GhostLegendary
Juliet's Stone
A grave in the bar floor, and a ghost born at a séance.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Thatched riverside pub with a marked floor slab
- Legend from
- 1950s, set in 1050
- Best time
- 17 March, near midnight
- Tone
- Eerie
At the Old Ferry Boat, a stone in the bar floor is called a grave. The story behind it may be younger than you think.
A slab in the floor of this thatched riverside inn is pointed out as the grave of Juliet Tewsley, a girl said to have killed herself on 17 March 1050 after a forester named Tom Zoul rejected her flowers. Because of the suicide she was buried in unhallowed ground, and the inn grew up over her. She is said to rise from the river at midnight on the anniversary and glide to her stone. Yet a psychical researcher who held séances here in 1953 later wrote that no one local knew the tale before then, and that Juliet's name and details came from his own Ouija board.