Clive entered the upstairs corridor, alone. He had been up there countless times over the years, but tonight felt different. He paused. He couldn't tell you why, but there was just something off. He felt uncomfortable in this place that he was so familiar with. Clive shrugged it off, entering the men's toilet and did what he needed to do. He was strolling back to the stairs, walking along the balcony that runs along the corridor. When it hit him again, that strange sense of unease,

Clive stopped, looks around. No one was there. He continued to walk. walk but then it happened again. He was sure of it this time. There was a sound. What was that? He didn't have a chance to process what he had heard because that was when he felt it. He lost his footing but regained his balance quickly. He couldn't believe it. It felt like someone had pushed him, but there was no one. Glythe didn't get a chance to finish his fault. The next moment he was tumbling over the balcony, quickly crashing to the floor below moments later.

People rushed to help as a pool of his blood developed on the old stained carpeted floor. Clive would remain in a coma for some time after this incident, but he did finally recover and he told others what had happened. But at the time everyone just assumed that the man had won too many pints. Clive quickly found himself a new local pub. He never wanted to step foot in that bar ever again. He knew that something was there, something that he couldn't explain. Just outside Sunderland in the northeast of England, you will find the village of West Bolden, a quiet, unassuming place as you travel down St Nicholas Road.

On the corner of Rectory Bank you will stumble across it. The Wheat Sheaf. If you saw it, you likely wouldn't look twice. It's just a pub, a normal pub on a normal street, in a normal village. But to some, the Wheat Sheaf is so much more. Once upon a time this pub was voted the most haunted pub in the UK. It was featured in a documentary that was watched by over 20 million people in America. This place, if you believe the stories, held a dark history within its walls,

a history that not even the owners knew about until they started prodding and awoke what had been hiding there all along in the darkened corners of their cellar. But before we continue tonight's story, I want to take a moment to thank our wonderful long-time sponsors Man to Sleep, who have kindly come back to support the show again this year. Manta sleep makes the highest quality sleep masks that I have ever personally used. As someone who used to suffer from extreme bouts of insomnia, I take my sleep very seriously, as should we all. But I never liked wearing a sleep mask. I find them irritating and they would actually stop me from drifting off.

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Get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights and get comfortable. I can't believe it, but I think it, but I think it's this might be the first time we've delved into the world of haunted pubs. Tonight I'll be joined by a special guest as well. Peter Laws, author, 40 and times columnist and host of the Fantastic Into the Fog, will be here to help me share this strange event, from ghostly children to psychic battles and even an exorcism thrown in for good measure. This is the terrifying tale of the wheat sheaf. In 2004, one year after the fall, the wheat sheaf had been boarded up for several months. Its previous owner had decided to step away. Interest in the pub seemed to be very low.

Not many people inquired about the property in the local area. But it didn't take long before it found new ownership in a man named David and his business partner. David reopened the pub, found a mostly new bar staff and he said that business was booming from the off. The pub came back to life the second they reopened the doors. It seemed like the wheat sheaf would be a good investment after all. But there was something strange about the place right from the very start. None of the staff or the regulars had ever told any stories about the place being haunted. Even the story associated with the fool the previous year had been rubbish by the locals. Accidents happen, especially when beer is involved.

But the staff kept hearing things. Late at night, most often footsteps running around the upstairs hall. These could be heard from down in the bar area when they would lock up for the night. But whenever anyone went to look, there would be no one there. They often mentioned that the footsteps were too heavy to be a rat or something similar. But at the same time, they were light and fast, almost like the sound of a child running around. Others would be sure they saw things move. Objects would be left in one place and then reappear somewhere else.

The one that really baffled them, though, was the kitchen. The kitchen door would be locked up each night. But repeatedly, when bar manager Camilla would return in the morning to unlock the place, something would always be off about the kitchen. At first, it was just small things, like objects not being in the same place they were the night before. Then she started coming in to find the large industrial fridge doors wide open. At first, they thought they were just dodgy, that the door needed fixing. But that didn't stop it.

The strangest one of all was when she came in one morning, again to find the fridge doors wide open. Nothing was taken, but someone had certainly been in there this time. There was a tray of jelly in the fridge that had been left to set, but there, right in the middle of it, were the imprints of two small hands. Camilla assumed that someone was pranking her and demanded to know who had been messing with the food, but no one admitted to it.

But this was still seen as something a little fun. It was an old building, old buildings always had their quirks, and the staff at least gave the appearance that they weren't taking the idea that the place could be haunted all that seriously. They didn't talk to any of the customers about it. It was just a kind of in-joke between a handful of the staff. They started to take it a little more seriously when a customer reported that they had seen something.

A woman had gone up to the upstairs corridor to use the toilet. She entered the woman's bathroom and glanced around. She was alone. She went in the mirror and began reapplying her lipstick. She jumped when she suddenly ran. realized that there was someone there. Behind her in the reflection of the mirror was a little girl. The woman spun around quickly to say hello but then she froze. There was no one there. She was alone after all. One night David was there with a few of the staff. It had been a busy night and

they were all just taking a moment to decompress before they started to shut down for the evening. When they heard it once again, footsteps. This was the first time the David had heard them himself. He hadn't taken the comments too seriously before, but his mind, as with most of ours, went straight to the idea that there was an intruder. David grabbed a cricket bat and headed upstairs, creeping slowly down the corridor as he went. He checked every room, including the locked one at the very end that led to the kitchen, but there was nothing. No sign of anyone. David couldn't believe it, but he thought to himself. Maybe there is something to this. Maybe he was now the owner of a haunted pub.

