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Southern Paranormal - Investigations

Shaftesbury Town Hall Investigation

Saturday 24th September 2011

Attending Investigators – Julie Harwood, Maria Street, Steve Boston, Marie Holder, Amanda Horley. Robin Turton, Sarah Pettet, Mark Pettet, Maureen Taylor, Brian Witt and David Baxter.

History

The town hall was built in 1827 by Earl Grosvenor after the Guildhall was pulled down to widen the high street. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II listed building. The town hall is next to the 15th century St Peters church. The major employers in the 18th and 19th centuries were buttonmaking and weaving. The former became a victim of mechanisation, and this caused unemployment and emigration. 

The Investigation

Vigil Areas

Guildhall
Mayors Chamber
Council Chamber

Teams

Team 1
Julie
Maria
Marie
Brian

Team 2
Sarah
Amanda
Robin
Mark

Team 3
David
Steve
Maureen

Itinerary

8.00pm Meet outside location
8.15pm Tech set up & Experiment set up
10.00pm Vigil 1
Team 1 – Guildhall
Team 2 – Council Chambers
Team 3 – Mayors Chamber

11.00pm Break

11.15pm Vigil 2
Team 1 – Council Chambers
Team 2 – Mayors Chamber
Team 3 – Guildhall

12.15am Break

12.45am Vigil 3
Team 1 – Mayors Chamber
Team 2 – Guildhall
Team 3 – Council Chambers

1.45am Break

2.00am Vigil 4
Choice to re visit certain areas

3.00am Pack up & depart

Personal Reports

We feel it important to note – in many of the personal reports you will see comments about the lights going on and off in the guildhall. We contacted the location after the investigation keen to debunk this. We asked for them to confirm that they are motion sensor activated, that they have no knowledge of them randomly going on and off in the past and that there is no electrical fault with the lighting system in the Guildhall. They were able to confirm all 3 points for us. This leaves us wondering what exactly was happening that night to the lights! As we stand currently we have no reasonable explanation for this. Please take in to account therefore that many of these personal reports were written by members prior to the checks we made with the Town Hall staff.

Clips of all our footage from investigations can be seen on our Youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/UKSouthernParanormal

Maureen Taylor

I was looking forward to this investigation, we were to be in a building that I’ve been in once or twice and walked past many times over the years. Everything was set up fairly quickly and all was ready very early, so a decision was made to begin our vigils fifteen minutes early.

Vigil 1 – Mayor’s Chamber

This room felt very quiet to me, and I felt that we weren’t going to get much activity here; however, we did get something, though in my mind it was all a little vague. About fifteen minutes into the vigil I felt that there was someone standing a few feet behind me, he was reluctant to come forward and talk to us, and none of our efforts at communication were very successful. I was getting the occasional comment or phrase pop into my head as often happens, but in this case I wasn’t certain whether there was any connection between what I was getting and the building and its history. The names Charles, William and Frederick came into my mind, along with the date 1800, but again I wasn’t sure there was any connection with the place or if they were just random names that came to me. On looking at the mayoral record on the wall outside (which runs from the early 1300s through to the present day) the only name of the three that appears is William, and none of them ties up with the date 1800, so again nothing definite to link to the place. As Steve was reading out some of the names from the photos on the wall of this room the only one that seemed to stand out for me was William Godwin Whitehead who was mayor in 1893. Steve was calling out and asked if any spirit who might have been with us felt that the town has changed much since their time; the comment in my head was that ‘people don’t really change so much, and as for the town much of it isn’t much different in many ways, it’s only external appearances that change’. Unfortunately I’m not at all certain that what I was getting had any connection with the town hall or not, none of it was very clear.

Knowing that the staff have had experiences with doors being opened when there has been nobody about we decided to move out to the landing area to see if we could find any reason for this happening. Once again we could come up with no definite conclusions. It’s possible that the various draughts around the place were sometimes enough to open doors, though it wasn’t windy enough while we were there to test this idea thoroughly.

Vigil 2 – the Guildhall (downstairs).

A few minutes into this vigil Steve asks for lights on the K2 to be lit, and seconds later the lights in the hall came on – quite impressive we thought. I sense laughter somewhere nearby, but whether this is from a spirit who has turned on the wrong lights (i.e. not the K2 that we had asked for), or if it was pure coincidence caused by some explainable cause I was unable to decide for certain. Steve wandered over to a corner of the hall where a considerable number of chairs were stacked and said that he smelt something fairly nasty. It smelled he said, like dead bodies (he should know, he’s worked with those….). David and I walked over to the same corner and could both smell the same thing. A very musty, damp, mildewy sort of smell, not at all pleasant. In that corner I felt very uneasy and as if there was someone not too nice somewhere nearby. I really didn’t want to stay there for very long at all. The smell seemed to fade a little after a while. Then, when I was sitting by a table in the middle of the room I felt as if someone had run straight through me and at the same time I got the same smell once again – a smell of someone well and truly unwashed. Words that came to mind were ‘beggar’ and ‘leper’, and an image of what I assume was the same area but without the town hall building there, just the church and a few buildings around it. I’d put a date of maybe around 1340 on the picture I was getting.

