Knock..Knock
With Halloween looming I decided on a ghost theme for my weekend adventure. Jumping on the Google I searched for haunted spots in Victoria. Hmmm…Empress Hotel? Nah…no parking, too pricey, Gatsby Manor (been there done that), Cherry Bank Hotel (torn down), James Bay Inn (bean there dun that). Wait…the Olde English Inn on Lampson…isn’t that closed? Wait…what’s this? Reopened as the English Inn and Resort now…ladies and gentlemen we have a winner. All I needed was my assorted ghost hunting parafanalia (that is so NOT how you spell that) and a snow globe (wait for the YouTube video folks).
So there we were on 10-10-10 not getting married (cuz that’s what you’re supposed to do on 10-10-10) but trying to check into the Inn. They don’t exactly have a front desk…well technically they do actually…an actual desk (not a counter). Could this be the only hotel that actually has a front desk and not a front counter? Very interesting…never thought about it before. I shall give them a point for that. Our room wasn’t ready but it was only 2pm but they gave us our key..a real live key..no plastic swipey card (wow…no hotels do that) and let us meander the grounds. We weren’t in the main house but in the Carriage House (no babies, no baby carriages and no horses luckily). We bravely made our way past our door knocker (see blog photo of scary door knocker) and into our suite. I loved the goofy shaped doors (not the Disney dog) and we had a four poster bed and an old fireplace that now had a goofy (not the Disney dog) electric fireplace insert inside the old brick fire place. It looked daffy (not the Disney duck). Still it was all very quaint and cozy and didn’t feel scary or ghosty or anything.
Armed with a camera we set out to invesitgate (also known as snooping where we shouldn’t and peering into windows) we soon discovered what was the one cause of the past demise of the property. Seems some folks aren’t that bright and come up with ideas that don’t work. See they figured instead of open lovely grounds with lawns that you can easily mow, they would spend all their money not on room updates, comfy beds, new windows, spiderweb control or advertising but instead they would landscape. Now it already looked really purdy but no…up went bushes and trees and bushes and flowers and weeds and bushes and some trees and more weeds and maybe a flower with assorted weeds and then some vast quantities of weeds. This was to section off the property almost into private mansions that guests could stay in. So now it’s all closed off and very weedy (did I mention weeds?) but mainly and very incredibly overgrown. For our purposes only it worked. You see by enclosing all the mansions in tall trees and shrubbery and weeds and spiders it makes it super spooky. Just what you want when you’re filming a movie about the Parabnormal. So thousands of dollars spent just to keep me and my ghost hunting team happy (we appeciate the bankruptcy you suffered purely for our personal entertainment). Once the sun went down we ventured forth with our movie and still camera and with the crunch crunch of gravel and leaves beneath our feet and the wind in the trees it truly was the most ghostly walk in Victoria.
Wait….I learned something else too. Did you know that the replica of Anne Hathaways cottage is an exact replica of the original and that the one now in Stratford in England is a replica of this replica (because the original Anne Hathaway Cottage burned down so….they had to rebuild based on the one in Victoria here). So the replica is older than the one in England.
My Mom says she liked the place better when it was full of antiques and armour and they had proper tours of the exact replica of the Hathaway place (which is now just a conference room). They really need to turn the place back into a tourist attraction because they can never charge enough for a room to even pay for the amount of gardeners to upkeep the place. On that note I managed to find an old brochure of the place from the 1950′s on Ebay when it was one of Victoria’s top attractions (that and the Fable Cottage).
I will try to have my Parabnormal movie up by Halloween……..think Citizen Kane meets Baxter and his band of Ghost Hunters. I have a lot of investigating to do as well at the local archives at UVic and the museum. I’m trying to find out more about Thomas Harry Slater (he died in 1933 so I’m diggin up his obit to see what I can find out about him). Mr. Slater was the original owner back in 1906. I’m a gonna learn you some things whether you like it or not.
Wish me luck on my investigation and I shall make you a wonderful ghost movie so that you can enjoy our weekend at the English Inn & Resort.
