A few weeks back I received a message from a good friend and fellow paranormal investigator, Beth Darlington of Access Paranormal; regarding an upcoming ghost hunt that she believed I may be interested in attending. However, on this occasion the location of the ghost hunt would need to remain anonymous. This is not as unusual as it may seem, as far as requests go in the paranormal field either. On this occasion the reason behind keeping the location anonymous appeared more likely to be aligned with reducing foot fall from other ghost hunters at the location or having too many teams bothering the owners for their own ghost hunts.

This approach to locations is not something that is particularly new in the field to be honest, I recall attending a public ghost hunt in Derby many years ago where the team advised that they wanted to keep the location to themselves rather than have others ‘ruining it for some investigators.’ I have to admit this places me in a slightly odd frame of mind; as I totally see where teams are coming from with this approach. There are unfortunately a few teams out there that will and do ruin locations for others, it is a fact of the paranormal field. This can either occur through their complete disrespect for a location, their careless attitude towards the owners and lack of actual investigation; which is often more like urban exploring. So, I can see why some would want to keep some locations away from the greater paranormal population. However, there is another part to this where I believe that locations that are suspected to be haunted should where possible, be investigated. That way at least we can begin to understand more about these locations and the paranormal experiences that occur there. Something which requires many groups sharing those experiences amongst them so that they can ascertain if there are any patterns, which I’m turn may help us understand more about the paranormal as a whole.

On this occasion the group that wanted to keep the location under wraps, at least for a little while longer was called Insightful Paranormal Investigations. If I am honest it’s not a group I have come across previously, but from my initial encounter they all seemed like a decent bunch of people. The larger group of guests on this ghost hunt appeared to be made up predominantly of spiritual or sensitive individuals, with only a few of the group more focused on technology. However, that said as the night unfolded, there were even a few in our group that utilised some ghost gadgets even though they were more spiritually aligned.

Now usually I would start an investigation report by talking about the location and it’s history, but in this case as I have agreed not to disclose too much on the location, that part may have to be dramatically reduced. Instead I will do my best to provide a description without revealing too much key information that would lead to the identification of the place itself.

My partner Jen and I arrived at the location with only minutes to spare after stopping for fuel and food not too far away. Whilst it is not a million miles away from some major towns, it is very much in the English countryside and that would likely be something better observed during the day when your view is not dramatically reduced by the dark of the night.

We turned off a country road and proceeded down a brief track to a small car park, which was located to the rear of the locations on site theatre. Something which is not all that common I know, but equally not something unique either.

Leaving the car, we followed a group of people hoping they were heading for the ghost hunt too; which they were and it was only a short amount of time before we found a seat with Beth in the HQ for the night.

As we waited for the group to organise themselves, setup and designate us to our groups; Beth, my partner and I caught up and talked about the paranormal. Standard ghost hunt conversations. I have to admit after all this time it is really nice to actually have been on a ghost hunt and engage in those kind of conversations about the paranormal that often only seem to occur whilst your in an old building trying to keep warm.

Once we had our groups, we were not in Beth’s, we headed out on our first vigil. And for this one we were actually outside at a near-by graveyard. Whilst a graveyard location may bring with it an abundance of potential paranormal activity, personally for me it’s not a location I particularly like trying to investigate. Firstly, it’s outside, which comes with loads of variable that make investigation very difficult. However, there is something that feels a little disrespectful about investigating a graveyard, something I will not rush to do again. There were a couple of interesting aspects to this graveyard though, one I will not mention through fear of giving the location away and the other is related to the case itself; that being the grave of three young children. However, the how and why these children ended up buried here still eludes me and one for potential further investigation.

The final part of this first hour long vigil took our team across the grounds to another location where a small tunnel was located. Whilst it wasn’t particularly easy to find the tunnel didn’t really lead anywhere due partly to collapse and the fact that the original house which would have been situated above it had now long since gone. A newer house at a slightly different location now stood on the grounds.

However whilst on the tunnel I spoke with one of the mediums in our group who picked up on a young boy trying to communicate. She proceeded to advise me that she was picking up on a boy about 11 to 13 years old. He was well dressed, with braces, an off-white linen shirt. He was kind of sad apparently. The medium believed the boy was called Christopher. It was also believed that the boy would use the tunnel as a camp to play in from time to time.

It was later revealed by our contact at the location that Christopher was likely one of the three children that were buried in the graveyard, but also thought to haunt the main house.

Our second vigil flowed pretty much straight off the first and we headed to the main house to investigate the bedrooms. We entered the house through the beautiful main entrance where we removed our shoes outside as a sign of respect for the owners. The hallway proceeded front to back, breaking left into a TV room that provided an entry into the large main living room. The. It broke right into the dining room and bar area. Following the entrance to the TV room on the left was the staircase to the first floor and a smaller hallway leading to the main larger living room. At the end of the main hallway was another small corridor towards the kitchen and other parts of the house.