As I was sitting at the table, and at the same time as all this was happening I felt a light touch on my right shoulder. Meantime, Dave and Steve were standing in the area between the table and the door and Steve suddenly said that he was momentarily convinced that Dave was standing right beside him, but that when he looked Dave was actually several feet away. Dave and I then heard a noise that seemed to come from a corner of the room (near the front of the building), but we couldn’t get it to repeat again, Steve wanted to know what sort of noise we had heard. The only description I could give was that it sounded like a ‘quiet fart’. Dave said that yes that was the best description he could give too.

At 12.09 we were all looking towards the corner where we had the nasty smell, and saw that there were two lights showing on the K2. Most often K2 lights will flicker on and off briefly, but in this case there were two green lights showing quite steadily for about a minute. Then they slowly faded back to the one.

Vigil 3 – the council chambers

It felt very calm and quiet in here, and we got no activity at all, though as we heard later it had been quite active for one of the other teams.

Vigil 4 – a free vigil, and we all decided to stay downstairs.

We wanted to see if we got the same phenomenon again down here – all three teams had had the main hall lights turn on unexpectedly. There was much discussion about reasons why this should happen, but no firm decision was reached. Ultimately we decided that the most likely reason for the happening is that there is an intermittent electrical fault somewhere that was causing the lights to turn on every so often.

An interesting night, though I wouldn’t like to commit to saying that there is any definite paranormal activity around the place. A second visit might prove more fruitful, but I’m not at all convinced that there is anything very much going on there and that much of what has been experienced over the years can be attributed to things like draughts, electrical faults and such like. An interesting night nonetheless.

Marie Holder

Introduction

I arrived at the location at 7.45pm and met other members of the team and I therefore had an opportunity to look at the outside of the building before I went inside. From the outside it looked like a castle as it had the same pattern on the roof that you would typically find on a castle. The town where the building was in was very quaint with a beautiful old church next door.

Vigil 1 – Guildhall

I had an opportunity on this vigil to wear a sonic ear device which amplifies noises around you. We called out and got several bangs which seemed to emanate from upstairs. Julie radioed up to the team in that area and they confirmed that they had been moving around upstairs. However, later on in the evening our team purposely made loud noises upstairs to see if the other teams radioed to us to ask if it was us but they didn’t. I heard lots of sighs and a voice saying ‘No’ when asked to do something to indicate their presence.

We had a big problem with the light in this area as it seemed to come on quite sporadically. The first time it came on nobody had moved, so we thought it couldn’t be on a motion sensor. It then proceeded to come on time after time when a person sitting in a particular chair moved. We therefore came to the conclusion that it was on a sensor. That was until the end of the vigil when Amanda came in and walked across the room and the light never came on. At the end of the evening we all had a discussion about the light and could not work out why it came on sometimes and not on other times so Julie said she would ask someone about it.

During the vigil I asked, in my head, for spirit to touch Maria on the head. A couple of minutes later Maria said she felt someone pushing down on her head. I also got the sensation of someone playing with my hair and then got a sharp pain in two places on the back of my head.

Julie mentioned that she had the feeling of being lonely and oppressed so I offered to change places with her. On doing so I got a similar feeling almost immediately, also a ‘walked over my grave’ feeling. Also during the vigil I got the names; Henry Whitmore, Richard/Russell Phillips and Stanley.

Vigil 2 – Council Chamber

As I walked towards this room I got quite a promising feeling about it as it felt as though there was someone in their waiting for us. We decided to do a glass divination so we took our seats around one area of the table. At this point I felt quite light-headed and nauseous. We called out for any spirits in the room to try and move the glass but on this occasion there were no significant responses.

I was feeling quite tired at the start of the vigil but then began to feel quite jovial and in the mood for a party! I also got an image of a clown in my head! Later on in the vigil I got the feeling that we were being called clowns because of what we were doing in a very disapproving way! I had the name Rupert come into my head in this area.

Vigil 3 – Mayors Chamber

This room, for me, was very quiet. We tried calling out but got no responses.

Vigil 4 – Guildhall

On this vigil we could go where we felt we got the most activity. We therefore went back to our first vigil area, Guildhall. After sitting in the dark for 20 minutes, the light came on without anybody moving. It then came on a couple of minutes later. Some team members thought it could be an electrical fault so it will be interesting to hear what our host says about the light!

Conclusion

This was a very interesting place and it held a lot of promise. There didn’t seem to be a lot of activity in the Mayors Chambers but the other areas, especially the Guildhall, were quite active in terms of things going on and the sensations I was getting.

Brian Witt

Our first vigil was in the guildhall. It is a medium sized wooden floored room with pillars throughout. I had the song “ring a ring of roses” in my head and the names Ian and John, later on the phrase “bring out your dead”.

We heard footsteps from above while the other group were not moving but this never happened when all groups were down stairs. My sceptical view would be it must have been one of the other groups. Another view could be that there were no footsteps when there weren’t any groups upstairs because the energy from the groups is needed for this sort of activity.

While we sat calling out, the lights turned on. At first we were very shocked but soon realised that there must be a motion sensor to turn them on again. We had happily debunked this when at the end of our vigil Amanda walked in and the lights didn’t turn on. I stood up and moved around and they still didn’t turn on. I would say that it is probably a fault with the lighting system but this would need to be checked out by the location.

