A very good friend of mine gave me a book he found at a book farm all about the ghostly past of Coventry. Why the Phantom Coach pub is so named. The castle ghost of Allesley, the phantom hound of Whitmore Park, and the Dyers Arms pub in Spon End where an old landlord is said to haunt. The list goes on.......
The Phantom Coach at Canley.
One Mrs Baker that lived in the area in 1976 wrote to a Coventry paper claiming that she had been awoken by the sound of galloping horses. When she looked out the window, there was nothing there.
Another tale was of a couple driving home to the Berkswell area from Canley late one night. Seeing two large lamps in the rear mirror that were set too high to be a car, they drove faster to outrun the lights, but to no avail. As they stopped to let it pass, an old fashioned coach pulled by four horses passed them by into the night. The lady in the car later told a reporter that she seen the glazed eyes of the coach driver as he passed them by.
The Phantom Coach is said to have been built on a pond or swamp that had once seen the coach crash into it killing all on board.
In 1983 a reporter interviewed the owner of the pub, and he told them that Charlie, the coach driver, is often seen walking around the bar area.
The castle ghost of Allesley.
It is said that in 1146 the baron of Maxstoke Castle (Black Roger) was incensed by the fact that he could not marry the daughter of Sir Fulk Hastings. He attacked the castle, killing all inside, but a Will Braynes, the seneschal, escaped down the lane towards Allesley. He was eventually caught and killed near to the Stone House in Allesley village. This was at the time the gatehouse to the castle. It is said that his ghostly armoured person haunts the area. The Hastings family that owned Fillongley Castle built a residence here as a deer park.
