INTRODUCTION

The ghost of Clevedon Pier was a relatively new ‘haunting’ when it hit the headlines in late 2011 and 2012 and as it’s not too far from where I live, I naturally became interested and decided to start looking into the story in a bit more detail. Once in beyond the headlines it became clear that things weren’t as mysterious as they seemed.

REPORTED ACTIVITY & CLAIMS

One of the first to make a report of a sighting was a member of the Clevedon Angling Club called Jack Hulbert. Mr Hulbert told the local press

“I had come on the pier early in the morning – it must have been about 4.30am – there wasn’t anyone else I could see. I got towards the end and I saw a figure of a person learning on the railings looking out to sea. I thought I’ll double check and I walked all around to see if it was shadows or the light playing tricks but I knew what it was. It was definitely the definition of a person wearing dark clothes but I couldn’t see whether it was a man or a woman.”

Since Jack Hulbert reported a sighting of a figure, the story rapidly grew. Other people reported having seen a figure in the same area either by the railings or in the sheltered seating in that area of the pier, with some people saying they could hear it muttering to itself as it moved around. Added in were reports of phantom toast being smelt in the Pier gift shop by staff, and then a photo was taken early one morning by a student that showed a figure on the apparently locked up Pier. It was just after the photo was published in the national press that I decided to look a little deeper into the case.

Some local ghost hunters (who purposefully seek out proof of ghosts using biased, unscientific methods) also visited the Pier but I will not be reviewing their claims in depth here other than to briefly mention them where necessary.

The main claim of interest to my investigation is the photographs taken by a media student which shows an apparent apparition. The student was taking a series of photos of the sunrise over the Clevedon shoreline to create a time-lapse piece. Photographs were taken automatically every 30 seconds in sequence. After taking the photos and reviewing them later, the student reported that in one frame, a figure had appeared at the end of the locked up pier which hadn’t been in the previous shot and wasn’t in the following shot. This sequence is shown below:

the photos frame by frame
Photos taken 30 seconds apart. Second Frame shows a mysterious figure.

To summarise:

– Jack Hulbert saw a figure standing at the end of the pier to one side
– Others reported that they’ve seen/heard a figure in the same area of the pier
– The smell of toast was smelt in the Pier shop
– A photo was taken of a figure on the pier when the pier was locked

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION

I began by getting in touch with people who use the pier the most – the Clevedon Pier Sea Angling Club (CPSAC). Just a quick search online showed that the members of this club were talking in length about the alleged ghost on the CPSAC members forum and so I signed up to the forum and got in touch with a few members of the club personally. Unfortunately the old forum has since disappeared as the club designed and launched a new website.

I specifically spoke to a man I shall refer to as ‘V’ whom others claim was the ‘ghost’ in the photo that made national headlines. V, who had been part of the Angling Club for about a year at the time the photo was take, usually fishes at night – as do many members. He explained to me that he put the noises the ghost hunters had reported down to the rush of water under the pier during the tide run and the pigeons that roost on the pier being unsettled by the noises. V said that along with the other night fishermen he wears a headlight and that can reflect in the glass around the sheltered seating areas, throwing up spooky looking illusions. V also reported that there is a Telescope on the end of the pier right in the centre that you can catch sometimes at the edge of your vision which makes you jump, thinking there is someone there.

The Telescope

V also told me that he has on occasion had teenagers visit the end of the pier during the night. How they gained access he didn’t know. During my visit I checked out the gates that keep the public off of the pier when it isn’t open – the gaps between the gates are too small to squeeze through but it’s possible to climb over them – especially at one point where there is a lamp post between two segments of fencing. As the lamppost thins out nearer the top it creates enough space for someone to fit through, if they were so inclined.

