Scottish Paranormal Investigations

History of the Covenanters Inn

The Covenanters Hotel was built in the 17th Century, previously being known as the Commercial Inn having changed its name in the 1970s. Previous reports by both staff and guests have claimed that paranormal/ghostly activity has been reported.

Pre Investigation Reported Paranormal Activity

Room 25: Martin Gregor, staff member for 29yrs, has experienced a sharp drop in temperature and the smell of lavender in this room. Other staffs have also experienced similar occurrences of sharp reduction in temperature. A regular guest (a businessman) once slept in Room 25 and the next morning notified Nick that he heard a loud buzzing noise coming from the corner of the room and the temperature dropped very quickly. When he now books to stay at the Hotel, he ensures that his secretary does not book the ‘haunted’ room.

Another regular guest, a retired Army General, has also stayed in Room 25 and subsequently advised Nick that there is a ghost in his hotel, having also heard a strange noise and felt a presence in that room.

Nick Pearcy, Director, has his own account of Room 25. At one time he was living in Room 25 and decided to take his cat into the room. As he entered the room, the cat started to scream and dig its claws into Nick. The cat had never acted like this before, as verified by Martin, resulting in Nick having to put the cat out of the room.

Room 23: Nick Pearcy has previously been told by a visiting medium that there was a woman at the window. She believes that the woman is looking outside at an execution in the High Street. The method of execution being a mobile guillotine.

Dining Room: Nick holds his regular staff meetings in the Dining Room during which he and the staff frequently hear footsteps walking around in the room above (Room 25). No guests were booked into room 25 at the time and all staff were present at the meeting.

Restaurant: Martin frequently hears someone walking around in the restaurant when he is alone in the bar.

These areas became the main focus of our investigation.

Conclusion – Further observations & conclusions

Expectations were high when we arrived at the Hotel as we’d been advised by a friend that the Hotel was one of the most active sites that they were aware of in Scotland. Naturally as much as we try to be impartial, we are only human and were very excited that Nick Piercy had agreed to us conducting a full investigation, including setting up remote cameras and running cables from the 1st floor to the ground level Dining Room, which we identified as being a suitable area to set up the monitoring base station.

Although we picked up on names and descriptions of energies, we can never be sure if what information we record is in fact of any relevance to a property or the residents, past or present, until we complete the post visit investigation in historical records.

We have been extremely fortunate to be in communication with a well respected Paranormal Investigator, Mr Archie Lawrie, who along with his associate and Medium, Frances, have visited the Covenanter’s Hotel some months prior to visit.
A few months after our visit, we met up to compare results of our separate investigations and were excited to find that there were several similarities.

With respect to the work that Archie Lawrie has put into his soon to be published, 3rd book in his series “A Psychic Investigator’s Casebook”, I’m unable to print all of the details that were corroborated but safe to say, we were able to validate that:-

• The French / Belgium connection that David picked up with the name of “Roger d’……”, could have been the French pronunciation of “Rose”, a woman from Flanders who had arrived in Falkland to witness the death of her husband “…Hepburn”, the last man to be Guillotined in Scotland.
• This also ties in with 2 of the team sensing a woman looking out of the window in Room 23 which looks out onto the village square where the mobile Guillotine would have been erected.
• The “Judge/ Magistrate” could well be the notorious “McKenzie”, known as the Man responsible for atrocities against the Covenanter’s who also stayed at this hotel when tracking down some rebels hiding in the trenches outside Falkland.

We are keen to carry out a return visit to the Covenanter’s Hotel at some point to validate our findings.

Further Research

A team member and a friend took a walk through Falkland. They found the Old Cemetery but the Headstones were so weathered that many of the names are long gone.

• They did however find a lovely single track bridge over a small burn which has a footpath up the hill to the ruins of a Memorial Chapel. The date over the door was 1910 so perhaps the couple mentioned in the communication circle my have their child buried over in the current cemetery on the outskirts of the village.
• The name on the Statue of the man in Centre of Falkland is “Onesypherous Tyndall-Bruce Esquire who died on 19th March 1855. His family initials of T-B appear above several doorways. Having done a quick Google search his name comes up a having commissioned the building of Falkland House in 1839 , which is now a school for boys with emotional, social and behavioural difficulties.
• Highlighted gazetteer entry -In 1887, John Bartholomew’s Gazetteer of the British Isles described Falkland like this:

“Falkland, ancient royal burgh, small town, and par. (ry. sta. Falkland Road, 2½ miles SE.), Fifeshire, at N. foot of East Lomond Hill, 22 miles NW. of Edinburgh –par., 8265 ac., pop. 2698; royal burgh, pop. 972; town, pop. 1068; P.O., T.O., 1 Bank; has some weaving and flax-spinning. Falkland was constituted a royal burgh by James II., 1458. In Falkland Castle, originally a stronghold of the earls of Fife, David, Duke of Rothesay, eldest son of Robert III., was imprisoned and starved to death, 1402. Falkland Palace is supposed to have been begun by James II.; it was completed by James V., who died there, 1542. It had a fine park with abundance of deer, and was a frequent residence of James VI.; the oaks of the park were cut down by Cromwell to build a fort at Perth. In 1715 Falkland Palace was garrisoned by Rob Roy. What remains of it has been renovated, and it is now occupied as a dwelling-house. A little W. of the town is Falkland House, seat; 1 m. E. is Newton of Falkland, vil.”