The Falcon Hotel (Stratford-upon-Avon) is haunted. It’s one of England’s most charming hotels, with 20 rooms in its haunted 16th-century wing, and 64 rooms in the more modern wing.

In June 2007, several Hollow Hill investigators spent the night in the haunted wing of the Falcon. It was comfortable and quiet, even though our rooms overlooked the street.

Though we had a good night’s sleep, we encountered a variety of low-level paranormal phenomena. Odd noises, unexplained chills, creaking floorboards with no one there… it was routine for a cozy, haunted hotel.

However, we’d heard that one room at the hotel is especially haunted. It’s a corner room in the 16th century wing.

It was one of the silliest hauntings I’ve seen in awhile… but, the UK is like that. It has the widest possible range of ghostly phenomena.

We were lucky to have access to the room. I was in the lobby and overheard a guest talking about how chilly his room had been, but he couldn’t find the air conditioning controls. He moved to another room, and his previous (chilly) room had been prepared for new guests… but the door was left open.

Our team had a few minutes to explore the room, which seemed elegant and very comfortable.

Our EMF readings and pendulum work — as well as our ‘gut feelings’ — indicated that the bed was the focal point of the hauntings.

The bed seemed to have a ‘hot spot’ over the center of it. It’s unlikely that the bed itself is haunted. If anything tragic happens in a bed, such as a death, hotels generally replace the bed immediately.

However, an earlier bed in that room might be where something — or several events over the past 400+ years– left an imprint.

Just as ghosts don’t always realize that time has passed, they may not realize that the current bed is different from the one that they slept in, centuries ago.

We each took photos of the bed. I took several with my film camera and at least a dozen with my digital camera.

That’s when this story turned silly.

Only one of my digital photos of the bed shows the bed. The rest show random corners of the room… the kinds of photos I’d never take. The following are two of them.

Although I took five or six photos of a team member using a pendulum, and at least one with my own hand (holding the EMF meter) in the frame, the camera recorded everything but the bed.

I know that this sounds odd, but the other investigators will tell you the same: I took lots of photos of the bed. Only one shows the bed. The rest are photos that I didn’t take.

It’s not a malicious haunting. I wouldn’t hesitate to spend the night in that room, and I’m sure that I’d get a good night’s sleep.

However, I’d be sure to have enough blankets on the bed, in case the room seemed as chilly as described by the previous guest.

His innocent comments about the air conditioning convinced me that the room is haunted.

The reason is simple: In early June 2007, the Falcon Hotel didn’t have air conditioning. He was describing a large ‘cold spot’ around the bed.

(Of course, if it’s a sultry night, that’s probably the room you’ll want to be in.  Ask the concierge for information about the hotel’s most haunted room.)

To learn more about the Falcon Hotel in downtown Stratford-upon-Avon, England, or to reserve a room, visit their website: The Legacy Falcon Hotel. (Site will open in a new window.)