One two separate occasions I saw what appeared to be the same light moving behind the same chair but in opposite directions.

The second vigil was in the council chambers. Nothing happened in here for me activity wise other than my ear was tickled by something. I did get the name Milton and the words deliberating and legless. In response to Maria’s questions I felt like a man was saying “you’re stupid” and it felt like we were not worthy of his time.

Our third vigil was in the mayor’s parlour. At one point it felt as though someone had walked into the end of the table. I had the phrase “cock mayor” in my head.

The last vigil was the whole group in the guild hall. Again the lights cam on a couple of times but nothing else happened.

Sarah Pettet

Team 2 – Sarah, Amanda, Mark and Robin

First Impressions – The town hall was a lovely building in Shaftesbury town centre overlooking Gold Hill, it was a perfect example of early 19th century architecture built in a folly style. I looked forward to the impending investigation.

Vigil one – Council Chambers

Average temp 18.5°C, except one corner where there was a vent, temp here was 16°C. No EMF readings

The room we were in ran the width of the building. We settled in and I sat in a chair in front of one of the street facing windows. We started calling out, asking for responses to our questions. Robin kept hearing a low noise to the side of him and we worked out that this was coming from the heating which had been on. I was feeling very cold on my left side, but when we checked the temperature it had not varied. We thought it may be down to a draft from the window. So I swapped seat and sat in the Mayoral chair. Amanda said that she was also picking up on a gentleman, who was highly intelligent and was watching us. At the same time I was picking up on another gentleman who had quite full lower facial features and wore a large ring on the middle finger of his left hand; he had quite a jovial nature and was always smiling. I didn’t get a name with him and struggled to get him close enough to learn anything more about him. Amanda had a name with her gentleman and Mark also had a name, Mark said the name he had was Arthur William Henry Spalding and Amanda’s was also William. Amanda’s gentleman, William, was not a happy gentleman and was slowly pacing the floor, as she said this the team in the room below radioed through and asked if someone was slowly walking round the floor. Amanda also said that the gentleman did not like me sitting in his chair – as Amanda said this I felt a hand on my right arm. I suggested that if the gentleman wanted me out of his chair he would have to try harder. However despite our requests nothing was forth coming and we had to end the vigil.

Vigil 2

Mayor’s parlour – Average temp 18°C and no EMF

We settled in to the room and I asked one of the team to start calling out. Mark asked if any of the previous mayors were with us in the room. He tried walking past the many pictures in the room with the K2 asking for the K2 lights to change if that mayor was present – he did a couple of sweeps of the room but we did not get any reactions. Amanda tried calling out asking some control questions. She asked if there was a male present in the room to which I thought I heard a distinct ‘yes’ but none of the others heard it. Amanda carried on asking some more questions, when she had finished Mark said he had the answers to her questions. Yes to a male person, name of Harold Carpenter, and a year of 1873. I had Rabbit Stew pop into my head but unsure why. I also started to get a splitting headache over my right eye and found that any kind of light made it feel worse. We tried some more calling out but we got no further responses. We decided to move to the corridor for the last 15 minutes of the vigil. The average temperature here was 16.5 °C. We called out here but had no responses.

Vigil 3

Guildhall – average temperature 20°C, there was only an EMF reading near the heater

We settled in the room and started calling out. At 1.05 am, 20 minutes into the vigil, the hall lights came on. At the time none of us seemed very surprised about it and instead we all immediately began trying to investigate the reason why. We think that it must be due to a faulty sensor. However, in case it wasn’t we called out asking for the lights to be turned back on again, but we had no response. We all thought the area felt very flat, with no atmosphere, which was old considering it was the ground floor room and probably the one area that had seen the most foot traffic. We tried putting the lights on in a dimmed position and asked for them to either by brightened or turned off, again we had no responses. After several attempts we decided to wind the vigil up ten minutes early, we left the lights as dimmed to see if anything happened whilst we pottered about, nothing did and when the other teams ended their vigils we put the lights on full.

Vigil 4 – Group/Free Vigil

Guildhall

Other teams had had some experiences in this area so we all decided to stay in the Guildhall. Around 15 to 20 minutes into the vigil the lights came on. We turned them off and approximately 5 minutes later the lights came back on. Again we turned them off; they did not go back on again after that until we turned them on at the end of the vigil. Apart from this nothing else was picked up in here by me; it felt the same as when we had been in here in the previous vigil.

Summary – It was a shame I could not pick up any more in the Council Chambers, as I would have liked to have gotten some evidence. I will review my audio footage and check to see if there was anything caught on this.

Robin Turton

Vigil 1, Council chambers.

I carried out an EMF sweep of the room which was clear. It was noted that in each corner there were air vents, two of which were open allowing cooler air in from outside. I could hear a low rumble in the room which turned out to be the water heaters and pipes, nothing else was felt or heard.

 

Vigil 2 Majors Parlour.

I carried out an EMF sweep which was clear. We heard a couple of odd noises from an area by the window and heater. The noises could easily just have been settlement sounds. Nothing else was heard/felt or seen so we moved to the hallway which was very quiet.

