the manor house

Investigators present: Drew Bartley, Darren Ritson, Fiona Vipond and Lee Stephenson

On Saturday the 17^th Sept 2005 the G.H.O.S.T Investigation team headed up to Ferryhill in County Durham to investigate The Manor House. Reputedly very haunted by a number of ghosts and nasty spirits. This 15^th Century one time orphanage, manor house and now hotel, was once under investigation by Living TVs Most Haunted as part of series 4. A ghost of a woman is said to walk the stairwell inside the premises looking for her baby, it is said the bones of children were allegedly found buried in the grounds of the building, and rooms 7 and 8 have been subject to extremely violent poltergeist activity and ghostly apparitions resulting in the absolute terror of the present owners. Two prior investigations and two failed attempts at exorcisms in an effort to end the hauntings or at least understand them, has led the hauntings to become even worse, so you can understand we were very lucky indeed to be allowed access to the building. The present owners are very reluctant to allow people in to “dabble” so to speak and it was only through team member Fiona Vipond we were given permission to investigate.

We arrived at about 8.30pm on the night in question and were shown to the most haunted wing of the building, rooms 7 and 8. We made ourselves comfortable and prepared for the nights investigation. Some preliminary baseline tests were carried out before the investigation and one or two anomalies were indeed picked up. A temperature drop of 4 degrees was recorded while carrying out the tests and both myself and Drew’s EMF meter recorded very high readings over both of the beds in room 8. They were there one minute, then gone the next. Room 7 and the adjoining corridors showed anomalous readings and the temperature averaged around 20 degrees in the bedrooms and 25 degrees in the corridor. We then split into two groups and while myself, Lee, Suzanne and Fiona went to room 8 to investigate, Drew, Arlo and Steve stayed in room 7.

Our investigation began with us settling down and calling out to the atmosphere and asking for phenomena while at the same time recording it with my Dictaphone. Nothing for a while seemed to happen until quite a while into the vigil when we all started to hear the odd click, or tap. Some investigators also felt funny feelings and the distinct smell of sick was smelt by all at one point in the vigil. The other group in room 7 experienced a loud unexplained bump and it was recorded during the investigation. After our first vigil we swapped rooms and our vigil in room 7 was rather fruitless to say the least however the other group in room 8 experienced some good phenomena, namely the motion sensors placed near the doors was turned around by unseen hands, why the alarm was not tripped we cant say, but all claim to have been sitting on the bed when this occurred.

The night began very well for the team, only to get much better. Trigger objects were set up in rooms 7 and 8, where a plastic tub of flour was placed on a sturdy surface and objects were placed in this, in our case we used healing crystals and a lollipop, as young spirit children allegedly frequent this area (room 8). By placing an object that would in this life interest somebody, that still accounts for the spirit in the next life. i.e., if you were aware that a priest haunted a location, the ideal trigger object would be a crucifix. We did exactly that in room 7, not, as far as we knew had any religious attachments historically, but we work on the conclusion that in old times, Christianity was at the very core of peoples' minds, rich or poor. Anyway, crucifixes make ideal trigger objects, as they are also very good for drawing around, therefore if anything from the afterlife touches it or happens to move it when it was locked off we would get a result. Well, the crucifix did move, quite considerably.

During the investigations, we caught "orbs", said to be the first signs of a spirit manifestation and a definite feeling of something or someone around us. But the best was yet to come. Back in room 8, where the tub of flour was placed, we agreed to have a séance. Steve Lee, Arlo, Suze and Fiona formed a circle and held hands, while Darren and Drew observed with the digital cameras and laser thermometers and night vision camcorder. When we were all comfortable, Suzanne (Guest from The North East Ghost In-Spectres and Team Phenomena) proceeded to conduct the séance. It wasn't long before we were aware of a presence. Suzanne is a developing medium and she instantly picked up on two children, a boy and a girl. She said they were related. Each one of us asked questions "can you make a noise?" etc. Lots of little taps in the corner could be heard and we always try and establish whether creaky floors etc cause the noise. In this case, all logical explanations were ruled out. Fiona then asked if the children would like a lollipop and that they were welcome to take it as we had come as friends and the lollipop was a gift to them. After a minute or so, Darren shone his torch into the flour to see if there had been any movement with our objects we weren't disappointed. Darren reported that the flour had been disturbed, as if someone had literally dragged their fingers through the flour. When all the team went to have a look, we were all amazed to see this. What we failed to notice straight away that the lollipop had been completely removed from under our noses and we were all astounded. Where had this lollipop gone? I can only conclude it was taken by the ghost children as we know no one could have touched it! Darren and Drew were monitoring the séance and everyone else was sitting in the séance. Pockets were turned out and clothes and fingers were checked for flour marks (Just as a precautionary measure) and everyone was clean, as we knew we would be. Floor marks were then found near the door, in the bathroom, on the landing outside the room and down the stairs leading to the fire exit.

Nobody had left the room, motion sensors were set up by the exit, and the lollipop was indeed there before we commenced the séance. We searched high and low for the lollipop, but to no avail. The rest of the evening we spent discussing this amazing incident and trying to locate the lollypop. It’s baffled us greatly and is one of the best results we have had to date on our investigations. The malevolent presence of the man that is said to haunt room 8 did not make his presence known on this night but the spirit children certainly did us proud.

This is after the red lollipop had vanished. You can see where the flour has been disturbed. It had literally been scooped out. A green lollipop was placed in the flour and a séance performed.

This picture was taken during the séance where the lollipop disappeared. What can you see on the floor between Drew's legs?

This is the imprint of flour found on the floor once the lights went on after the séance. The green lollipop was used to confirm that the size was exactly the same.

This is a closer picture of the flour imprint. It seems curious that the lollipop was pointing the other way on the photo above.

This trigger object was set up in Room 7. This is how it was found later into the investigation. We cannot rule out that it wasn't knocked but the chances were slim. After an experiment we found it would have taken a lot of force to knock the furniture enough to move the crucifix this much.