We quickly took a look around the ground floor, remarking on the decor, book cases and other interesting clues to the owner’s identity; before heading upstairs to join the rest of our group. Upstairs we had access to two rooms; one which had a four poster bed in it and one that I later learnt was believed to be the children’s nursery. We initially jumped between both rooms before we settled mainly in the nursery. Here we watched a swinging curtain cord as one of the ghost hunters had claimed that it had suddenly started swinging on its own. The team had a KII meter which was also regularly showing the presence of EMF with its usual show of lights. I compared this to a MEL meter for EMF comparison, but received no reading on that; as such determined that either someone had their Mobile phone on them or the batteries in the KII were likely on their way out.

Other than this and slight movement of the chandelier, seen by other members of the group and not me; the only other thing believed to be caught was a low level EVP. Although I never got around to hearing this.

However, Beth’s group saw the electronic blinds drop down and rise back up again in the four poster bed room. They were also said to have seen this downstairs in one of the rooms too.

Our group then headed down into the basement which had an interesting layout with its winding corridor that got thinner, but lacked much activity. The group remained together on this occasion and used a ghost hunting gadget to determine, EMF, movement and temperature. However the responses on this device were simply explained by the large amount of electrical, communication and alarm system cables located in the room with us.

Following a brief break where Insightful Paranormal Investigations provided a small yet satisfying buffet of sandwiches, sausage rolls, nuggets, crisps and chocolate; we headed out with another group towards the cottage. Oddly once there we had a brief tour of the beautiful little cottage, ideal AirB&B location, but little about this locations potential hauntings. However, once upstairs a few of the sensitives engaged our guide from the location in conversation regarding the hauntings.

During this conversation it was stated that the three children that were possibly haunting the main house were buried in the graveyard on the grounds. Whilst it has yet to be confirmed and it is not certain whether the children died during it or not, there were at least two known fires at this location. Our guide provided some interesting information regarding the three children spirits that haunt the house, that they are often naughty on the spiral staircase; often running up and down them. The guide also agreed that the name ‘Christopher’ could easily be one of the three children. Quite a few people have actually seen them, not our guide though, often playing ‘peek-a-boo’ around doors.

Interestingly there has also been a reasonable amount of audible phenomena observed at the location. This has been in the form of music, giggling and even a music box on the odd occasion. Whilst I guide has not seen the spirit children, she did advise that she had heard some things around the property that could only be paranormal.

We were also informed that the son of the previous owners, who grew up at the location, had a great deal of experience with the activity. Our guide advised us how the boy, now a man of roughly thirty years old, told her that if the house did not like someone then the pictures would fall off the wall. Oddly this kind of explanation for pictures falling off the wall at a location was not new to me, I had heard it at a few other places over the years. We were also advised about the fact that as a boy he also heard the spirit children running up and down the hallway outside his bedroom.

As far as the sightings of the children go; two American men staying in the four poster bed saw a child looking over the shoulder of one of them, whilst the other was read on a kindle. Which explains why this room was provided as a location for our investigation, the only problem was that we did not know the details of the activity prior to our investigation making our focus somewhat complicated.

Our last location of the night was the theatre building, where the entire group gathered to investigate. Members from Insightful Paranormal Investigations took the stage to attempt a little ‘Singapore Theory’ in the form of reciting a little Shakespeare, which unfortunately did not seem to have the desired effect on this occasion. Even after a little glass work, which to begin with involved 14 people and 3 glasses, we did not experience any activity.

As we approached the hour of 2am and the end of the ghost hunt for Jen and I, we thanked our hosts, said goodbye to Beth and headed home for the night.

The investigation of this undisclosed location was interesting and presented a possible case that still may have more to offer. On learning more details about this case and the locations hauntings, there are certainly things I would have done differently. Especially that we now know that we have both audible and visual phenomena to deal with at the location. We could have placed audible recorders at the spiral staircase to attempt to capture the children voices and perhaps a music box playing. We could have placed a video camera in the four poster bed room to see if we could capture an apparition on film. However, we would still be left with questions, as each investigation always provides more questions than answers I find. Equally, we must also ask; ‘can we really categorise photo’s, videos and audio as evidence of an afterlife?’ The truth is we can not, as they are often beyond subjective and lack supportive evidence.

I would like to thank Insightful Paranormal Investigations for the ghost hunt at this undisclosed location, it was good fun and equally good to be back out investigating the paranormal. I am looking forward to my next investigation now.