Gaoler’s Mews
The history of Gastown doesn’t get grimmer than Gaoler’s Mews. The site of Vancouver’s first jail and a hangman’s scaffold where over 40 people were hanged, Gaoler’s Mews has a sordid past at best.
The now L’Abbatoire use to be the Irish Heather pub before it moved across the way in 2008. I’m sure that it’s unsurprising that an area with a dark story like Gaoler’s Mews has a few ghosts or two.
A woman dressed in black, most likely mourning the loss of one of the 40 executed, can be seen making her way along the cobble stone. She makes her way to the gate leading to Blood Alley and then vanishes, without a trace. Staff of the Irish Heather reported seeing a woman in white as well, calling out the names of the employees just to disappear a second later.
A man dressed in black, thought to be a spirit from when Blake’s Coffee Parlour, formally situated in Gaoler’s Mews, used to house a saloon and brothel in the early 1900s. The man in black would linger between a wall dividing Blake’s and Irish Heather, where a door use to be.
A tale seemingly pulled right from the movie Poltergeist; Irish Heather’s staff reported some strange happenings in their second storey loft. Staff often felt a presence coming from the tables situated in the loft. A few men came by the pub to do some renovations and heard banging coming from upstairs. When the went to check out the racquet, all the chairs and tables had when tipped over or on their backs.d