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Excavation of pub’s ‘haunted’ cellar proves fruitless

hotelier disappointed to find out that the buried coffins in local legend do not exist

By Joanna Skailes

Published: 05/07/2008

AN EXCAVATION to see if the cellar of a “haunted” north-east pub held two coffins proved fruitless last night.

Kemnay hotelier Malcolm Edwards opened up a cellar wall in the Burnett Arms after an infrared camera probe appeared to show a box and what might have been a framed photograph.

The image corresponded with local legend. It is said former landlady Maggie Duffton died in 1931 and had three coffins made – one to be buried in a family grave in Kemnay churchyard and the other two, one containing her body and the other her money – to be walled-up in the depths of the hotel.

Mr Edwards had previously described the shapes that appeared on the monitor as “creepy” and was convinced something was down there.

But after an hour of knocking through the thick stone wall, Mr Edwards and stonemason Karl Bisset found nothing. The 96in-wide room they opened up was between five and 6ft deep in earth and rubble. The box in the image must have been the raised earth, they said.

The opening revealed a further stone wall. He said that perhaps something might be behind that but it would involve too many structural problems to look into it.

Disappointed, Mr Edwards said: “We found absolutely nothing. I think I’m gutted actually.”

However, it did not necessarily rule out that the place was haunted, he added. The dig was filmed by a camera in the beer cellar and watched by people in the bar.

A group working on an excavation at nearby Fetternear had gone to the pub to see what happened.