The Dolphin Inn in Axminster

Long buried beneath the cobbled pulse of West Street in Axminster lies the shadow of a place few now remember but whose echoes still stir in the chill of autumn wind. Once a lively refuge for weary travellers, the Dolphin Inn stood proud in timber and stone—until the weight of two grim tales hollowed it into legend. Whispers of a coffin that tapped in the night and a murdered pedlar who never found peace clung to its walls like smoke, driving away custom and laughter alike. Though the building is long demolished, the stories remain—faint echoes of knuckles rapping on unseen wood, of footsteps pacing where no floorboards remain. For in Axminster, they say the Dolphin Inn may be gone, but the dead it sheltered still walk, bound to a place time tried, and failed, to forget.