 

Vigil 3 Guildhall.

I carried out an EMF sweep of the room which was clear with the exception of the heater which was showing very high readings. During the vigil the lights switched themselves on. The switch was a multi push button programmable switch not a rocker type and as the building already an electrical issues with lights on the 1st floor I do not think anything of significance can be taken from this.

 

Vigil 4 Group vigil in Guildhall,

We were all interested in the lights issue so spent the last vigil on the ground floor the lights turned on a couple of times but until the lights are repaired on the first floor and the lights on the ground floor checked by an electrician the lights issue has to be disregarded. 

Steve Boston

This was to be the first time the team had investigated this location. Whilst I was aware of the building and had seen it a number of times, I was unaware of any previous reports of hauntings or strange activity in the hall. We arrived around 8 pm and after a quick walk around we set up the tech kit. We used 4 DVR Cameras to cover the ground floor, stairs, Mayor’s Chamber and Council Office. We also set laptops up recording audio in the Mayor’s Chamber and Council Office.

After shooting a few videos for training we had a break and got the investigation underway at around 10 pm.

Vigil 1 – Mayor’s Chamber – Team 3 (2200-2300)

David, Maureen and I made our way to the first vigil in the Mayor’s Chamber. We set up audio recording and a K2 Meter. This was an interesting room as it had many portraits of former Mayor’s on two walls. These dated back to the 1800s from around the time the hall was first built. We began calling out, having taken baseline readings. We got no responses at all. I decided we should try and stir up some activity by reading the names of the former Mayor’s off the name plates on the portraits. We did this on a couple of occasions during the vigil but got no reply.

From here we thought we should spend some time on the landing area. This was also very inactive and after about five minutes we went back into the chamber for the last of the vigil. The final part of the vigil was as quiet as the first and with the time now at 11 pm it was time for a break.

Vigil 2 – Guild Hall Room – Team 3 (2315-0015)

After the break we set ourselves up in the Guildhall. This was a much larger room the chamber we had previously investigated and spanned the majority of the building’s ground floor. We all wandered about the hall taking baseline readings. We then began calling out. We got no reply so decided to try a little glass work. We set a table up and I recorded on the Camcorder whilst David and Maureen began. This also proved fruitless.

Just after this David took the Camcorder and I had the K2 Meter. I began calling out and asking for the lights on the K2 to be activated. I also said ‘If you don’t want us here, please give us a clear sign and out of respect we will leave this room.’ Around thirty seconds after saying this all the lights in the Guild Hall came on. We were quite surprised at this reaction. I looked at the lighting panel and saw the lights had a number of settings as they had a motion sensor setting. From what I could see the lights were set to either be manually turned on or manually turned off. I switched them off and we carried on the vigil. Within a few minutes of this happening I picked up a foul stale small near the area of the light switch. I would say about ten feet from it. I voiced this out to the team and they came over to me. Everyone could smell it. Then as soon as it appeared it went. This smell continued to come and go in different areas of the hall. We could find no reason for this what so ever.

Toward the end of the vigil the K2 Meter that had been placed on the floor, near to where I had first detected the smell also activated. It flickered to the third light (orange) then fell back to the second green. We picked up on the smell once more as the lights were lit. The K2 remained active on the second green for close to two minutes. Although this is not a high EMF reading (just one above its calibrated baseline) it’s not something I had ever seen before. With the time approaching 12.15 am it was time for a break.

Insert

Following the experience with the lights I spoke to Julie’s team during the break to see if they had encountered a similar event as they had been in the hall before us. It turns out that the lights had also come on for them on a number of occasions. Hearing this we started to think that it could be down to a fault with the motion sensor settings on the control panel. However we did agree that it was unusual for us to of only had one activation when they had experienced a number.

Vigil 3 – Council Chambers – Team 3 (0045-0145)

We made our way back to the First Floor for the third vigil and set up in the Council Chambers. This was a largish style room with a square, solid wood meeting table in the middle. We carried out baseline readings and started calling out. We had nothing at all happen in this room and we all commented on how flat it felt. The hour passed with nothing out of the ordinary and we headed back to the Guild Hall for a last break.

Vigil 4 – Group Vigil – Guild Hall – (0200-0245)

During the break we learned that the team who had just been in the Guildhall had experienced the lights being turned on as well. Two occasions for them. They had also put it down to a faulty motion sensor. With that in mind we all stayed in the hall for the last vigil. Sure enough about ten minutes in the lights came on. We turned them off then about five minutes later, on they came. We turned them off and this time they stayed off. Apart from this the last vigil was uneventful and it was soon time to break the kit down and pack up.

Afterthought

Since the investigation Julie has spoken to the council who run the building. They have told us that there is no known fault to those lights. Also, if the lights are on the motion sensor setting then after a minute they will turn back on. This in no way tallies with the pattern we experienced in the Guildhall.

So in truth we still can’t explain why the lights kept coming on and why for some teams it happened the once and for others a number of times. It remains a mystery!

Amanda Horley

A lovely looking building in a very quiet town, this was somewhere that I knew little about, and was looking forward to investigating.

