The Skirrid Inn

The Skirrid, Wales Oldest Inn

By Charles E S Fairey

The Skirrid, Wales Oldest Inn

A place once for the punishment of sin,

Take a seat with a beer in your palm

Glare in gloom and fear of ghostly harm,

Here the spirits keep an eye

In the ground they didn’t lie,

Their dead eyes forever watching

Their dark forms ever haunting.

The Skirrid, Wales Most Haunted Inn

A place once for the punishment of sin,

On dark nights eerie spectres frequent

The shades and recesses where they once were sent,

To the grave, at the end of a taught rope

Still they linger, loiter and lope,

Their reaper damned their souls to walk,

Whispers heard, while ghouls abound in drunken talk.

The Skirrid, Wales Oldest Inn

A place once for the punishment of sin,

Grim screams and cries from the stair’s cell,

Just outside the noose from where victims fell,

The Courtroom above the ale room,

Spectral proceeding playing in the gloom,

Their dead eyes forever watching

Their dark forms ever haunting.

The Skirrid, Wales Most Haunted Inn

A place once for the punishment of sin,

Here even Old Devil sipped his brew,

By fireplace, what riddles talked and true,

A myriad of apparitions phantasmal taunts,

Unearthly forms and screams, will always haunt,

Their reaper damned their souls to walk,

Whispers heard, while ghouls abound in drunken talk.

The Skirrid, Wales Oldest Inn

A place once for the punishment of sin,

Famous leaders and kings drank here

Wonder if they even felt the fear,

Of unearthly shrouded phantoms eyes

And their pleading wailing cries,

Their dead eyes forever watching

Their dark forms ever haunting.

The Skirrid, Wales Most Haunted Inn

A place once for the punishment of sin,

Famous for its haunted historic past

Investigated for its disembodied creepy cast,

Mediums and ghost hunters recording

Each and every supernatural haunting,

Their reaper damned their souls to walk,

Whispers heard, while ghouls abound in drunken talk.

The Skirrid Mountain Inn is a public house in the small village of Llanfihangel Crucorney, situated a few miles north of Abergavenny in Monmouthshire. It is believed to be the oldest pub in Wales, and is listed in chronicles from 1100. Owain Glyndŵr is said to have rallied his forces in the cobbled courtyard in the early 1400s before raiding nearby settlements sympathetic to the English king, Henry IV.

The first floor of the inn was reputedly used as a Courtroom where capital punishment was imposed for certain offences, including sheep stealing. Local legend has it that as many as 180 convicted felons were hanged, some possibly from an oak beam over the well of the staircase outside of the Courtroom. Markings, possibly from rope marks, still exist on the staircase wood.

The Skirrid Mountain Inn is one of the oldest pubs in Wales with a history dating back over 900 years.