‘There's a ghost in the loo!’ Woman grabbed by spooky hand in York café toilets

Howard Proctor in the Earl Grey Tea Rooms. Photograph: YorkMix

If you are going to be given the shock of your life, there are probably worse places to be than in the loo.

That’s where one York visitor was when she was grabbed by a ghostly presence.

The story was revealed in a post on TripAdvisor by Julie H from Inverness after she enjoyed some refreshment in the Earl Grey Tea Rooms on Shambles on Tuesday.

She wrote:

Visited the tea room and enjoyed lovely afternoon tea in the garden with the family. The staff were efficient and friendly.

Before leaving I visited the ladies toilet, whilst washing my hands felt what I thought was a child grab me by the leg – but no one was there…

More sightings

Debbie Nellis was waitressing that day. What did she think of what happened?

“It’s a load of cobblers,” she told YorkMix.

“They’re always saying it. We had a medium come in, saying ‘I can feel the presence of a sea captain!’

“It’s absolute rubbish.”

The ghostly story is recounted on TripAdvisor

Howard Proctor, owner of the Earl Grey Tea Rooms with his wife Clare, said he kept a more open mind.

Although he hadn’t seen a ghost during his 20 years running the business, he knew of at least three other ghostly happenings in the café.

The first is the occasional sighting of the apparition of an old man, sitting at the corner table in the alcove on the ground floor.

When he vanished before their eyes, witnesses “always run screaming”.

The patch of carpet that needs replacing supernaturally often

Weirder still is a patch of carpet on the first floor which wears out very quickly and keeps needing to be replaced – even though it is used far less heavily than much longer lasting carpets downstairs.

Could it be the result of a ghostly rocking chair, Howard speculates?

And it is the second time he’s heard a report of a ghost in the ladies’ toilet. Moreover there have been unrelated sightings in the corridor that leads to it too.

“We have had reports before now that someone has seen somebody walking down this corridor and disappearing,” Howard said.

“Also they said, as they walked around here, they had the feeling like the door was moving further and further away from them.”