Maids Head Hotel

The Grey Maid

The hotel's best-known ghost is a woman in grey, believed to be a maid who once worked here. She is described moving silently along the corridors, and her arrival is often announced not by sight but by smell: a sudden, musty scent of lavender with no obvious source. If you can't see her, ghost-walk guides say, you may still smell her.

The Mayor in the courtyard

A second figure is an elderly man said to be one of Norwich's former mayors. He has been seen pacing the hotel's courtyard, shaking his head as if in disapproval, before disappearing.

What guests say

Recent guests keep the stories going. One reviewer on Google described a beautiful hotel and posh rooms, but a sleepless night of "cold rooms, knocking on doors and walls", calling the place "definitely haunted". The hotel replied that it "was not aware of Rentaghost partaking in a stay with us" and would make sure they were charged for the room. Another guest summed up their stay as "absolutely peak hotel but it might be haunted tbh".

The Maids Head stands on Tombland, the old heart of Norwich, on land associated with the first palace of Bishop Herbert de Losinga, who began Norwich Cathedral in 1096. An earlier inn here was known as the Murtel (or Molde) Fish, and the name the Maids Head first appears in a letter from the Paston family in 1472. The hotel calls itself the oldest hotel in the UK.

A jigsaw of buildings

Norfolk's historic building records describe an inn of at least six buildings joined together, with 15th-century cellars and most of the structure dating from the 16th to 18th centuries. The street front was heavily remodelled in the early 20th century. Excavations in 1988 behind the hotel on Palace Street uncovered part of a medieval cemetery.

Royal guests

Catherine of Aragon is recorded as staying in 1520, and tradition has it that Elizabeth I slept here. The Queen Elizabeth Suite is named after her. Elizabeth's documented visit to Norwich was in 1578, when she lodged at the Bishop's Palace, so the story is best treated as a tradition.

Restored by an antiquarian

By the early 1900s the inn was described as "one of the most noted inns in England". It had been rescued from sale to a brewery by the Norwich antiquarian Walter Rye, who restored it. Visitors admired its Tudor bar, carved smoke-room, oak-beamed bedrooms and the Queen Elizabeth room with its narrow private stair.

The Maids Head today

The building is Grade II listed (Historic England list entry 1051811). It has 84 bedrooms, including historic feature rooms, and the WinePress@Wensum restaurant.

• For the history, ask for one of the historic feature rooms or the Queen Elizabeth Suite.
• Look for the lavender. The grey maid is more often smelled than seen.
• Norwich ghost walks pass the hotel, and the cathedral, Elm Hill and Tombland are all a few minutes' walk away.