A few nights later, David decided it would be fun to try and contact whatever may be residing within his pub. He waited until the pub had closed up for the night and then revealed what he had done. David pulled a cover off of one of the tables towards the back of the pub to reveal he had stuck a series of small pieces of paper to the table. At first, they weren't sure what they were looking at. It seemed to be a few random words in the letters of the alphabet. Then he placed a glass down in the centre, and they realised David had built his own Ouija board. The reactions were mixed.

Some saw it as a bit of fun. Others were genuinely curious to see if anything would actually happen, and at least one of the bastard refused to take part. The ones that did sat around the table, placed their fingers on the glass and began to ask questions. At first, nothing really happened. They asked who was walking around upstairs and the glass moved a few inches but didn't go to any letters. Then they asked it if there was a spirit in the pub.

This time, the glass did move and quickly. As it moved from letter to letter, all of them accused one another of being the one moving the glass. But obviously everyone denied it. The message spelt out the words, get out then the sound upstairs began again but it wasn't footsteps this time it was banging

loud violent banging the glass wasn't done moving it continued to pass from letter to letter until it added the message or I will kill you this was too much for them the group all let go of the glass but they were somewhat more

convinced by what they witnessed Next. Despite the fact that they had let go, the glass continued to move. Not to the same level as it had when they were all touching it, but it was visibly still sliding from side to side a few inches at a time. Camilla was the only one to master up the courage to touch it again, and as she did, it was like it gave it the energy to continue communicating. But this time, it felt like someone else was talking. The board spelt out the words. Help me. Very slowly at first, but then it kept repeating it. Over and over. The glass moving quicker and quicker as it did.

Camilla said she knew who it was. She couldn't explain how, but somehow she knew exactly who was communicating with them. It was the little girl the customer had seen in the women's toilet. And she said this out loud. The glass led to yes. This event was mind-blowing for the group, but they weren't really sure what to do with this information. It seems they continued communicating with whatever this was for a couple of weeks, keeping the whole thing between themselves, their little secret. Who would believe them anyway?

That when the pub shut up at night, they were spending their evenings seemingly communicating with the dead, until one day in September of 2004 when everything would change. So let's go to our friend Peter Laws to hear exactly what happened on that night. The event had been planned for some time. David had agreed to host a fundraiser for a local cancer charity, and someone had suggested a psychic night. Now, this might seem unusual at first, but nights like this are quite common. Many pubs across the UK hold clairvoyant evenings and psychic readings. And for many of these events are seen as little more than entertainment,

but there are others who leave convinced that the host for that evening does indeed possess psychic powers. Well, in this case, nine psychics were invited in, and people could book a private reading with one of them, and the event brought in quite a few people keen to have such readings done. Many of the regulars of the pub, however, found the idea utterly ludicrous. For example, there was a man there that night. He was called Martin Brown. He sat there with his friends, drinking beer, watching the football, and cracking jokes about how stupid this whole psychic thing was. well that evening two of the psychics arrived together susan and lana and as soon as they entered the door suzanne froze she turned to her friend and quietly said that she instantly did not like this place and she said that she was hit by a feeling of anger she'd never experienced something like this before and it was an almost suffocating emotional response from just stepping foot into the pub she instantly felt that there was something very wrong in this place. But Suzanne tried to ignore it and just got started with giving readings to the

guests. As the night went on, however, Suzanne was with one of her customers when she decided she needed to wrap that reading up. She excused herself for a moment and stepped away. The reason was because she couldn't shake that feeling that it hit her when she'd first walked through the door. It just wouldn't go away. The oppressive sense of anger, it made it hard for her to engage with the people that were coming to her for a reading. And all she could think of was this oppressive, disturbing sensation coming at her from this building. It was giving her physical symptoms, too.

Her head pounded, her hands shock. And so hoping to catch a few minutes away from the bar, Suzanne started walking to the bathroom. Maybe she could get some space and clear her head. The bathroom was upstairs, and it was just as she was walking up the steps when she glanced up. And that was the precise,

moment that Suzanne saw her for the first time. It was a little girl, looking down at her with a frightened expression on her face. And her clothes were not only dirty, but really old-fashioned, but this wasn't the most startling part. You see, as Suzanne stared at this odd little girl, she realized she could partially see through her. Suzanne had never seen anything like this before, but it got even more shocking when the girl spoke. The little girl said, Someone was coming and then ran off down the hall. Intrigued Suzanne quickly followed after the girl and watched her disappear into a woman's toilet.

Yet when Suzanne entered that toilet, she couldn't see any sign of this girl. Suzanne stepped towards the sink, tried to compose herself, and in much the same way as it happened to the customer some weeks before, she saw something in the mirror. And this time it wasn't the little girl.

It was the room. It had changed. Suzanne spun around and realized she was no longer in the bathroom. There were toys strewn across the floor, a child-sized bed in the middle of the room. But she knew she wasn't somewhere else. This was the same room just at a different time. Suzanne turned her head slightly and saw her again. This time the little girl was sat on the floor clutching a door.

And Suzanne carefully approached her and began to speak. The girl looked up, staring at her. wearing Suzanne in the eye and when she did this girl started to beg for help. She did this over and over pleading with her. That was until the banging started. It came from the other side of the wall, a repeated thumping sound. And Suzanne glanced back to see the wall but saw nothing. But when she turned back to see the little girl, she saw nothing there either.

The girl was gone. What was back, however, was her own reflection. Suzanne could see it in the mirror and behind her the baffirmed. that had been just as it was moments ago. Shaken, she headed back downstairs and walked back into the bar where she realized most of the customers had left for the night. The staff were confused when she walked in. They said they had assumed that she had up and left when she completed her last reading.

So she told them what had just happened to were upstairs. And she said that she may have just encountered a spirit that was haunting their pub. David was captivated by this instant. You see, no one at the pub had spoken to Suzanne about what they had experienced in the prior weeks. In fact, no one had really spoken to Suzanne at all. All the mediums had been booked through an agency. Indeed, at this point, most of them didn't even know Suzanne's name. She asked if she could explore the pub further, and David agreed.

