Hauntings

Buster Crabb at Keppel's Head

Also known as: Lionel Crabb

Keppel's Head Hotel, The Hard, Portsmouth

Crabb vanished 19 April 1956; ghost reports undated

Keppel's Head stands on The Hard in the shadow of the Historic Dockyard. Great British Life says it was built in 1779 and that the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace once lodged there.

Its famous ghost is Lieutenant Commander Lionel "Buster" Crabb, a Royal Navy frogman and MI6 diver who vanished on 19 April 1956 during a reconnaissance dive around the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze, which had brought Khrushchev and Bulganin to Britain. Wikipedia sets out the aftermath: a cover story about trials in Stokes Bay, a headless, handless body in a diving suit found off Pilsey Island in Chichester Harbour in June 1957, and an inquest where identification was disputed. Great British Life says his ghost has also been reported at the former Sally Port Inn, but that Keppel's Head claims him because it was used by naval personnel.

The hotel's other reports are smaller. Piano playing is heard though the hotel has never had a piano, one woman felt a hand brush her face in the night, and another was visited by a small child who ran fingers through her hair. The Crabb link is a tradition attached to a famous real mystery, and the magazine gives no sighting dates.

Hotel and pub, open to customers.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
50.798, -1.106 (Sited to the building or field)

Sources: Great British Life, "9 haunted pubs and hotels in Hampshire" [other]; Wikipedia, "Lionel Crabb" [other]

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