Once the technical kit had been set up, we split into our teams, and started our vigils. I was in a team with Sarah, Robin and Mark. Our first vigil was in the Council Chambers and we recorded a temperature of 18°C with no EMF readings. There was a draught coming in from one of the air vents that reduced the temperature in that corner of the room.

I picked up on a man walking around who was aware of our presence. The name William Edgars came to mind, and he came across as an intelligent, educated man. He seemed amused by us and curious of our presence, but was unwilling to interact with us in any way. I got the impression that Sarah was sat in his chair, which with where it was positioned, looked as if it would be the Mayor’s chair. As I said this, Sarah felt a touch on her right-hand side. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any further information on him, and didn’t pick up on anything else in here.

Our second vigil was in the Mayor’s parlour. Again the temperature was 18°C with no EMF readings. It was a comfortable and quiet room for me, and I didn’t feel anything paranormal happening in here. After a time we moved out into the corridor, but again this was a quiet area for me.

Our third vigil was in the Guildhall and the temperature was slightly higher in here at 20°C. Again there were no EMF readings. At 1.05 am the lights came on for no apparent reason. We were all sat quietly around a table at that point, and the lights are attached to a motion sensor. We cannot explain how they came on when they did, or why they didn’t come on at other times when we were moving around. Apart from this, the room was quiet for me.

The final vigil was a chance to re-visit an area, and the whole group decided to remain in the Guildhall. Again the lights came on when no-one was moving. This happened twice, and there was a lot of discussion to try and decide how this could be happening if it wasn’t paranormal. With the exception of this though, this was again a quiet vigil for me.

This was an interesting investigation, especially with regard to the lights in the Guildhall, which also turned on and off at strange times for the other teams. Whilst we know that there is an electrical problem with the lights in the toilets, there is no reported problem with the lights in the Guildhall. Certainly a building that merits further investigation.

David Baxter

Julie, Sarah, Mark and I arrived first in the beautiful town of Shaftesbury, Dorset for the investigation of the Town Hall there. After looking at the famous ‘Golden Hill’ along which the Hovis Adverts were made, more Team Members began to arrive.

My duties for the nights investigation was to help the Tech Team to set up, collect and sort equipment for the various Teams to use, plus I was the Team Leader to Team 3. Before we started the investigation Steve and I did some filming for SPUK’s Youtube Site, talking about the building and what technical equipment was being used, how and where it was placed.

Our 1^st Group Vigil was in the Mayor’s Chamber. In the group were: myself, Maureen and Steve. No KII readings were recorded at the start of the vigil and the temperature within the chamber was an average of 19/20°C.

After we all settled down we began to call out to see if we could pick something up with our eyes, ears or the technical equipment we had in there. After a very slow start, Maureen began to pick up on someone coming in and out of the room who was ‘interested’ in what the three of us were doing. They didn’t seem to want us there as Maureen picked up on, ‘why should we talk to you, you’re invading our space’.

We had the KII Meter on the table but as Maureen was sensing someone behind her we placed the KII behind Maureen and slightly to her left to see if we could pick up on something. During this time the temperature went down 1°C. Maureen picked up on a male from around the 1800’s. She also picked up on 3 names: Charles, William, Fredrick. We were not sure if this was the one person that Maureen was sensing or 3 different people.

At one point Steve saw the KII meter flicker when he was walking around the room reading out the names of former Mayors dating back to 1891. William Godwin Whitehead, former Mayor in 1893 was the name that Maureen picked up on when the KII went off. At the same time we were getting interference on our walkie talkie. We asked if it was a William Godwin Whitehead that made the KII flicker and caused the problems we had with the walkie talkie and asked him to maybe to it again - nothing happened. I placed a glass jug on the table hoping that whoever it might have been could tap on the jug, but again nothing happened. Maureen also reported that who or whatever was there was now gone.

I decided that for a while that we would all leave the Mayor’s Chamber and sit outside in the Hallway. No KII Readings were picked up at the start and the Temperature was 17°C.

The reason we were there is because the light in Reception has been reported turning on by itself and the door to the toilet has been known to open. I went to try and debunk the toilet door which at the time we could see moving a little because of the wind, but we found it did need a bit of force to open it (I noticed it was open in one of our breaks but later on we found that a team member didn’t close it properly. After 10 minutes of nothing happening we went back into the Mayor’s Chamber for the last few minutes of the vigil that we had left. Again all was quiet.

After the 1^st break, Team 3 then started our next vigil in the Guildhall downstairs. The team before us had some interesting experiences and it seemed so would we. No KII Readings were picked up at the start and the Temperature was 22°C.

Maureen and I sat at a table, each with one of our fingers upside down on the back of a glass; Steve was filming us, hoping that we might be able to contact someone. After a while of no success we gave up. Fifteen minutes in I was recording Steve on a camcorder when the lights suddenly turned on by themselves. We later found out the room had motion sensors but all the other teams had the same kind of thing happen to them more than the once that we had. Paranormal or could it be a fault in the sensor maybe?

When the lights came on Maureen, who was still sitting at the table said she heard, ‘laughter’ at the same time. We asked for it to happen again, but maybe it was the motion sensor playing up or someone else didn’t want to play anymore as nothing happened.