He grabbed a set of keys so they could go into some of the rooms that were locked. They chose to return to the upstairs first, but other than what she described as a tense feeling, Suzanne didn't see anything this time. However, it was when they entered the kitchen, when it felt like the atmosphere had completely changed. Suzanne said she felt like they were being watched. Someone was here. She was sure of it. And that was when she saw the eyes, hearing out from a darkened corner of the kitchen. And she realized it was a man standing there.

She instantly realized that this man was the source of the anger she had felt in the the pub when she had first arrived. And somehow she even had a name for him. She knew his name was Joseph. The moment she identified him by name out loud, she was hit by a series of visions, like tiny fragments of memories, but hideous memories.

She saw Joseph and another man grabbing that little girl from her previous vision. The girl screamed fighting as hard as she could, but she couldn't have been more than eight years old, and so she was no match for the brute strength that these two men, who then dragged her down into the cellar, slamming the hat shut as they did. The next thing she knew, Suzanne was back in the kitchen with a clearly perplexed David staring at her. She wanted to get out of there and back to the bar as quickly as they could.

She didn't know what had happened to the girl, but she would find out soon enough. David and Suzanne returned to the bar area. A handful of the staff, including Camilla, had hung around. eager to hear if the psychic could pick up on anything interesting. Camilla in particular was completely drawn in by what Suzanne had apparently seen. The little girl. This angry male presence. The fact that the girl was in danger.

To her, it's all matched up perfectly with the messages they had been receiving through the board. Camilla said this out loud and Suzanne's face changed. She demanded to know what she was talking about. So they took her to see David's homemade, Ouija board, the psychic was not impressed. She expressed the dangers they were opening themselves up to by creating these lines of communication. She said they had likely increased the activity by doing this, that they had potentially let evil into our world. A spirit board, in her opinion, could open a door and you had no way of knowing what may enter. Suzanne went on to explain that she felt that the little girl was trapped here. In fact, she was one of the one of the way to.

of many spirits that were trapped within the wheat sheath. She believed that somehow this angry spirit she had encountered, named Joseph, was the reason for it, that somehow he was keeping them here. If they wanted to help the little girl move on, they would have to figure out a way to remove Joseph from the pub. A couple of nights later, Suzanne returned with her friend Lana. The pair had work to do. They set about conducting what they called cleansing rituals around the pub to attempt to protect them from the more dangerous spirits. A number of the pub's staff were present on this night, including David and Camilla. Suzanne believed, based on her experiences from the previous night, that it would be difficult to communicate with the little girl. She seemed frightened.

It seemed that Joseph was always near, always after her. So she came up with the idea that they would split into teams. One group would go downstairs to attempt to communicate with the girl, while the other would head down to the pub's cellar. Their goal would be to try and keep Joseph occupied. At this early stage, Suzanne thought that cellar was likely the area of the pub that Joseph was most active in. Suzanne placed an audio recorder in the upstairs bathroom and then took the rest of the staff downstairs to the cellar. There, she created what she referred to as a spiritual circle, placing a line of salt around the outside that she believed would keep them safe. They could talk, reach out to Joseph to try and keep him occupied.

But whatever they did, she stressed, they should not leave the circle. Suzanne and Lana headed back upstairs. They began their initial investigation in the women's toilets again. But there was no sign of the little girl. They instead went to the room further back down the corridor. This room was often locked but actually led to the kitchen area. Lana was what was described as a psychic artist. working with another medium who would ask questions.

She would draw the visions that came to her in her mind, often faces of those they were communicating with. The two women set about attempting to talk to any of the spirits that were there, but with mixed results. That was until they took a doll and placed it on the ground. They encased it in a ring of salt and asked the girl if she would like to come out and play with it. Sure enough, Suzanne said she saw the little girl appear in the circle.

At the same time, Lana started drawing, an image that matched up perfectly with what Suzanne believed she had seen. The girl looked at the doll, picking it up. Somehow Suzanne now knew that her name was Jessica. She began asking her, what's happened to her? Why does she seem so frightened? But the apparition of Jessica didn't stay for long. Once again, a loud banging sound could be heard through the walls. and the girl quickly vanished.

Suzanne was convinced now these louder, more aggressive sounds were Joseph, and Jessica would not stick around any time that Joseph was close. Suddenly, Suzanne was hit by the visions again. This time Joseph and the other man were pinning Jessica to the ground. Suzanne started screaming out loud, begging them to stop, as though the events were actually playing out right in front of her for real,

The vision faded away, but she was sure now that they had murdered Jessica. Suzanne attempted to speak with Jessica again, asking her where her body was. The young girl didn't say a word. She just appeared at the far end of the room, next to a wall, before fading away again. Suzanne approached the wall and ran her hand down it. She turned to Lana and told her that she believes that Jessica's body was inside. this wall. Meanwhile, downstairs in the cellar, the staff were growing frustrated. Their attempts to communicate with the spirits hadn't yielded anything too interesting, and they were getting restless

or stood bundled together in this circle. Camilla attempted to move a bit and accidentally put one of her feet outside the circle. Almost instantly, she said she felt like something was touching her face, and then she collapsed. The group rushed down to the floor to help her. Camilla's legs were shaking, she couldn't move her head. She began screaming, claiming that there was a terrible pain in her head. It was like she was having a seizure despite having no prior history of it. The group rushed her upstairs with the aid of the two psychics, who had come running once they heard the screams. Once she was out of the cellar, Camilla seemed to regain the ability to walk, but she was still shaking as they placed her in a chair.

