Authors note: I am going to have to be unusually careful with the information I relay in this account, as it relates to a hotel that is still trading, despite the horrific events that took place within its four walls during the 1980s. For this reason, I have changed the name of the hotel and the owners involved in this story (by request of the current owners).

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The Crown Hotel in Portsmouth was a medium-sized, early Victorian hotel, which stood near the city’s historic harbour. Built almost 170 years ago, the hotel has 15 large bedrooms, as well as a bar, dinning room and drawing room. Originally, the hotel’s trade had mainly derived from traders visiting the city from across the globe, but following the second world war this source of custom began to dry-up quickly, so increasingly the owners were forced to target the lower-end of the hotel market (ie, itinerate workers, homeless people, etc). The experience of the hotel during Great Britain’s post-war economic decline was very different to the life it had enjoyed during its Victorian heyday.

Despite the hotel’s grand past, a dark shadow had hung over the premises pretty much since it opened. The first owner of the hotel was a Mr Stroud of Southsea. He and his wife had become wealthy as a result of their family trade (importing rare animal skins and furs). They set about investing their money in new businesses and properties across Great Britain and the empire.

Mr Stroud was reputedly cruel. He was said to have been a particularly unpleasant master to work for, treating servants and employees with inhumane contempt. When an unmarried 17 year old chambermaid at the Crown Hotel fell pregnant, he gave her a harsh ultimatum, which was – give up your baby or leave the hotel. On giving birth, the impressionable young girl, terrified for her future, agreed to relinquish charge of her newborn to a local orphanage. This was an emotional blow from which she never recovered. Six weeks later, she was found dead in her room, having fastened a tourniquet tightly around her throat.

Over one hundred years later the Crown Hotel came under new ownership. The new proprietor decided to set about increasing the monetary value of his premises. One of his first acts was to have the three servant rooms converted into guest rooms, so as to increase the profitability of the location. Thus in 1954, the Crown Hotel went from having 12 rooms available for hire to having 15 rooms.

Initially all had seemed well, but guests soon started complaining about the “oppressive” and “depressing” atmosphere in room 15. The negative feedback was so overwhelming that the proprietor began to fear for the reputation of the hotel and decided to cease using the room at all. For thirty years or so, it sat empty, until the ownership of the hotel changed again in 1986. The new owner was a large property company that owned many hotels, B&Bs and bedsits across the South of England. They would rent the rooms on a long term basis to people who were too poor to afford a proper home.

When the new owners took over the running of the hotel they decided to rename it and renovate the disused room 15 so that it could be opened up for public use. The room was stripped and gutted. A small window was enlarged, allowing more light to enter the room. These changes seemed to precipitate a spell of paranormal activity that would culminate in the deaths of 3 people.

Shortly after the room was renovated, a young man from Spain took up residence in it. He was working at the near-by docks and staying at the hotel on an extended basis. When he moved in he had seemed like a happy, buoyant soul, but within weeks he had become withdrawn and deeply depressed. Exactly 6 weeks after he first stepped foot in the hotel, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the room. Tragedy turned into terror when his successor as occupant of the room repeated his actions and killed herself 6 weeks after moving in. With two deaths in the space of less than 4 months, one might have expected the hotel owners to reconsidered using the room, but the hotel was owned by a Limited Company and there was no room for suspicious supernatural belief amongst the directors.

Room 15 remained available for hire, despite the two recent suicides. However, when a third man committed suicide in 1988, the directors were rocked by the note he had left. It explained how he had learned how painful life was since moving to the hotel and how he could no longer cope with the knowledge that so many before him had suffered unnecessary pain and cruelty. He made specific reference to “children being snatched from their parents” and the feeling of having one’s “heart cut out and thrown away”. The third suicide victim of room 15 had used a tourniquet to bring about his dispatch to the spirit world. Shocked by what they read, the directors of the Limited Company agreed that room 15 should be closed to public hire and subsequently it has not been used again. Today the hotel has ceased business entirely and the property has been converted into residential flats.

Read more paranormal stories from Portsmouth