Pier Gates

I asked V about the photo that showed an alleged ghostly apparition and he was able to shed some light on it. He told me:

‘When I saw the photo of the so called ghost, I showed my wife and she agreed it looked like me. I own a suit that I wear when fishing and underneath I sometimes wear a red top with a hood (it can get damn chilly early in the morning) and I own a fairly new Mercedes and I’m always a little nervous about leaving it out in the roadway and I’m often looking to see if it’s ok.’

ON SITE INVESTIGATION

During my visit to Clevedon Pier I hoped to get the chance to talk to the Pier Mistress but she was in meetings and wasn’t available. When I had phoned previously she had also been busy and I hadn’t been given the chance to ask her any questions.

I made my way to the end of the Pier to look at the telescope that the I had been told caught people out when they saw it from the corner of their eye. As I stood there taking a photo of it, a Clevedon Pier Volunteer asked me for my help in locking a heavy door. As I helped I asked her if she knew anything about the ghost to which she replied that although she hadn’t seen anything she had once smelt toast burning while in the gift shop without knowing that others had previously smelt that too. The lady explained that I really needed to speak to the fisherman if I wanted to discover anything as they spent the most time on the pier.

Following this I took some time out to write up my notes in the Pagoda Tea Room at the end of the pier. While sipping my tea I got chatting to a member of staff and our conversation turned to the alleged ghost on Clevedon Pier. The woman had worked there for over six years and had never seen anything strange and told me that she thought people were only seeing and experiencing things because of the suggestion in the media that the Pier was haunted.

The woman told me how at 9am when the tide went out it caused the Pier to move which created eerie groaning sounds, and that the pigeons that roost around the pier often make a lot of noise. She explained that the pigeons were a big problem in 2011 because there were so many of them and they kept entering the café. At night time bats were known to fly around the tea room. She also told me that the cardboard cut-out at the end of the pier that visitors can pose with often creates an odd illusion when the sun shines through it.

the cutout available on the pier that sometimes creates illusions

When I approached the fishermen along the pier to ask them questions I got pointed by one group to another and I eventually bumped into a familiar person. K is the webmaster for the Clevedon Pier Sea Angling Club and was the one I initially contacted when I started researching the story.

K put me in touch with V so it was nice to catch up with him in person. We spoke about the photo that was taken by a student that many claim shows a ghostly photo that members of the Angling Club believe is actually V. K explained that in the photo you can actually see the flotation suit that V was wearing that all Anglers wear, and he kindly allowed me to take a photo of his jacket for comparison.

I stopped in the gift shop on my way back and spoke to two members of staff to see if they could provide any more information about the odd smell of toast that has been reported in the past. One of them refused to speak to me and the other was extremely vague, and when pressed for details would only say ‘I think it’s only smelt every six months on the stairs’. I have never known people be so vague and standoffish. I felt very unwelcome and made me feel slightly suspicious of the claims.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

V being the ‘ghost’ was something that many of the people on the Angling Club forum agreed on, and with this knowledge in your mind when you look at the photo it’s easy to see how it could indeed just be V checking on his new car while wearing his jacket as usual.

The camera was set to take a photo every 30 seconds, so this would have given Vic 30 seconds either side of being photographed to have got in frame, be photographed while checking his car, before disappearing from frame again. Given that the Pier isn’t that wide this is entirely plausible and is the most likely explanation.

When you are told that the photo shows a figure of someone on the pier when it is locked it automatically makes you think that there is nobody on the pier, but as my research has shown, this is not the truth. All members of the Angling club have a security code so that they can gain access to the pier at any hour of the day. It would be impossible to say if the pier was ever empty or not without physically checking it, and the student who took the photo did not do this as he had no reason to at the time.

In summary, the Pier is an absolutely lovely place to visit but I’m not convinced it is haunted, and neither are most of those who use it regularly. I do believe that people have had genuinely odd experiences on the Pier and it’s a shame that I wasn’t given the opportunity to investigate these further by the pier mistress or staff leaving me no choice but to conclude that a few odd experiences have been exploited to drum up interest in the Pier.

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