Camilla explained that she felt something touching her, that she couldn't bring. breathe. It felt like someone was suffocating her. Camilla now firmly believed that there was something truly evil in the pub. Lana went upstairs to retrieve the tape player and she showed to staff the drawing of Jessica she had drawn. Between them they listened through the recording to see if the tape player had picked up anything interesting. Sure enough, there was something on the tape. They heard a distant voice at one point, a man's voice. This shouldn't have been possible. All the men were downstairs in the cellar and it didn't seem to match the voice of anyone who was there anyway. It called Suzanne by name and told her it was coming for her.

Suzanne felt that she couldn't show fear that this is what it wanted, but inside she was terrified by this recording. She said they had no choice. Whatever the risk she needed to help Jessica. The two psychics then explained what they had experienced. experienced upstairs. This was more than enough for Camilla, who went straight upstairs to the wall and began digging away at it with whatever implement she could find. The other staff quickly joined in. David wasn't overly happy with the damage being done to his pub, but seemingly he too was now enough of a believer to let them continue. The following morning, David returned to find that Camilla

and two of the barmen had been hacking away at the wall all night. They had revealed behind the plasterboard, first the brick wall. Then as they pulled away lower down, they discovered that there was a fireplace buried away. The room, which was already messy due to the fact it was used for storage, was the total wreck when he entered. He was even more disappointed to hear that it seemed they hadn't actually found anything. That was until they located a small piece of concrete in the house. the rubble. There, sticking out from it, were a handful of long brown hairs. Then, one of the barmen

picked up what he first thought was another piece of concrete. He dropped it in shock, though, as he realised. It was a bone. Suzanne was sure this was a sign that Jessica had been there, or at least, part of her, burned away in the fireplace. Then they suddenly heard a sound. It was Jessica, screaming for help. The group rushed down to the bar. Sure, this was where the sound was coming from, but the room was empty. Camilla then noticed something out of the corner of her eye. A shadow moving across the stairs they had just walked down.

Suzanne knew what this was. She said to the group he was there, pointing to a table in the far corner of the bar. A table they would soon come to know as Joseph's spot. No one else could see him, but Suzanne could, clear as day, sat there with two women either side of him, collecting money from them. She realized that at some point this man had run a brothel here, and she got the feeling that he was not a fan of women, that he saw them as nothing more than a product for him to keep making money from. Sensing her chance, Suzanne began attempting to speak to Joseph. She asked him over and over why he was.

killed Jessica. At first, she couldn't tell if he was ignoring her or if she was simply seeing an echo, something from the past that couldn't be interacted with. That was until Joseph suddenly locked eyes with her, shouting that the little girl had gotten in his way, and that if she didn't leave him alone, Suzanne would be next. A day or two later, Suzanne and one of the barmen headed to the local library, pouring over census reports and local history. Seemingly, there was a Joseph that was connected to the pub. What's more, Suzanne was able to find a picture that she was sure was him, as well as picking out Jessica from a photograph from her local Sunday school.

The staff were still keeping the haunting quiet from the customers, not wanting to scare anyone away, a fact that was becoming increasingly difficult as the activity ramped up over the preceding days. Camilla was jumping at the slightest sounds, dropping glasses and generally acting on edge, something that was made worse by an incident that night. She was talking to someone at the bar when she noticed an old candle holder that was attached to the wall was shaking from side to side. She asked the barman if he could see it too, but before he had a chance to answer,

it flew off the wall, narrowly missing Camilla's head. That same night, the other psychic Lana, was sat at home when she suddenly had a vision. She quickly jumped on the phone and contacted Dave, the owner of the wheat sheaf. She told him that she had seen him, laying at the bottom of the stairs of his home. In a pool of blood, someone had pushed him down the stairs. That someone she believed was Joseph. She thought that somehow he was able to travel with those who had contacted him in the pub.

While David was a believer in what was going on at this point, He didn't take the warning too seriously. That was until Lana was able to describe the interior of his home to him in detail. Despite having never been there, David decided to sleep downstairs that night. Events would come to a climatic end one night later that week. The Barstaff and Suzanne were once again in the upstairs room, searching through the rubble from the wall, desperate to find anything that might tell them what they needed to do next. When they heard a creaking sound coming from the hall, it was Martin, the pub regular who had been there the night of the initial psychic charity night.

He walked into the room, staring at the mall. They all assumed he had come up to use the bathroom, and then found them in this strange circumstance. But before they could think up a reason to explain what they were up to, Martin fell to his knees. David told him to head back downstairs, but Martin kept searching, silently. until he found a piece of brick and held it up. Along the side ran a streak of green paint and then he looked at the group and said If you want to find her, look for the green paint.

Suzanne was troubled. She asked him what he meant, to which Martin replied, The girl, she is buried behind the green bricks. The group all looked at each other. Someone had clearly been talking to Martin about what they were doing. David told him that they had torn down the whole wall, but there was no one there. Martin replied again, she's here, and so is he, before standing up and walking away. He stopped in the doorway, spun around and yelled in a voice that didn't sound like his own.

The girl is mine. Suzanne knew what was happening instantly. Martin was possessed by Joseph. instructed the group to corner Martin. They closed up the pub early and coaxed him downstairs into the bar area, something he did with seemingly little argument in his trance-like state. Martin sat in a chair and again Suzanne surrounded him with a circle of salt. Suzanne told Martin that Joseph was inside him, but Martin acted confused, like he didn't know what she was talking about. But when she spoke to Joseph directly, it was as if Martin's whole face changed, a fact that chills.

