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George Inn was built around 1693. It was a real inn, as opposed to a coaching house. Around that time, there was a difference between these, as a gentlemen could take rooms at an inn if he did not own a house in Derby. Through its history, many gentlemen have stayed at the George, including the Duke of devonshire, who used the inn as his headquarters during the Jacobite uprisings of the mid- eighteenth century.
As well as providing lodgings for gentlemen, the Inn also was used for courts, meetings and trading. Dentists and doctors set up surgeries in inns. In 1776, The George was even used as a temporary post office while the permanent one was rebuilt. The George was also used as a funeral parlor once, when the Duke of Devonshire's comptroller lay there en route to his burial!
The George is also the final resting place of a human skull. The skull is that of a female with a damaged cranium. It was discovered by workmen, 4 ft. down in a pit under the basement. Along with the skull were animal bones and skulls, as well as several pieces of shoe leather. As soon as the skull was found, work was halted and the skull sent to Nottingham for forensic examination. the skull was found to be extremely old.
The origin and owner of the skull remain unknown. Many theories have been put forth. In the earlier days, inns had a pit or a "midden" that was used as a waste pit, where the carcasses of animals kileld to feed the patrons of the inn were thrown. She may have been murdered and thrown down the pit. The problem with this is that no other human remains were found beyond the skull.
The Inn is located near the corner of Iron Gate and Sadler Gate (gate being a Danish word for street). So, the blacksmiths had shops on Iron Gate, and the leatherworkers had shops on Sadler. The animal bones could have been discarded after their hides were stripped to be tanned by leatherworkers.
The skull could have sustained the damage while the inn was built. In the seventeenth century, it was still customary to bury a human skull, a pair of shoes and a dead cat to keep away witches, the evil eye and bad luck in general.
When I visited Lafferty's (the last stop on the ghost tour) I had to stop outside because I was suddenly seized by a pain in my head and feared the onset on a migraine. I took a few minutes and it subsided , so we entered the inn. Our guide told us the story of the skull while it was being passed around the group.
I was one of the last people to get the skull, and when I touched it, I noticed that the skull seemed to be very hot,as if it had been heated in some way.
I returned the skull to the guide and he proceeded to give us some information about the skull, and he also stated that when the skull was removed from the pub for examination, objects began to fly around of their own accord; in particular large barrels of beer stored in the basement were knocked around like bowling pins!
According to the guide, examination revealed that the skull, which has a large hole in one side, had been the skull of a woman in her twenties. The pub also lent the skull to a museum. While the skull was gone, the same disturbances recurred as when the skull was sent out for examination.
Since the skull has been returned to the inn, the disturbances are lessened, but occasionally female patrons seated at the bar experience glasses exploding in their hands.
As our guide went in to more detail about what the examination revealed, I found myself , to my great embarrassment, speaking aloud. I then began to rattle off a description of the owner of the skull and manner in which she had died! I stated that she had been killed ritually, that is, three times; one by garrotting, one by stabbing in the breast with a sword, and the third with a blow to the head with an axe. She had been killed in a circle of men. She was the only woman present, and they were somewhat afraid of her. She did not speak or rarely spoke, and those that lived with her thought her to be somewhat simple-mided. However, she had some kind of gift as either a healer or a seer, and the men were aware of her spiritual power. She was very short, maybe about 4 feet tall, and had long dark hair. Something seemed to be wrong with her left side, either it was paralyzed, or she limped, and it affected her speech as well. She communicated mainly through gestures with her good hand.
I went on to say that she was not attractive. She knew that she was going to die, and may have volunteered for it. She went willingly to her death, and was aware of the ritual necessity for it. It may have been a sacrifice to end a famine,plague, invasion, or some similar disaster. She wore a long two piece garment, something like a shapeless dress, with a sleeveless overdress that tied at the sides. Both pieces were an off-white, kind of oatmeal color.
As I sat there, unable to stop this stream of words from my mouth, the rest of the group and the guide fell into a stunned silence. When I paused, the guide asked if I had been there before. Ofcourse, I had not, this being my first trip even out of the U.S.!Moreover, my original itinerary did NOT include a trip to Derby, nor was I aware of a ghost tour until I checked in to the hotel about an hour before the tour started.
The guide then proceeded to tell me in front of the group, that there had been two other women on previous tours who also claimed to feel heat radiating from the skull,and these women then made statements similar to mine concerning the description of the appearance and manner of death of the skull's owner
The Skull
Update (Fall 2006): This place was featured on an episode of Most Haunted. The psychic that works with the show touched the skull and said it was a Victorian lady.
The show did post a note that the skull has been found to date from Viking times - (around 900 AD). They
also told about the building being located on the former site of a leather worker's shop in what used to be a market place.
Of course, this explains the presence of the leather shoes, but what about the skull? I was doing some research about
something else and I found this, which was very interesting and perhaps explains the presence of the skull and the subsequent activity upon its removal from the
premesis:
In Peter Haining's A Dictionary of Ghosts, it has an entry for the Foundation Stone
"There is ghost lore at the root of an ancient tradition of ceremonially laying
the first stone of a new building. ...Ancient pagans such as the Vikings and Saxons believed
that each house needed its own spirit to defend it against the attentions of other malevolent
spirits and would make a sacrifice of a human victim by immuring him up alive in the walls of the construction.
The ghost which resulted would serve as the guardian of the place. It is a grim fact that in numerous instances
it was a child that was selected as a victim, for the young were believed to make particularly
wretched and frightening phantoms. The traditional phrase associated with old houses about there
being a 'skeleton in the cupboard' resulted from this practice."
If you have had any experience similar to this, especially if it was at this same location, please E-Mail Us!
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