Steve was walking around the Guildhall when in one corner where there were some chairs he could smell something that to him was familiar. He has come across death a number of times and he was saying that the smell that we picked up on was the same kind of smell that he associated with death.

Maureen picked up on the fact that it seems to be a young boy in rags of about 12, 13 years of age.

All three of us went over to the corner and could all smell this but after awhile it disappeared. Because of this we placed the KII Meter in front of the chairs in the corner from where the smell originally came from. The smell came back on four different occasions and on one, the KII was lit up. Steve asked whoever was lighting up the KII to maybe light it up a bit more: it did and stayed there for what seems a very long time before the KII lights went back to normal. During all of this we heard a loud bang behind us but when I went over to investigate nothing had been moved or touched as far as I could see.

After another break, Team 3 was in the Council Chambers. No KII Readings at the start of the vigil and the temperature was 19°C.

During the whole hour we were there we picked nothing up. Maureen also could not sense anything.

The last vigil was a ‘free’ one were all the teams came together as one in the Guildhall hoping that we would all see the lights maybe come back on or pick up on the smell that team 3 and other teams had picked up on. Again nothing was picked up on by any of us or the technical equipment.

I had great fun there as it was a beautiful piece of ‘Yorkshire’ as I called it within Dorset and I would love to go back there at some point.

Maria Street

Nestled just behind Shaftesbury Town Hall lies Gold Hill, a steep cobbled street made famous by Hovis who used it in their adverts. The only clue to this is the giant loaf of bread sat in front of the building and this is the first thing you see as you come up the High Street. I travelled down with Amanda and we met the others outside before entering the Guildhall and setting up our equipment.

I was in Team 1 with Julie, Brian and Marie and our first vigil was in the Guildhall itself. An unseasonably warm September brought forth temperatures of around 23°C so any cold spots would be noted almost immediately. We sat ourselves down and just over Julie’s shoulder I could see somebody sat hunched over a desk or an organ. He was sat by the stack of tables at the back of the Guildhall. Julie verified she had also seen somebody behind her a couple of times, earlier in the evening. I also got a name of Joseph Wray and the expression, ‘Beggars cannot be choosers’. I did not voice any of this but wrote it down. Julie started calling out but seemed to evoke no response. However the lights turned themselves on. We suspected the motion sensors caused it and reset the lights. As Brian walked over to do this he felt there was somebody stood in the corner by the door so Julie and I went over to have a look. I immediately got the name of David. As we walked past the doorway to the kitchen, the passageway light came on. We waited a couple of minutes for the lights to reset then Brian called out and asked for the lights to be turned on. As he said this Julie felt her face burning and the lights came on again. Brian suspected maybe audio could be causing this so we checked this out, but to no avail. Julie asked for the lights to come on again. Brian started to feel shaky and he asked the same question. He moved to sit down but the lights did not come on. We then had to ask how it could be motion sensors when we had moved and they hadn’t been affected? We were discussing this when the lights came on again. Brian decided to turn them off, wait for a while and move. He was also feeling very hot in his face. I called out asking for another response such as shouting. The lights then came back on. I had moved my arm but that was all. Julie had been moving more but with no response.

Brian asked for the lights to stay off and I immediately felt a cold breeze all across my feet. Julie also felt it. I tried to take a temperature but the breeze was constantly moving. Brian turned the lights off and asked for the lights to be kept off when the other groups came in here. I noticed that it seemed quite misty around Brian and Marie felt somebody felt somebody was playing with her hair. She also felt a pain either side of her head. Julie asked for somebody else to be affected. Brian felt there was somebody stood behind him and he could hear a couple of footsteps. All of a sudden I felt really faint and had to move away from where I was. I sat at the back of the hall and the K11 flickered. We could also hear what sounded like somebody coming down the stairs. I came back to our group but swapped places with Brian. Marie heard a whisper so we called out asking for more. I moved a bit and the lights came on. It was at this point that we decided the lights were definitely motion activated and we should warn the others of this. I started to feel better and just as I voiced this, Julie started to feel sick. I also felt a cold breeze across my legs. We wondered if this was somebody displaying their symptoms to us. It disappeared from Julie almost instantly. I moved forward and the lights came back on again. We reset them and settled back down.

The door to the Guildhall then came open a little bit. We asked upstairs if the other teams had opened a door upstairs and it had caused a downdraft. The answer was negative. They then opened a door to see what effect it would have on our door and it had none. We then heard four very slow and purposeful footsteps from upstairs. We checked with the teams but they had all been very still. I could feel slight pressure on my head and Marie confirmed she had been asking in her head for whoever was there to touch somebody on the head, which was very interesting as this was exactly how it felt. Brian could feel a pain his kidneys and Julie suddenly felt very tearful and experienced an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. I asked for this person to show themselves and Marie heard ‘No’ I felt this was because they were protecting us from what we might see so I asked if this was the case, could they please knock and a knock was heard. I asked if this person was happy but Julie got a sense of loneliness again. We heard another noise from inside the Guildhall. We asked for it to be repeated or for their footsteps to be heard, but nothing was forthcoming. I saw a tiny flash of light behind a chair on the wall by the kitchen. Brian confirmed he had seen the same light twice this evening but in different places. Our vigil was drawing to a close and Julie moved towards Brian to show him something she had written. Interestingly the lights did not come on. Amanda then came through the door and they still stayed off. I leant forward as this had caused them to come on before. However nothing happened. Unbeknown to me Brian was stood behind me waving his arms around and still the lights stayed off. Could this be an electrical fault? We had no idea and could not say so categorically without speaking to the location. A point to note is, on our break, Sarah and Marie both walked into the passageway leading to the kitchen and the light stayed off.

