The Grenadier Pub: London, England
Not far from the Marble Arch, in a narrow, winding cobble stone alley behind Hyde Park Corner, is a fashionable and quaint neighborhood pub. The pub, called the Grenadier, is a fragment of London’s past that belongs to the Waterloo era. The Grenadier once served as an officers mess for the Duke of Wellington’s regiments.
In those days, the main bar was in the cellars with the officers dining room in the pub’s main room upstairs. Still in use today, the old pewter bar was moved upstairs and is believed to be the oldest of it’s kind in existence.
The story goes that many years ago a young officer was caught cheating in a card game. His companions handed out immediate and brutal punishment of flogging him on the spot. He allegedly stumbled down into the cellars and died. To this day his ghost is said to haunt the pub. The story of the Grenadier haunting is well known, and customers from all over the world have left money attached to the ceiling of the main bar as a tribute. The pub has also been the subject of numerous television and radio programs, and was featured in the movie “Around the World in 80 Days.”
The disturbances are most acute in September, which incidentally happened to be the month the young officer was cheating at cards.
Several guests have reported distinctly seeing a figure of a man going up the stairs from the bar, only to vanish before he reaches the top. Employees have been frightened on trips to the wine cellars by unexpected chilly breezes and faint unearthly sounds. Numerous times, workers attempting to renovate the pub have experienced frightening events such as locked doors flung wide open, and have heard heavy foot steps, and loud banging. Needless to say, the pub has not received many renovations. It is fairly common for other peculiar events to occur day or night such as unexplained shadows along the staircase, loud knocking and rapping, lights switching off and on, objects being moved, and water being turned on.
Encouraged by my own curiosity, I have visited the Grenadier on three separate occasions. On one of those evening visits in late September, I (along with the other 20 to 25 customers) did experience a brief period of sharp rapping coming from the end of the dining room. The rapping came from either a door or the wall, but no one could tell for sure, and of course no one was there. The waitress basically shrugged it off and said it was nothing. The wine and the meal were excellent.