COULD it be that the ghost of a tragic soldier is holding up a bid to develop the historic hotel site where he shot himself dead?

Trooper Joe McGurk of the Eighth Lancers was escorted via Monmouth from Abergavenny to Gloucester in October 1833 to face a court martial for a drunken attack on a sergeant who tried to wrestle ‘a bottle of grog’ off him.

Having travelled to Monmouth on foot, the detail moved on next day to Mitcheldean in the Forest of Dean and stayed at the George Hotel that night.

But next morning, as they prepared to move on, the trooper – fearing the death sentence or transportation – grabbed a carbine, pointed it at his chest and pulled the trigger, dying some three hours later of his injuries.

His restless sprit was then said to stalk the historic inn until the 400-year-old building burnt down in 2019, rearranging glasses and bottles.

Newcomers would often gasp as bottles moved of their own accord, only to be told by regulars: “Oh, that’s only Old Joe, ‘e’s allus doin’ that.”

And attempts to develop the site with firstly a care home and now eight houses have so far failed, prompting thoughts that Joe may be holding things up.

A developer has launched an appeal after the plan to build new homes on the site of the fire-wrecked inn, which dated back to the 1600s and was totally demolished weeks after the blaze, were turned down by Forest Council planners.

Villagers raised the alarm after waking to see flames and smoke billowing from the three-storey building around 3am on Tuesday, December 3, 2019, but nothing could be done to save it.

The cause of the fire was never firmly established, and although the building’s walls were left standing, the bulldozers leveled it several weeks later.

The site was approved in outline for a 28-apartment retirement home in 2015, but the development never took place.

Hellier Homes of Lee-on-Solent now want to build three three-bedroom and five four-bedroom homes instead, opposite the village’s Grade I-listed church and near other listed buildings in the Mitcheldean conservation zone.

But the Forest Council rejected the plan last June, saying it “fails to enhance the Conservation Area and preserve the setting of the listed buildings”.

Appealing against the decision, the applicant says the council refused to consider a revised scheme.

“This premature refusal in the midst of the applicant working to overcome the various barriers to an appropriate development is very disappointing,” adds their statement.