The New Inn sits at the southern end of Sampford Courtenay and, like many “New Inns” in Devon, has been new for several centuries. Its origins lie in the sixteenth century, and the building still carries the look of a place that has seen a great deal of local life pass through its doors. It is also, somewhat unexpectedly, the setting for one of M. R. James’s most atmospheric ghost stories, Martin’s Close, published in 1911.
James sets his tale in the 1680s and frames it as the rediscovery of a long‑forgotten murder trial. The narrator, staying in the area, is shown a transcript of the case of George Martin, a young Devon gentleman accused of killing Ann Clark, a simple village girl he had mocked and mistreated. The New Inn features prominently as the place where several of the most unsettling events occurred.
The story unfolds through witness testimony. Ann Clark had been the target of Martin’s cruelty: he taunted her, encouraged others to laugh at her, and treated her as a source of amusement. When she was found dead in a pond, suspicion naturally fell on him. What gives the case its Jamesian edge is what happened afterwards. Villagers began reporting strange occurrences at the New Inn. One witness heard Ann’s voice singing the tune Martin used to tease her with. Another saw a dripping figure slip silently into a closet. Wet footprints appeared on the floor after the candles blew out. These were not dramatic hauntings, but small, precise details — the sort James excelled at — and they unnerved the community.
The haunting followed Martin beyond the inn. He was seen being pursued by a figure rising from the pond where Ann had died, its movements echoing the excited arm‑waving Ann had shown in life. Even in prison he was disturbed by unseen visitations outside his cell. By the time he stood before Judge Jeffreys at the Assizes, Martin was visibly shaken. The judge, never known for his gentleness, remarked coldly that Ann Clark might visit him again before his execution. Martin fainted on the spot.
The transcript ends with Martin’s conviction and execution. The narrator closes the story by noting that the tune Ann used to sing — “Madam, will you walk, will you talk with me?” — is still considered unlucky in Sampford Courtenay. It is the sort of detail that James enjoyed: a small superstition lingering long after the events that inspired it.
The New Inn itself remains a handsome building, its age obvious in the timbering and proportions. Nothing about it announces its literary connection, and it functions today as a perfectly ordinary village pub. But for readers of M. R. James, it is difficult to pass the doorway without recalling the dripping figure slipping into the closet or the wet footprints on the floorboards. The story has given the inn a second life, one rooted not in local history but in the imagination of one of England’s finest ghost‑story writers.
