The Harrowgate Hotel - A History Written in Whispers (Est. 1812)
Long before it was a hotel, the land where the Harrowgate now stands was little more than a lonely patch of marshland and twisted oak, feared by the earliest settlers. Locals in the early 1800s claimed the area was “unfit for living,” a place where lantern lights flickered without wind and livestock refused to graze. Still, in 1812, ambitious entrepreneur Elias Harrow purchased the land to build what he declared would be “a refuge for weary travelers.” What he created became anything but.
Construction was plagued from the beginning. Workers reported tools vanishing, footsteps following them through the empty halls, and strange humming beneath the foundation. Two men went missing without a trace—one of them leaving behind a final note scrawled in dirt: “It wakes under us.”
When the Harrowgate Hotel opened in 1815, the first guests arrived eager for comfort and left with stories of sleepless nights, phantom knocking, and the unsettling feeling of being watched. In 1823, the hotel gained notoriety when an entire family staying in Room 7 disappeared overnight. Their possessions remained neatly packed. Their beds unslept in. The room, however, was ice-cold… despite the midsummer heat.
Harrow insisted the disappearances were “tragic coincidences,” but townsfolk whispered that he had dug too deep—literally—and disturbed something beneath the property. After Harrow’s own mysterious death in 1831 (his body found at the bottom of the cellar steps, eyes wide with terror, though no injuries were present), ownership changed hands several times. Each new proprietor tried to restore the hotel, yet all failed. Several went mad. One vanished entirely, leaving behind only the imprint of a body on the dusty master bedroom sheets.
By the late 19th century, the Harrowgate had earned a reputation as the region’s “Hotel of Lost Souls.” Travelers began leaving offerings at the doors, begging the spirits within to remain still. In 1898, after a series of violent poltergeist encounters, the hotel was condemned and sealed—but locals swear they still saw lights flicker behind its boarded windows.
In 1924, a silent investor reopened the property, claiming to have “made peace” with what lurked inside. Within a month, guests reported shadow figures sliding beneath their doors, disembodied voices calling their names, and the sound of someone pacing the hallways long after midnight. Again, the hotel was shut down.
Today, the Harrowgate stands restored—at least on the surface. Its walls have been repainted, its floors repaired. But the hotel’s dark heartbeat remains. Visitors still report unexplained cold spots, ghostly apparitions, and the lingering presence of Elias Harrow himself, wandering the halls as though eternally searching for something he unleashed over two hundred years ago.
Check in if you dare.
The Harrowgate never forgets its guests... even long after they’ve left.
