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The Apparition in the Alley

On the morning of 25th September, I walked down to the High Street and took the short cut through Walls Court, one of the 27 alleyways in Tewkesbury. I have walked through this alley on numerous occasions and have never seen anything unusual, aside from other people using the alleyway. It's a part covered and part open alleyway and there are various houses and flats along one side and when you get to the covered part, there a pub to the left (if you're walking towards the high street) and the left side is a retail business.

I was walking down towards the high street, on the uncovered part of the alley, you can see from this photo that I walked from the red brick wall, towards the covered part of the alley. I saw an elderly couple, who were arm in arm, coming towards me on my left hand side so I moved to the right side to let them pass as they appeared frail. They acknowledged me and we exchanged smiles.

Now this is where it got odd. After, the elderly couple passed me, I looked ahead and saw a male figure, about 6 foot in height coming through the covered part of the alley. The figure was on my left hand side. I got a really odd feeling about this figure so I moved over to left hand side and thought it wise to let him come through the covered part of the alley so I stopped, as to let him pass me. As I stopped and looked at the figure, I saw him take a sharp right hand exit, to what must be another doorway to the pub. I stopped exactly where you can see in the photo and I was a little hesitant in going through this part of the alley. I waited several seconds then proceeded through it. 

I looked to the right hand side of the alley and there was no door, only windows, as you can see in the photo. No one on the high street resembled the male figure I saw

I have to admit I was somewhat perplexed and seeing this male figure and the actions it took. When I saw him, he was a dark figure, almost shadow like but solid and with a definite outline. It is rather dark in the alley despite their being a light but he was definitely more shadow like coming through that alley, compared to others coming through the alley.

I went back and took these photos minutes after it happened, just to check I was right about there being no door in the wall of the pub and only windows

A little history about the pub that shares this alleyway

The pub is now called The Nottingham Arms and is on the high street in Tewkesbury. The fabric of the building is said to be from the 16th century and the frontage of the building is a 20th century reproduction. This was due to structural decay. It's also not known as to why it's called The Nottingham Arms. In some historic licensing records, it is called The Nottingham House.

You can see the alleyway in this historic photo, it's behind the young boy and his bike. The pub has Flower and Sons painted on the front. This was a brewery in Stratford upon Avon and it supplied the pub at the time of this photo. There's also been some reported poltergeist activity when Kieren and Theresa McCormack took over the pub in the late 90's. Theresa was reported to have said "Things were moving about all over the place, and there were lots of unexplained noises. The strangest thing was that all the clocks and our watches kept stopping at exactly the same time.” The activity never lasted for long and soon stopped.