Of course, that was all just a little fun. A work of fiction, a tale that leapt from my imagination, like a child who jumps from behind a wall to shout, "Boo!" at passersby.

However, the Fox and Goose at Parracombe really is haunted, by at least ghost. I know this for sure
because, although I neither saw nor sensed anything out of the ordinary there myself, Emma most certainly did.

Emma, by a Moose at the Fox and Goose!

We stumbled across this friendly, quirky pub during our first visit  to Exmoor. It was Good Friday last year, the batteries in Emma's smartphone had just died and, with them, our Google Maps directions to the moorland farm we were staying at.

Seeing a brown tourist sign for a pub, we took the detour off the A39 to Parracombe, hoping for directions from a knowledgeable punter. We got them and more besides, for the Fox and Goose was serving Litehouse from the Forge Brewery, a delicious local ale, and it was friendly and welcoming to the traveller.

From that moment on, it became our favourite place to visit and we have been back each time we've travelled to the Lynmouth area again. We've even stayed there overnight. It's fair to say we love it.

The current structure is a modern building by Exmoor standards. It's late Victorian in origin, the original inn having been demolished in 1893 to make way for what was in those days a state of the art hotel.

Indeed, it lost its colourful name and was rechristened The Family & Commercial Hotel.

At this time, it served the coaches plying their trade between Barnstaple and Lynton. The Tantivy, Glen Lyn and Tally Ho were all regular visitors.

Perhaps it was from this time that our ghost belongs, for Emma got the sense of somebody standing above her as she enjoyed a glass of wine at one of the tables by the window.

A man in a dark uniform of some kind, a man who wore a hat.

She imagined he may have been something to do with the stagecoaches, possibly the driver, or a porter employed by the hotel itself. If the latter, he would have been a person whose responsibility it was to ensure travellers got onboard their coaches safely and in good time.

Whoever it was, he neither meant, nor caused, any harm and his presence did not alarm the pub cat, who continued to stretch herself by the window.

The moggy was either oblivious to the ghost's presence or so used to him that it no longer bothered her. Interestingly enough, Emma saw nothing during our first visit, on Good Friday 2017, but has seen the man during the three visits since. I've still seen nothing out of the ordinary.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Fox and Goose from the past. Perhaps one of the gentleman captured on film remains here to this day.

The rebuilt, and renamed, Family and Commercial Hotel

The original Fox and Goose Inn

A romantic way to travel