A ‘Bored’ Pub Ghost Flings a Sign at the Black Swan

What happened

The Daily Star’s Hannah Robinson reported at 07:00 on 24 May 2026 that staff at the Black Swan Hotel in Leominster believed a ghost was “pranking” them. The evidence was CCTV that had been shared on TikTok with the caption “when the ghost is bored at work. Are we haunted?”. By then it had more than 44,400 views. The stills in the article are credited to the press agency Kennedy News and Media.

Shrean Mapp, the assistant manager, has worked at the Black Swan for 14 years. She told the paper: “We put it down to a ghost haunting the pub, there’s no other explanation. The hotel’s haunted 100%.”

The footage

The video is security-camera footage from the bar, cut into a short compilation. The description below comes from the Daily Star’s report and its captioned stills:

• Sign incident, 5 March 2026: a plastic age-restriction sign comes away from the bar wall and goes “straight across the bar”, landing on the floor. A member of staff jumps and looks around. Customers were present. Mapp said they “all saw it and just stood there and laughed.”
• Later in the same clip: a pile of shot trays topples over and spreads across the bar floor.
• A second video: a screwed-in light bulb falls and smashes on the pool table.

The report gives no length for the clips, no TikTok account name and no date for the bulb clip. It doesn’t say whether the posted video is the full, unedited CCTV recording.

Timeline

• 18th century: The Black Swan Inn on West Street is built, according to Historic England’s list entry 1255539.
• 19th century: The building becomes a hotel, according to Mapp in the Daily Star. She says it was an auction house before that.
• 9 July 1976: The inn is listed at Grade II.
• 5 March 2026: CCTV records the sign coming off the wall.
• Between 5 March and 24 May 2026: The compilation is posted to TikTok.
• 24 May 2026: The Daily Star publishes the Kennedy News story. The same day, the aggregator By Jove republishes it.

What believers claim

Staff suspect a particular spirit. The Daily Star reports that Mapp believes it may be a former member of staff who has died and is “playing up”, because he was known for winding up colleagues. “We have jokes and say it’s got to be him but we don’t know,” she said. She describes more: chairs moving across the bar, guests finding themselves locked inside their rooms, and guests hearing “someone walk up and bang on the door.” On the bulb, she said: “I can’t explain how a lightbulb unscrews itself and smashes on a pool table.” A ghost hunt upstairs was cut short because the investigator “didn’t feel comfortable.” Mapp also tells of a woman who supposedly hid at the inn after murdering someone. No source dates or documents that story.

What the research found

1. The sign came off a wall. Mapp says: “On the bar we have plastic age signs. It’s been on the wall of the bar for years and hasn’t been touched.” A lightweight plastic sign that has been fixed to a wall for years is the kind of object that fails suddenly. Adhesive pads creep and lose grip as they age, especially in a warm, busy bar. When the last bit lets go, a sign held under slight tension can spring away from the wall instead of sliding straight down.