For our next vigil we made our way upstairs to the Council Chambers. Looking around the room I got the feeling of the presence of children and the name of Sam. I also had the nursery rhyme ‘Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross’ in my head. We sat around the table and tried a glass divination experiment. I felt somebody touch me in the side and I asked Julie, who was sat to my right, if it was her. It wasn’t. The glass moved very slightly and Brian felt it wobble, but no more than that unfortunately. We decided to leave the glass and tried to evoke a response another way. We called out but to no avail. However, a little while later whilst we were discussing something, we heard a very heavy footstep, seemingly coming from the other side of the room. The vigil remained quiet for us hereafter and we all went for our break.

Our next vigil was in the Mayor’s Parlour where we all sat around the large table. I wondered if things had been moved around in here. We called out but could not elicit any response. Brian felt something knock into the table and Julie felt this also. We could not get it repeated however, even by trying a table tipping experiment. A little later Julie could hear somebody outside the room. I went to have a look but there was nobody there. This room remained quiet for us however and the vigil soon wound to a close.

For our final vigil we joined the other teams and stayed in the Guildhall and tried to explain the lights some more as they had only come on once in the last vigil. We just could not understand why. Julie has since been in touch with the location and the lights are activated by motion sensor and there is no fault with them. This was a very interesting conclusion for this vigil because we cannot explain why the lights didn’t come on when people were moving around.

Thank you so much to the staff at Shaftesbury Town Hall for allowing us in to your fascinating building and thank you to Julie for securing us yet another fantastic location. Sometimes these smaller, lesser well known places hold the most promise and tonight was a case in point for our team.

Mark Pettet

Team 2. Sarah, Amanda, Robin and Myself
Vigil 1, Council Chambers
Average temperature 18°C, except in one corner. All the corners had air vents but 3 of them were shut. In the fourth corner, the temperature was 16°C. We had no EMF readings to record.
We started in the Council Chambers and settled down one in each corner. I was sat nearest to the door and Amanda opposite, Sarah sat in front of one of the windows as did Robin. Sarah called out first and Robin commented on hearing a noise on the wall but decided it was the central heating pipes and looking on Brian’s laptop we could see that there was some background noise being picked up also. Sarah was feeling cold on her left side but I put that down to there being a gap in the curtains. She moved to the middle seat and I sat in her chair. I could feel some coldness coming from the window. Amanda said she was picking up on a man who was an intelligent individual and he was watching us. Sarah was picking up on another man who was standing in front of her. He was quite jovial apparently. Amanda got a name of William with the man she had picked up and I also had a name of Arthur William Henry Spalding. Amanda’s ‘William’ was not a happy gentleman and she said he was slowly walking round the room. The team in the room below radioed and asked if anybody was walking about to which we replied ‘no’. However nothing else seemed to happen and we had to end the vigil.

Vigil 2
Mayor’s parlour. Average temperature 18°C.
We settled down in the room and I started calling out. I asked if any of the previous mayors were with us in the room and I decided to get up with the EMF and walked up and down the pictures in the room asking for the lights on the K2 to change if any mayors were present. I didn’t get any reactions. Amanda called out with some control questions. She asked if there was anybody in the room with us and Sarah thought she heard someone say ‘yes’ but I didn’t hear it so will have to wait for EVP results. Amanda carried on asking some questions and when she had finished I said I had the answers to her questions. A name of Harold Carpenter, and a year of 1873, age of 53, something about false teeth. He did know that he was dead and Amanda asked if he could go and rattle the door handle to the other room to which I got the reply of `why`. We tried some more calling out but we got no further responses. We decided to move to the corridor for the last few remaining minutes of the vigil. We called out here but had no responses.

Vigil 3
Guildhall.
We settled down in the room and started calling out. Around 20 minutes into the vigil, the hall lights came on all of a sudden. We all didn’t seem to be surprised about it so we began to investigate why they came on. I think that it must be a faulty sensor or control panel. We called out asking for the lights to be turned back on again, but we had no joy on that. We all thought the area was very flat. We tried putting the lights on in a dimmed position and asked for them to either turn off or brighten, again we had no responses. After a few more attempts we decided to end the vigil slightly early and made a cup of tea. We left the lights down low to see if anything else would happen while we sat about, and nothing did. So we waited for the other teams ended their vigils.

Vigil 4. Group Vigil
Guildhall
We heard that other teams had had some experiences in this room so we decided to stay in the Guildhall. Around 20 minutes in, again the lights came on, so I got up and  turned them off and roughly about 5 minutes later the lights came back on, so again I got up and turned them off bit like musical chairs. They didn’t come back on again. Apart from this nothing else really happened for me; it felt the same like the last vigil.