Suzanne to the bone. Suzanne instructed the group on what they needed to do. They would perform a ritual that would pull Joseph's spirit out of Martin and into a dowsing crystal that she had. A small crystal on the end of a string that began swinging wildly as they started the ritual. As they spoke the words that Suzanne had given to them, Martin became increasingly angry, screaming insults and threats but never able to step out of the circle. As this happened, Suzanne finally learned the truth of what had happened to Jessica. She was bombarded with images in her mind of Joseph and the other man in the cellar with another woman.

They beat her to death before realising they weren't alone. They were being watched by a young girl. This is what Joseph meant when he said that Jessica had gotten in his way. Suzanne believed that the reason she was able to work with the spiritual realm is that she had spirit guides that aided her in her practices, and she called upon them at this point for their help.

Seemingly, it worked. The pendulum swung in circles faster and faster until Martin's head dropped and the crystal stopped moving. Martin looked up, completely unaware of what had happened. He simply thought he had gotten too drunk and woken up in the pub. The last thing he remembered was walking into the room upstairs and seeing the bar staff rooting through the rubble. Camilla said it instantly felt like something had changed.

They were all in shock by what they had just seen happen to their friend Martin, but at the same time it felt like a huge weight had been lifted. It felt like it was really over. Stranger still, it seemed despite the fact that Martin couldn't remember the events of the last hour. He seemed to retain some of Joseph's memories, something he couldn't explain, nor. welcomed. He had these images stuck in his mind with no idea where they had come from. He was able to tell them that Joseph was in fact a barman but that he secretly ran a brothel,

that he would take advantage of innocent families and would force women into working for him. Everyone involved in the events of the wheat sheaf in 2004 said that the experience changed them. David, a former skeptic, was now a firm believer in the spirit world. Lana said she thinks about the pub every day of her life. Suzanne said she had never encountered anything like this before or since, despite communicating with spirits all her life. And Camilla said that it turned her entire worldview on its head. She now believed there was more to this world than could be seen with the naked eye. Suzanne said that she believed that doing the ritual had removed Joseph from the pub, which had allowed Jessica and potentially other spirits trapped there to move on. If they always

left though is debatable. After all, Suzanne said that Joseph and Jessica were just two examples of the 37 spirits that resided within the Wheat Sheaf Pub. The story myself and Peter have just laid out for you is the most commonly reported version of events of what took place in the pub. This account mostly sticks to the events as portrayed in the 2006 episode of a haunting on the wheat sheaf. One of the most watched episodes the program's history. Watching it, I naturally assumed that this was a dramatized version of events that took place, and the fact that so many articles just seemed to echo this version was a little disappointing to me. But the fact the show featured interviews with Suzanne, Lana, David,

Camilla, Anne Martin added some level of credibility to the fact that it was an accurate portrayal of the events as they saw it. However, after a little bit of digging, I came across Suzanne Gill, the lead psychic in the story. Not only does she still seem to, to be a very active medium. I found out that she had written three books on her version of the Wheat Sheaf's events. I then found that a few years ago she did a rare interview for the podcast How Ha Haunted that I will include a link to. Across two episodes and nearly three hours of interview time, Suzanne laid out her version. I'm not going to go into every detail of this because a lot of the broader strokes of the story match up with the more widely reported version. But there are some differences.

and her story is arguably more dramatic than what was portrayed on the TV. Suzanne confirmed she knew nothing about the pub at all to begin with. She had only recently started working with an agent who had booked her for psychic fares and events at pubs throughout the North East. On the 15th of September, she arrived at the wheat sheaf. To her, it was just another gig, one of several pubs, that she'd been booked to work at that month. This is where the first detail changes. Because according to Suzanne, she didn't actually arrive with Lana. She arrived a little later in the evening due to family commitments.

And in fact, she didn't know any of the other psychics that were working there. But she confirmed the strong reaction that she had upon entering the pub. She did go upstairs to get away from it later that evening. And that was where she saw Jessica for the first time. She said as she walked up the stairs, it was as if the entire sound of the pub downstairs just fell away. despite the pub being rammed with close to 300 people in it the stairs were silent

as she walked up the stairs she saw what she described as a blue light in the corner of her eye that began to grow at the top of the stairs that was when she began hearing banging sounds and screaming it was so loud it was almost deafening before Jessica appeared for the first time at the top of the stairs begging for help before running away towards the bathroom. The incident with the bathroom turning into Jessica's bedroom

appears to be accurate to her experience and she did go back downstairs after this. She waited until the night was over before approaching the staff to talk about what she had experienced and it was actually the DJ Tony who took her on a tour of the place. As they walked around the pub she identified a number of different spirits in each of the rooms often by name. They unlocked the room at the far end of the hall. It was pitch black and Tony walked inside to try and find the light. There was the faintest stream of light coming from an outside lamp post at one of the far windows. This was enough light for Suzanne to see a figure, emerge from around the corner. She was terrified as the figure ran directly toward her. Suzanne yelled out but then the figure

stopped in front of her. He identified himself as a man named Edward that he had been waiting for Suzanne and that he remained at the pub to protect the children from another man. They then entered the kitchen. Suzanne was able to describe a spiral staircase that would have been at the back of the kitchen and was even able to tell Tony there was a large bay window. She shouldn't have known this as it was covered up by a wall now. That was when she first met Joseph. His presence was often revealed through sounds first, most often a growl, and the sound of him clinking coins together in his hands. She felt that somehow Joseph recognised her, and from that first interaction on he would not leave her alone, no matter where she went. This was also when Suzanne

became convinced that while standing in what would have been a back bedroom, that the girl she had seen, was buried in the wall. When Suzanne went back and told the barstaff what she had experienced, Camilla apparently became quite emotional, hugging the medium and telling her that they had made a Ouija board and had been communicating with spirits in the pub for weeks. Most interestingly, one of the messages they had received was, Suzanne is coming for me.

