Court Oak Pub

The Court Oak Pub, based in Harborne, was built in 1932 and refurbished in August of 2014. Although a relatively new pub in comparison to many others in the area, it still has it's history, and it's fair share of odd happenings.

This is put down to the fact that, interestingly, the town's gallows are rumoured to have once stood very close to where this pub was built. This has led to many reports of different apparitions, that people believe to be souls that were trapped here when their bodies were hanged. The most popular of these apparitions, and also the 'resident pub ghost', is described as a lady in black and white. Local legend dictates that she was hanged on the charge of infanticide; a crime that she did not commit.

Another apparition, and more active figure in the pub, is nicknamed by the residents as 'Corky'. He is said to be behind the smashed bottles of wine that keep being found in the locked wine cellar, and strange knocks and footsteps that ghost investigation teams keep hearing when holding vigils here.

The ex-manager of the pub, Mrs Lillian Campbell, has even reported seeing Corky on two separate occasions. She said that both times, he's been standing behind the bar, wearing similar colours to the uniform that the employees there wear, despite there being no members of staff there at the time of the sightings.

Mrs Campbell's husband, Mark, also claims to have seen the figure as it walked across the bar, when he and his wife were closing up the pub just past midnight. He also states that the figure was wearing light blue, like the staff uniform. Just as Lillian had said. Since then, a regular at the pub has also stated to see this figure at an empty part of the pub, before it has been refurbished. Who knows how many people have seen it since that point?

When the West  Midlands Ghost Club investigated the pub in 2001, they captured some interesting audio from footage they had taken from the cellar. This audio consisted of numerous footsteps, a very large unexplained crashing noise, and a sound similar to that which occurs when someone blows over the neck of a bottle.

The investigators tried to rule out the fact that the footsteps were made by a part of the team, by continuing to run the recording while they had another member of their team (16 stone, wearing army boots) to walk across the bar and stomp around, but no sounds were captured when they did this.

They haven't been back since 2001, but the reports are still coming in often, from staff, customers and managers. So... What's the explanation for all of this? Is is paranormal? Or is there another explanation?