The Green Man’s legend centers on a heartbroken mother and child. According to folklore, a woman in the eighteenth century, desperate for a baby, engaged in an illicit affair with a local blacksmith. She bore a daughter, but tragically the infant perished in a fire shortly after birth. Today, the grieving mother’s ghost is said to wander the 600-year-old inn, eternally searching for her lost child. Staff refer to her simply as “the Grey Lady of Mulberry Green.” Her presence is marked by sobbing sounds at night and a fleeting female figure seen near rooms and on the staircase. Occasionally, the faint cry of a baby is also reported echoing through the halls (despite no infants on site), reinforcing the tale that the mother and child haunt the inn together. This poignant story – more tragedy than terror – is well-known in Harlow, making the Green Man a local ghost lore landmark.
Known Ghosts:
The “Bereaved Mother of Mulberry Green” (a sorrowful female spirit) and her infant child’s ghost
Patrons and staff have passed down several chilling anecdotes. One common story has a guest in Room 6 (the reputedly most haunted room) waking in the night to see a misty female figure in old-fashioned clothes at the foot of the bed, wringing her hands in despair before vanishing. In another tale, closing staff hear a gentle lullaby being hummed near the empty upstairs corridor – as if a mother were trying to soothe a baby. The apparition herself is described as wearing a simple grey dress with soot-stains, consistent with someone who suffered a fire. She’s often glimpsed moving toward where the old nursery was thought to be, then disappearing by a particular wall. Some nights, around 2 AM, a distinct scent of burning wood drifts through the pub with no source, followed by soft weeping sounds – locals say this is the mother reliving the fateful fire. These rich narratives keep the Green Man’s ghost lore alive, passed from each generation of landlords to the next.