Apparently some of the many spirits trapped in the pub. New Suzanne would be there soon. Throughout the interview, Suzanne mentioned some of the phenomena the bar staff reported. A lot of it is the familiar events we already know, but there were some outlandish events that apparently took place. The staff would apparently leave a doll out for Jessica to play with. One night they left it on the pool table, only to return the following morning to find it on the top of the stairs. Apparently at one point, what was described as a ball of fire shot through the bar. I'm unclear though on if this was an actual ball of fire or simply fire coloured, as Suzanne makes fairly frequent references to seeing coloured lights moving around the pub.

The crazier story, apparently involved a barman named Chris, who was manning the bar alone one night. A few men were gathered around watching horse racing on the TV, when suddenly a number of drinks flew off the bar, spilling everywhere. Then the men who were watching the TV were pushed out of the doors, onto the street by an unseen force. While this does seem a bit much, numerous people have reported feeling, as though they were pushed by someone while in the pub, so it could just be an exaggerated version of that phenomenon. Suzanne is also the source for the story at the start of tonight's episode, with the man ended up in a coma. Apparently he reached out to Suzanne years later, after seeing her talking in the local papers. about her encounters. Three days after her first visit, Suzanne returned.

She had intended to relax and prepare mentally for what was to come, but she found it extremely difficult to sleep. One night Suzanne went to bed early, while her partner lay beside her, already asleep. The silence of the room was broken by a faint tapping. The Venetian blinds above her began to move, rattling incessantly. Then, without warning, both the blinds and curtains were yanked violently away from the window.

A piercing scream filled the room, repeating the same desperate plea. Help me, help me, help me. Her partner jolted awake just as Suzanne, heart-pounding, instinctively shouted back, I'll help you. At that moment, a figure took shape in the darkness. A small girl standing at the window, just for a brief moment. Suzanne barely had time to process what she was seeing before her partner, still shaken, whispered. I saw her too.

Jessica had followed her home. The next morning, shaken and exhausted, Suzanne went to a church. She found a priest and with a trembling voice explained everything she had been experiencing. The voices, the visions. the overwhelming presence that had followed her home. The priest listened silently, then reached for a small bottle of holy water, handing it to her.

He simply said, Do what you've got to do. Suzanne clutched a bottle tightly, but the fear didn't leave her. That day as she prepared to return to the wheat sheaf, a deep dread settled in her chest. She was terrified, not just for herself,

but for her children, unsure if she would see them again. And if she did, what state she would be in. This was the night that the incident happened with Camilla in the basement. The night plays out fairly similar to the original recorded events. But one notes she seems to make is that it wasn't just her, Lana and the Barstaff. Every single night she visited the Wheat Sheaf, there was seemingly a never-ending carousel of people coming to help with the investigation,

which seems to dispute the idea that the bar staff are keeping this quiet. Some were just friends and family. Others were other mediums who wanted to offer their services. Camilla was also the person who started chipping away at the brick wall. However, this seemingly happened the following night. After the group had attempted to speak to Jessica again, Camilla was so convinced by the messages that were being passed through Suzanne that she ran at the wall with a spatula from the kitchen.

The fact that apparently calls Suzanne to burst into tears as she saw Camilla's desperation to get to Jessica's body. Dave, the owner, was more than happy for the staff to knock down the wall and in fact got others to come and help. However, his business partner, who had been away and hadn't experienced the phenomena, was a lot less impressed. This leads to one of the stranger stories that Suzanne shared that wasn't in the original accounts. Work was still going on to get the wall fully down, and Suzanne had agreed to come back the following night. Camilla suggested meeting a little earlier that night and Suzanne arrived. before the rest of the group. They had taken a bunch of digital photos and had intended to look through them

to see if they could find anything of note from the prior investigations. Sir Camilla stepped away to retrieve a CD containing the photos they had taken. Suzanne remained alone in the bar. That was when she saw him. A figure appeared behind her, moving with unsettling purpose. He walked straight up to her, pressing against her. His voice low and menacing. I'm here for a date, he said. This was no apparition. This was a flesh and blood person. His presence was aggressive, his tone unnerving. Before Suzanne could react, Camilla returned, immediately sensing that something was wrong. The man was too close to Suzanne. She shoved him back. What's your problem? He spat at her. He kept insisting that he was there

for a date, although he never did explain who his date was with. Camilla, trying to diffuse the situation, poured the man a glass of wine. The man took it without another word and moved to a shadowed corner of the room, the very corner where Joseph used to sit during his life, though they didn't know that at the time. He drank in silence. His eyes locked on Suzanne the entire time, unblinking, intense. Sensing the danger, Camilla quietly told Suzanne the step away, promising to follow in a moment.

Suzanne went upstairs to the bathroom, hoping to put some distance between herself and the man. Then she heard footsteps. He was running. Before she could react, he was on her, grabbing at her, trying to throw her over the balcony. She fought back struggling against his grip and managed to break free, bolting back downstairs in terror. Camilla was at the bottom waiting. She took Suzanne back to the bar and kept her close. She urged her to ignore the man. They didn't know where he had come from and the lesser attention they gave him the better the man re-entered the bar and sat at the table in the far corner again he sat there seething and then slammed his hand down on the table Suzanne couldn't control herself she

spun round and shouted what's your problem his eyes burned into hers you Suzanne shot back at him you don't even know me the man smirked and said you think you're clever, don't you? With that, he set his wine glass down and walked out. They never saw him again. Later, when Suzanne was describing the man to the others, no one recognized him. Camilla, who had according to Zuzanne worked at the pub for a decade, had never seen him before. And yet, something eerily similar happened again on another night. Another strange man, another violent confrontation with Suzanne. But she doesn't get into the details about. this one. Who? Or what was he? That night as the pub was winding down Dave had brought a couple of