Julie Harwood

At the top of Gold Hill (Made famous by the Hovis advert) is Shaftesbury Town Hall which probably boasts some of the best views in the county.

I was in team 1 with Maria, Brian & Marie and our first vigil was in the Guildhall on the ground floor. It is important I feel to note that prior to us starting our vigils we had sat around in this room having a coffee after setting up our tech equipment. I was sat facing the doors with my back to where there were some stacked up tables (although I was over 6-8 foot away from them). The room was fully lit and yet twice while sat here I thought I saw/felt someone behind me. I presumed each time it was a member (if I remember the first time I thought it was Steve and the second time Robin). Both times I turned round to find no one there. We started our vigils and by chance after doing our baseline readings (temp 23, no emf fluctuations) I ended sitting down in the exact same seat though this was not intentional. Minutes in to the vigil Maria said she could see someone behind me. It was like they were sat at a desk with their back to us. Again it is important to note that I had not told anyone about the feelings I had had earlier in the evening so was interested to hear Maria report this. I also feel it important to add here that we all turned round to look where Maria was pointing and I believe I actually stood up at this point. We settled back down and we started calling out. After asking for a sign that someone was with us the lights in the Guildhall came on. Now we are 4 sensible members and were quick to debunk this. The lights we believed must have been motion sensors though none of us remember moving. Brian turned the light back off (it was a sensor pad switch as opposed to a regular click light switch so he had to go to the entrance of the hall) and when he did he reported a strange feeling from that area. With the lights re set we carried on with our vigil happy we had explained why they had come on. With this in mind we knew we had to be very still. Brian called out for the lights to come back on and as he said that my face started burning. It was an incredibly real sensation and it felt like I was holding my face next to a radiator. Sadly for me I have to discount this feeling as anything abnormal due to a condition I was diagnosed with a couple of weeks later which does affect my face. Regardless of this, as I felt it the lights came back on as requested even though no one had moved. Still trying to debunk this we considered that maybe one of us had moved (literally twitched) and they were ultra sensitive or maybe they were audio sensors. We spent virtually the whole hour with the lights coming on, us resetting them, them coming on, us resetting them etc etc. The lights to the little corridor and kitchen also came one when we asked for something different to happen. This was harder to explain as they came on but the door to the corridor was shut and was not opened at any point during the vigil so presuming that those lights are sensors as well (door or motion) why they came on we don’t know as we were all sat a good 15 foot away from the door and definitely did not open it.

By the end we had pretty much debunked the lights coming on in the guildhall as them either having an electrical fault or being highly sensitive audio & motion detectors which you would expect for a security feature in a building like a town hall. The last time Brian turned the lights off he asked for them not to come back on again. We sat down and after about 20 minutes and during this time the door to the town hall opened a little bit. We checked with the team upstairs thinking that if they had opened a door it may cause a door downstairs to open slightly but they said they had not. Also during this last 20 minutes I had an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and despair. It was a horrible feeling and stayed with me for about 5 minutes. This brought the vigil to an end. The lights were still off when Amanda from team 2 came in to the room to join us after her vigil. It took us a couple of seconds to realise that the lights did not come on yet she walked from the door right across the middle of the hall. Brian then sprung up and proceeded to move about erratically around the room. The lights stayed off! Just when we thought we had debunked, our call was being questioned!

Our next vigil was upstairs in the Council chambers. This was a very quiet vigil for us. Maria and I both got the sense of children in this room and to me it felt like a school room. The one thing we did all hear was a very heavy footstep from the far side of the room. This was right towards the end of the vigil.

Our third vigil was in the Mayors chamber. This has a funny effect on our team. In my opinion it made us all act a bit like children. We were very giggly! Again it was a quiet vigil for us apart from when Brian and I felt the table move. It wasn’t a gentle movement; more like someone had shoved it or walked in to it. We asked for the incident to be replicated but sadly it wasn’t. Again, right before the end of the vigil I was sure I heard someone moving around outside the door to the stairs. I knew a team were in the council chambers so Maria checked to see if there was anyone there, while I checked with Steve’s team that they had not moved. Steve confirmed his team were sat still and Maria confirmed there was no one outside the door.

For our last vigil the entire group decided to stay in the Guildhall. Some members of the team were adamant that the lights coming on were completely normal. To a degree we agreed with them however what we tried to explain to them was, this isn’t really what interested us. If the lights were motion sensors then (allowing for a reset time once the lights were set off on the panel) why did they not come on when people were moving about? They were inconsistent and this is not usually the case for something that is an important security feature. We wanted to know why they stayed off! Steve’s team (who were in the guildhall after us) reported the lights only coming on once for them even though they were constantly moving around the room. Again this did not make sense. By the end of the vigil all we could conclude was that there may be a fault with them and this is something that needed to be checked out with the town hall staff.

I had an extremely interesting night at the town hall and would go back in a heart beat, even if it was just to sit in the guildhall and tests the lights overnight ? It has made me question something we thought was easily debunked! Thank you to everyone at the town hall that made our visit possible. If possible we would love to return in 2012 to conduct a follow up investigation!