Black Swan Hotel, Devizes

The story

The Black Swan is a traditional coaching inn and hotel on the Market Place of Devizes, the Wiltshire market town, facing the square along the A360. Its handsome three-storey Georgian front carries its own birth certificate: a strap of the lead rainwater pipe is dated 1737, the date Historic England accepts for the building (a few ghost websites give 1732, which is less reliable). A large arched opening in the facade once led horses through to the stables, a reminder of the days when coaches and riders stopped here on the roads across Wiltshire.

The inn is associated with Wadworth, the Devizes brewery. It was listed at Grade II* on April 9, 1954, placing it among the more important historic buildings in England.

Local storytellers claim a much longer and darker past for the site: cellars that may go back to the fifteenth century, a time when the building served as a courtroom, and the town gallows standing in front of it. They also speak of entrances to old tunnels in the cellars, part of a supposed network of about ten passages under Devizes. None of these claims has been verified, and they come from a local folklore blog rather than from historical records, so they are best treated as part of the town's legend rather than its documented history.

The legend

The Black Swan's best-known ghost is a young woman in a long dress. Wikipedia, citing a haunted hotel guide from 2010, says she wanders the corridors and walks through the walls, and local tradition places her in one particular bedroom, Room 4. The story was already well known by 2004, when television came to film it, but nobody has dated the first report.

Room 4's reputation is built from guests' and staff accounts collected by the Weird Wiltshire blog. The woman is said to emerge from the wall, sit for a while by the window and then glide out through the wall behind the bed, usually at about a quarter past one in the morning. Guests describe the bed shaking, taps turning on, the toilet flushing in the night, and a sensation of being strangled or struggling for breath. A manager who once bedded down in the room after working late recalled being jolted awake by a loud scratching noise, as though someone were trying to get out, and never slept there again; that account rests on a single source.

Who the woman was is unclear. Two explanations circulate, and neither is supported by documents: that she was a girl who burned to death when a fire trapped her in the room in the nineteenth century, or that she was a woman who died giving birth there. No record of such a fire or death at the inn has been found.

The cellars have their own tradition. The same blog names a ghost called Ambrose Saintsbury, said to have been a landlord and horse dealer with a sideline as a highwayman, seen dressed in black with a tricorn hat, on horseback in the cellars, or chatting with drinkers in the bar before vanishing. The name has not been confirmed by any independent source. During vigils, people have reported knocks and bangs, sudden cold spots and the sound of galloping hooves passing through the walls, along with dark figures that seem to watch staff and visitors.

Television has visited twice. Most Haunted filmed an episode at the hotel in 2004 with Yvette Fielding, the medium Derek Acorah and the illusionist Uri Geller as guest; listings disagree on the details, with TheTVDB giving Series 5, Episode 5, aired October 12, 2004, while Wikipedia's episode list gives Episode 3, aired September 28. In 2011 Michaela Strachan's Great British Ghosts devoted part of an episode (Season 1, Episode 7) to the hotel and a ghost tour of Devizes, focusing on the idea of a highwayman's spirit linked to the pub. No skeptical study of the inn's ghosts has been found, and almost all the detail comes from popular sources.

What remains today

The Black Swan is still a working hotel and pub, and the Georgian front of 1737 still overlooks the Market Place much as it has for nearly three centuries, along with the arched carriage entrance that once led to the stables. The building's Grade II* listing protects both its exterior and its historic fabric.

Visiting

As a hotel and pub, the Black Swan is open to the public: you can stop for a drink or a meal, or book a stay; ask the hotel whether a particular room can be requested. The cellars and staff areas are private, so please do not wander beyond the public rooms. A ghost walk around Devizes has been run in the town (it featured in Great British Ghosts in 2011), but its current operator could not be confirmed, so check with local tourist information. The Market Place itself, with the inn's Georgian front, can be enjoyed freely at any time.

Sources

1. Historic England list entry (List entry 1263051) — Historic England · Open Government Licence
2. Wikimedia Commons category : Black Swan Hotel, Devizes — Wikimedia Commons
3. Black Swan Hotel, list entry 1263051 (Grade II*) — British Listed Buildings (Historic England data) — British Listed Buildings (Historic England data
4. Black Swan Hotel, No 39 & 41, Snig Hill — Sheffield Images via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
5. Black Swan Hotel, Pond Street (previously Little Pond Street), Pond Hill, left, newly constructed General Post Office, right — Sheffield Images via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
6. Castle Hotel, Black Swan Hotel, Imperial Hotel, George Hotel, Clarendon Hotel, Great Western Hotel, Luttrell Arms Hotel, Crown & Anchor Hotel — Digital Memory of Catalonia via Europeana · http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
7. Great British Ghosts, "The Black Swan Hotel & A Ghost Tour of Devizes" (S1E7, 2011) — TheTVDB — TheTVDB
8. Most Haunted, "Black Swan Hotel" (S5E5, 2004) — TheTVDB — TheTVDB
9. Official website
10. Snig Hill at junction with Bank Street, left, after the demolition of the Black Swan Hotel — Sheffield Images via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
11. Snig Hill at junction with Bank Street, left, after the demolition of the Black Swan Hotel — Sheffield Images via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
12. "The spooky ghosts of Devizes" (29 Jun 2021) — Weird Wiltshire — Weird Wiltshire (local folklore blog, weak source
13. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.