mates along to help with some brickwork. The air was thick with dust and exhaustion but they worked on and around 10pm David was stood on a ladder, chipping away at the brick when their sudden cry shattered the quiet. Someone screamed out, what the hell is that? Everyone turned. A strange light had appeared, small, glowing, all, most rainbow-like. Inside it, something was moving. A figure? A shape? The glowing orb no bigger than an orange floated across the room. At least 13 people apparently stood in that room frozen, watching as it pulsed with light, drifting from the ceiling down to the floor. It didn't vanish, it moved, growing slightly as it travelled, slipping through the air towards where the kitchen was,

and inside the light it appeared to have faces. distorted, shifting, trapped within its glow. Two people apparently took pictures of this, but I was unable to find them online at least. The investigations continued. Suzanne apparently identified a number of children trapped there, as well as adults, all from different decades, and seemingly based on the accent she heard, different places too. But all of these are the spirits of people who died close to the wheat sheath, or was something about this place drawing spirits to it?

Days later, Suzanne got a phone call, telling her that they had found her. She rushed to the pub. Inside the fireplace they had found the remains of a shoe and fragments of what appeared to be a dress, but no remains at all. This obviously is a key difference to the original reported account. A lot of the vision Suzanne had that revealed what had happened at the pub seemed to match up with the general story that had originally been reported, although there were far more of them than it seemed initially. Suzanne claimed that she visited the pub regularly for months, but the show seems to portray these events as taking place in the span of a few days.

One day, a woman came knocking at the pub the door despite it being shut. When they answered it, they were a little surprised by who was there. The woman was Canadian, and introduced herself. She had lived in the area as a child decades before. She was there visiting friends when she drove past the pub and just felt this compelling urge to stop her taxi and knock on the door. Suzanne, who was there that day, sat down with the woman and had a conversation. The Canadian woman explained that for a few years, her family had actually lived above the wheat sheath. The entire time they were there, they would experience odd events, mostly strange sounds and feelings.

But there was a time she remembered going into the cellar. and being convinced that something grabbed her and threw her to the floor. But when she looked around, there was no one there. The most disturbing parts happened to her sister. A detail that she would never forget. She claimed that most evenings, her sister would wake up in the middle of the night. Each time she did, she would see a man, standing there over her bed,

watching her sleep. Then, just like that, he would be gone. Reluctantly, they actually began to use the Ouija board to communicate with Joseph, a terrifying experience that saw him threatening everyone involved and revealing disturbing details about where people lived in their families. The threat from Joseph was obvious. Leave him alone, or he would come for those they cared about.

This was the point that Suzanne insisted that there needed to be less people involved. It was getting too dangerous. They cut down the investigation numbers to a handful of key people and continued. Joseph threw so much anger in the direction of Suzanne, who slowly became convinced that she must have a connection with him. Possibly, she wondered, from a past life. These conversations were so intense that they would go on for up to seven hours in a single sitting at one point. Everyone involved in the investigation began having almost shared nightmares.

Many pictured themselves being thrown downstairs, Others seem to play out the events of the murders from the perspective of Joseph. The final notable difference in Suzanne's story is the Martin incident. The actual event played out almost identical to how the TV show presented it, but with one huge difference, the man was apparently not someone they knew. None of the staff recognized him at all and never saw him again after the ritual was complete. Someone who was there that night claimed he had black eyes like a shark.

This final event cleansed a pub of Joseph and apparently allowed Jessica to move on, but many other spirits still seem to linger there. The pub has changed hands many times over the years, but still reports of strange activity continue to be made. Suzanne believes that this experience severely impacted her life. She believes these experiences and the brief period of time that Joseph was in her life led to her relationship falling apart, as well as damaging her mental health to such a degree that it took her years to come back from.

So what really happened? I want to do something I don't usually do and put my personal feelings on this, out there straight away, because I'm conscious it will cloud my take on the events and I want to be honest. I was keen to cover a haunted pub story. as there are so many out there and it's something we haven't done before. I looked at the ancient ram in first, but decided to go with the wheat sheet for two reasons. One, I felt it had a more interesting narrative to it.

And two, it heavily relied on the accounts of multiple psychics. I try my best to be open-minded about all topics I cover on this channel. But for some reason, psychics and mediumship is an area that I really struggle with. So I wanted to tackle it to confront my own biases on the topic. I think any time someone comes into a story with a definitive knowledge of what the paranormal is and how to deal with it, my suspicions are heavily raised. While I'm open to the possibility of psychic ability, I generally have the opinion that I've never had an experience with a medium who convinced me they had actual ability.

My perspective of the industry just feels like it's manipulative and a little gross to me, in many cases praying on those who have lost someone they deeply care about. This is not me claiming that Suzanne or any of the other mediums involved in this story behave in this way. I don't know them. Nor am I discrediting the work they do if they do genuinely help people. The mediums involved in this story may be entirely genuine. They may actually see a side of the world that I don't. And they use that ability to actually do good work.

I'm not calling anyone a liar. I'm just trying to express that this is an area I feel particularly skeptical about on a personal level. and I just wanted it out there before we continued because I feel like I am trying to pick holes in this one a little more than I usually would. But let's try to look at it objectively. The first curious detail between the two accounts to me is the story of Martin.

