Woodchester Mansion

14th December 2013

Woodchester Mansion

On Saturday 14th December 2013 we found ourselves at the wonderfully spooky and Gothic

Mansion. This is a personal favourite location of mine and it had been a while since our last visit. The previous investigations I had attended here had been some of the most paranormally active investigations I have ever been on and I hoped this evening was going to be the same. I was truly not disappointed.

A Brief History

Woodchester Mansion was the brain child of William Leigh. William Leigh bought the Woodchester Park estate for £100,000. He demolished the original Springfield Park building to give way to the Mansion. Spring Park used to be home to the Ducie Family. After having been transferred from one owner to another, the Mansion’s ownership was finally granted to George Huntley. It is thought that the expense of the park nearly bankrupted George Huntley. To this day this glorious and mysterious 19th century Gothic masterpiece stands incomplete, in the same state as it was when it was abandoned in the 1870′s.

The haunted reputation of Woodchester Mansion has led it to be featured in several ghostly television programs. Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters International are just to name a few. Many ghostly sightings have been reported at the mansion over the years.

In 1902, a vicar was reported to have seen a strange apparition at the mansion’s gates. A phantom headless horseman has also been seen on the mansion’s drive though we know this was actually a rumour spread by the builders of the mansion to keep locals from getting curious and snooping around. It is said that the Mansion itself is the centre of all the hauntings in the area. There is the Tall Man of the Chapel which has been seen many times and the elemental in the house’s cellar. We have personally experienced stones being thrown at us in the chapel.

The investigation

Not only were we at my favourite location, we practically had this place to ourselves. Our team for the night consisted of Maria, Dave Andrew and I and 6 team members from B.U.S. We split into 2 groups and we chose the cellar as our first area to investigate. The Cellar is made up of several small chambers and 1 large chamber. We started our investigation in the largest chamber. We called out to see if we could get some paranormal activity starting. I quickly saw a light anomaly on my camera and we did hear something like a small stone being thrown in the far corner. Being conscious that this may just be falling from the ceiling we asked again. Nothing much happened for roughly 10 minutes but then I felt like I was touched on my right side. I said this to the team and then asked if it was a spirit, could it do this to another member of the team. I saw a light anomaly move towards Maria on my camera and she then said she felt like someone was playing with her hair. I asked if this spooked her at all but she said she felt fine and it was not freaking her out at all. We also heard what sounded like footsteps which sounded like it was coming just outside the door near the other smaller chambers. This did not sound up on the video though. I said to the others that I felt safe in this room but I did not feel very comfortable about leaving this larger chamber. Maria agreed she felt the same. We decided to confront this feeling and left the chamber. As we rounded the corner I noticed a mist show up on my camera in one of the smaller chambers. This was not our breath. We seemed to all make our way down to the end chamber and were delighted to find that there was a small table in there. We decided this would be an ideal opportunity to try out my new spirit board. We set the board up and started to ask out. We soon seemed to get a response which was very slow. We made good communication with this spirit which seemed sad about his passing. As we continued to communicate with him he seemed to get stronger and more animated. We were aware of some noises coming from the corner of the room and we also thought the other team had come to join us. This was not so. We continued with the séance and it seemed to us that the spirit was tiring. It was confirmed that the spirit was tired so we decided to try some table tipping. We asked if the spirit would stay with us and he said he would. We moved the board and stood around the table. We didn’t have to wait long for things to start happening. The table started to pulse under our fingers which we find usually happens when energy is building up. We got the usual taps, creaks and knocks that you get but then Maria and I heard something very strange. It was like an electrical buzzing sound just behind Maria. This made her jump. Dave and Andrew did not hear it at all. We were just talking about it when the table really shifted position. We usually get warning before this happens and it is really rare for the table to move so drastically and so suddenly in such a short space of time. We asked if this was the spirit that we were talking to via the board. Nothing. We asked if this was another spirit and we heard a loud tap on the table, then the table shoved over towards Andrew and tilted up on 2 legs. It then moved over towards Maria and tilted up on 2 legs again. It was hard not to feel a little alarmed at such forcefulness that the table was being moved. We tried to ask questions by saying tap once if (and then we asked a series of questions). This was a little hit and miss so we didn’t really learn much about our ghostly companion but he was sure a lot of fun to have around. Dave needed to take a natural break so we continued to go with the table. However, things changed once Dave left. First, a stone seemed to be flung at Andrew which hit him on the foot with quite a bit of force. I have experienced stones being thrown at Woodchester before from seemingly nowhere so this was not a surprise to me. We did learn a little later that this phenomenon had not been experienced for a while. We concentrated back on the table and it appeared our ghostly guest had left us. I said that maybe he had gone with Dave. This made us laugh and the table seemed to knock in response. It then seemed to rock from side to side. The energy around us felt different. More gentle that the last. We felt this was female and tried to communicate with her. The table constantly rocked from side to side. I stopped the table and said I was just trying something. I tried rocking the table just to make sure it was not on an uneven floor, the table was not. It did not rock when I tried to recreate what was happening. We went with the table for a while, however nothing else was happening and we could not encourage this spirit to communicate with us in a different way. We thanked her and decided to move to another area. On our travels we bumped into some of the other team who had just come from the 3rd floor. They had not experienced much so we suggested they went to the cellar where we had just been.

