The Roebuck, Richmond

Dating from around 1730, The Roebuck public house can be found at 130 Richmond Hill, Richmond and is well known for the amazing views it provides of the River Thames below. In 1972 it was reputedly the scene of a haunting type experience. Guy Lyon Playfair gave the following account of the case in ‘The Haunted Pub Guide’.

‘A mystery customer was spotted by two witnesses in the bar after closing time one night in 1972. One of the witnesses was a CID man who was a regular overnight guest. The mystery man walked out towards the staircase, and could not have left the building by any normal means, yet an immediate search failed to reveal his whereabouts.

Later the same policeman and a colleague, who have not been named, saw something even more mysterious. Whatever it was, it woke them up at 3.15 one morning. One of them described it with professional precision as ‘a pillar of white mist about 5ft 8in high’ that floated from the centre of the bedroom towards the window and disappeared. At the same time the window opened and there was a sudden drop in temperature.

This is what might be expected, but one of the men noted that the temperature went down before the window opened, not after.’