In the interview with Suzanne, she makes a huge point out of the fact that they didn't know who this man was, nor did they ever see him again. But in the A Haunting episode, not only is he featured, he is named. They claim he is a regular in the pub.

and a friend of the staff, and he is even interviewed for the show. It's of course possible that this was an actor that they hired for the interview, that they didn't have the original man who was apparently possessed, but they felt they needed that voice to tell a cohesive story. But it sticks out as a particularly big red flag for me. Throughout the interview, Suzanne makes continuous references to photographs, video footage and audio recordings that were taken during the investigation. I found two photos that were uploaded by the podcast.

from her collection. One seems to show her doing spiritual writing, to which she claims that you can see the image of Jessica on the floor, holding the pen, but I can't really see anything here. The other shows the apparent stranger, who walked in and got possessed, surrounded by lots of dust particles. Interestingly, the man does look a lot like Martin from the TV episode. She also plays a very brief audio clip that she believed was one of the spirits. It only plays. for a fraction of a second and it just kind of sounds like a breath into the microphone. Without much context it doesn't really add much to the story and it certainly doesn't sound anything like the very talkative spirit from the a haunting episode which I assume was quite dramatized. I was unable to find any other examples of the video or photographic evidence that was

mentioned. Perhaps she's never released them, I'm unsure. But if anyone does know where to find these, please do link it in the comments below for others to check out. Without this, all we have are the stories. The interviews from the witnesses on the TV show are very brief snippets, but because the broad strokes of the story match with Suzanne's accounts, I'm inclined to believe that this is at least a relatively accurate account of what they believed took place. But without Suzanne's evidence, there isn't really much to sink our teeth into in terms of alternative theories. Her interview on the podcast is a little difficult to really follow at times. What I've included here is a drastically condensed version of what she claimed took place.

So if you want to dig deeper, I strongly recommend checking it out in full for yourselves. The only other story that jumps out to me is odd from her recounting, is the experience of the violent man attempting to throw her over the balcony. If you were Camilla, the bar manager, you would surely be used to dealing with Rowdy and maybe at times aggressive men. Would you really just tell this woman to ignore the man who had just seemingly tried to. to kill her. Would you not phone the police? But of course it's hard to say exactly how it played out without being there in person. We don't know the full details and it's hard to say how an individual person would react in such a situation. Some of her stories feel a little disjointed and I'm

unsure if maybe I just misunderstood how this event played out. But it seemed like a really strange one to me. In Suzanne's version they found the remains of clothes behind all. This seems more plausible to me then there still being hair that hadn't decomposed as in the TV show. But I'm unsure if this is possible for the latter to have occurred under the right circumstances. One thing I did note is that her claims of this experience damaging her mentally came across as genuine in my eyes. She does sound haunted by the events that took place there. She may just be a convincing actor,

but part of me believes that at the very least, she believes this really happened, that she did experience this phenomenon, and that it has scarred her in ways that are hard to put into words. I think I find the story a little too over the top, too clean of a battle between good and evil. And while I often am willing to go along for the ride with even some of the most out there paranormal stories, this one just feels off to me for some reason.

I fully admit, though, this may be due to my own biases. I really wish we had full interviews with the likes of David and Camilla from back then to really flesh out the events from their perspective. Maybe this is just a story, designed to create a bit of buzz around a newly reopened pub. Maybe Suzanne's account is accurate. And this is how it really played out. Or, as I so often wonder,

is the truth somewhere in the middle? Maybe there really were strange sounds and stranger events happening in the pub. Maybe the staff really did poke the hornet's nest. attempting to communicate with it. But maybe the rest of the events that followed are just this phenomena being viewed through the eyes of someone with very strong beliefs

about what the paranormal is and how it works. No trace of Jessica's body, or anyone else for that matter, was ever found. Hopefully one day we will get the answers. But for now, the wheat sheaf pub remains just another strange mystery in the world of the supernatural. That's all for this entry into the tape library. This is yet another one of those cases

where I looked at it on paper and thought, Hey, that'll be nice and simple. Which I really wanted after the epic adventure that was Jeff the talking Monkos. But yet again, nope. I just can't stick to the simple version apparently. I always seem to accidentally start digging deeper and deeper. This was a fun one to write though,

because it's just got some really good old fashioned spooky moments to play around with. At the same time, it also has that deeper side to it, where we can explore ideas like psychics, and how that may affect how people see the events that are taking place around them through a different lens. As always, I'm really keen to hear what you think about this case, so please do leave your comments below and share them with everyone.

Also, if you enjoyed this episode, please click the like button and subscribe if you haven't already. I know this gets so tedious hearing it on every YouTube video, but it really does help support me in a really easy way. Thank you Peter Lords for coming along on this wild little tale. If you enjoy my shows and you somehow haven't seen Peter's show into the fog, I strongly suspect you'll enjoy it. We both seem to be drawn to very similar paranormal cases.

And like me, he really loves getting into the details without being too over-dramatic. So please do check out his channel for more creepy real-life tales. Of course, thank you to Man to Sleep again for sponsoring this episode. Don't forget to use the link if you want to save 10%. And finally, thank you to all my supporters out there. If you want to support the show with your wallet, you can do so on Patreon or through YouTube memberships. YouTube members get ad-free versions of the videos.

While over on Patreon, you can get access to videos a day earlier than anyone else, and even receive shout-outs at the end of the episode, as well as just being another place you can interact with me. So let's do those extra special shout-outs now. Our tape library archivist Umico Grimm, Sandy Lass, Creestock 1, 1731, Mirror, Judith Hacker, Gabrielle, Eric Salas, Destiny M, Ashlaz, Ashlaz, Bucs, D'Ean, Daugne, Dirtna, Dirtnapp, D'Eight, Dirtnaps, 6969, Lady Bet Noir, Adeline, Adeline, Peter McCann, J.M.E.R.: DiGal, Joe, Callicott, Dahlia Zabin, Montana Martin, Packer, Sirius Wack, the Detective, M.E. Bartley, Alfredo Sandoval and Tucker RV B. The lead archivist, Vaniel, Brian Baker, Old soul like mine, Lord William, Tracy Terello, Xavier Angle, Tyler Michael, Ridiculous.

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