The Kitchen

We decided to try in the kitchen area. We were told that a spirit called Agnes liked to hang around in this area and that she liked to rattle the pots and pans. We got ourselves comfortable and started to call out. I had just started to film when I saw a black shadow disappear into the scullery. Playing the footage back this was more like black smoke. You can see the video footage on our Facebook page. I also captured a lot of light anomalies. It was not long before we heard the familiar sound of a small stone hitting the floor. This made us jump a little. Dave and Maria also heard footsteps coming from outside in the corridor. On tape I do not hear the footsteps but I do get an audible female voice which murmurs something indecipherable but you can clearly hear her say “shhhhhhhhhhh”. We also heard what at the time sounded like a plate or pot lid being chinked and a few more stones were thrown at us. This is all available to view on our Facebook page.

The Chapel

After a short break we decided to stop off in the chapel area. It was here on a previous visit that I had witnessed a stone appear out of nowhere, shoot across the chapel and hit the far wall. The spiral staircase which was not accessible on our last visit was open and it led up to the gallery. We climbed up to the platform above and took a few pictures. Maria went to take a picture of the stairs and came darting back in clearly spooked. She said she had just heard footsteps coming up with staircase but no-one was there. We stood there chatting and we heard footsteps coming from just beyond the corridor, where the hub room was. Expecting Claire or one of the B.U.S. team we stopped and looked. No-one came through but at the time we didn’t think anything of it. We later found out this was none of the other team. We heard a stone hit the scaffolding which is in the chapel. We called out to see if we could get any other type of response. We felt not quite spooked but not welcome where we were so we decided to try up on the 3rd level.

3rd Level.

The last time I visited the Mansion, the upper levels were in quite a rough state and you had to be careful with the loose floor covering. I was relieved to find that the floors had been improved. I noticed that my tummy had started to feel a bit funny so I told the other team members. They all then said that they felt the same. Deciding to go with it we got ourselves comfy and focused on the upper level. During our last visit on this level Dave and I had experienced a little girl’s voice which sounded like it was under water, a scream, a dog growling a not so nice older gentleman and big band music. We started to call out and I quickly saw light anomalies on my camera. It didn’t take long before the stones started appearing and we were just trying to see if they could of fallen from the ceiling when I realised I could see a figure on the camera right up in the far corner of the corridor. Thinking it maybe pareidolia I called the others over to have a look. They could all see it on screen but if you looked to where the figure was standing you couldn’t see anything. There wasn’t any shading on the wall to create this affect and when we shone a torch on the wall the figure stayed. Andrew went up to see and on the screen it looked like the figures head moved to watch him. To us the figure looked like a girl dressed in rags. I called her the raggedy girl. Andrew came back down to see on the screen again and Maria said she could now see her on her camera too. It was here that Dave let out a yell and Maria lurched forward and grabbed my arm. They had heard a very nasty guttural growl which Dave said was right in his ear. I did not hear this but you can hear something on the video footage. This is available to view on our Facebook page.

We went back down to the hub where the others were. After quite a long chat we decided that as the other team had not got much in the way of paranormal activity, we thought it would be a good idea for us all to do something. I suggested the cellar again as this is where we got most of our activity.

The Cellar.

Again we seemed to be drawn to the larger chamber. We stood in here for a while but didn’t really get much in the way of activity. We then decided to try in the little room with the table tipping. It was a good decision. We very soon got the table moving like before. Some of the team members now with us had never been on an investigation before and none of them had tried table tipping. I could see they were a bit sceptical and probably thought we were manipulating the table. I told one of them to push down on the table if it tilts up on 2 legs. The table did this and they tried to push it down. They really struggled. With table tipping it usually seems to favour one side which was happening now however as the experiment progressed the table did rise on both sides and we also got it to copy our taps and to tap out the end to shave and a haircut. (We love it when they do that).

Simon from B.U.S seemed to get the most response from our ghostly companion who said he was in the military. Simon was also from a military background so he and the spirit seemed to forge a bond during this experiment. Chris who is responsible for most of the investigations at woodchester was amazed. He said that he had a team of nurses coming to the Mansion the next day and the spirit seemed very pleased to hear this. We continued in the cellar for a while though I do not have this on camera as my batteries and film had run out. We decided to move to the Kitchen though not much happened. As it was getting late, we decided to call it a night.

I would like to thank B.U.S. for including us in this investigation and also Dave, Maria and Andrew for making this investigation one of the best yet.