Mr B passed before she did, and his passing was slow and painful and doesn’t like to relive his memories of the place, whereas Mrs B loved this place and likes to come back and relive her memories. I asked repeatedly for a sound to be made – and eventually a speaker that was switched off on a dead monitor made a high pitched feedback sound. You can hear this on our video clip.

I told the spirit to use my energy to do something else and I felt like someone was pulling energy out through the crown.

I felt there were at least 2 other people hanging back, a little wary of us.

I closed the séance down and we took a short break. Dave reported a headache and remarked on how strongly he felt the presences during the séance. Steve reviewed the footage on camcorder and we all saw a floating wisp behind Dave – almost mirroring the movement of the bottom of Mrs B’s skirts that I saw.

We had built up such strong energy we decided to try some glass divination with a tumbler – just before we began one of the camcorder batteries suddenly drained after only a short period of use (25 mins – it had been fully charged before we began.)

We each took turns in speaking – asking the glass to move for yes, and to stay still for no.

An orb was caught on camcorder behind me just as I felt Mrs B walk behind me, but the glass didn’t move.

Dave spoke up asking for the glass to move – I became aware of a gentleman standing between Norma and Dave but he couldn’t move the glass for us. We felt the glass shudder as if about to move, but it stayed still.

The man communicated with me in the end, but the connection wasn’t great. He announced himself as Charles but had difficulty giving me his surname. I got the first two letters as “Ba”

I asked him a few questions and he did move the glass to confirm he was a landlord. He then told me he was in the pub during the 1800s for a long time and that he had been happy here and was happy with how the pub was run now.

He showed me he passed from a stroke, he was a storyteller. I felt he had been landlord some time after Mrs B had been in charge. He said he’d made the place “fun” again and that he turned a blind eye to some dodgy characters. He was trying to show me the name of a road “cut throat lane” in association with these people and he would let them drink as long as there was no trouble. He said he was very happy we were there.

Lisa and Norma reported a cold breeze and cold legs, then shortly after he placed his hands on my shoulders.

We tried to get Charles to move the glass again – it shook a lot again repeatedly but he was so frustrated it wouldn’t move, although we all felt it was trying to move.

I’d felt a spirit was watching from the fireplace during the séance where Lisa had felt uneasy.

Dave told us he felt there was a “dark” presence who controlled everything that went on in the building except the cellar and was overbearing. I told him I agreed, but that the presence wasn’t sinister – just preferred to keep an eye on what was going on in the pub. I also felt that there was some very ancient energy in the cellar and that I’d had a “flash” of what the site looked like in Roman times, a thatched roundish wattle and daub house open on one side.

We set up 3 experiments. Norma sat and tried automatic writing, and Lisa and I sat in front of a large mirror to try a transfiguration experiment to see if our features changed at all.

As we prepared to begin, on our digital dictaphone just after I asked for lights off – a clear female whispery voice says what sounds like “press start” or “Bristol.”

During the transfiguration Lisa saw her face change to a man’s face with a handle-bar moustache and pointy eyebrows,hair slicked back and parted on the side. He wore a monacle and she felt movement. Lisa felt quite overshadowed by him.

I saw my face change to that of a jowly man in his late 50s with a beard and a boxers nose. I felt his name was George Taylor. Chris saw something cross in front of me too. George did manipulate my voicebox to try and speak through me but I didn’t allow it to happen as I don’t do trance mediumship. As I was explaining to everyone what I had felt afterwards there is another EVP…an unknown whispering again as I spoke.

We took a short break and I was touched on the arm. We discussed the cellar and that we felt there was a semi religious connection. While we were talking, people saw movement and orbs around us on the monitors.

Norma picked up the name Martha – one of the guests stated her dog was named Martha! Dave came over and reported smoky mist in the shape of a person and orbs around the middle fireplace had been seen during the transfiguration. More orbs and smoky mist was seen on camera as we talked.

I felt that the cellar held a presence that was semi religious although he roamed the pub too, so we investigated there next. I remained upstairs as access was poor and called down to the cellar.

Within seconds, I felt the presence of a monk…Norma and Lisa instructed everyone to form a circle and called out to him.

Immediately he came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at me – he was scary looking! He showed me that he would hide in the right hand corner of the cellar when he was alive and would rock and chant silently when men used to come here to search for him, and that he would be terrified. He was very thin and gaunt, very pale, with black ringed eyes and white streaks in his hair despite his youth. He was devout, nothing nasty but a touch too zealous, with long periods of fasting in service to God. Norma reported feeling a rocking sensation as they continued to stand in circle. He introduced himself as “Cedric”. He is aware of the times having moved on, but tries to impose his medieval moral values on the place and gets frustrated when people act in a disrespectful way – and tries to make himself known with physical phenomena at these times.

Next I felt a huge wave of residual energy, that of a battalion of fierce looking big marching Romans coming through here – I could see them clearly, in their grubby, worn out leather skirts and sandals, they were pale and tired looking. I was relieved it was just residual energy and not the interactive kind of apparition! I felt that since the time of the Romans, this had always been some kind of rest stop or camp, one of many minor rest stops en route to the coast for the soldiers in the day.

I picked up on a big man with huge shoulders in 1920 falling down the cellar steps –injured badly and carried up. Feels like the man in charge, possibly landlord.

I felt lots of residual energy coming up from the cellar – layers of it!

I could see people sleeping down there in the 10th century. Lisa felt a druid connection – I described the building as dug out with a round thatch or straw roof it was full of men, heavily bearded and wearing simple robe like clothing.

We went back into the main bar to hold a quick séance to see if Cedric would tell us more about himself, as his presence was very strong. He came through quickly, Cedric showed me he would often shriek when he was alive and in the depths of his madness, and stood behind me when I asked him to try to understand 2005 a little more. He said he wanted to go back to his monastery in Colchester – Norma confirmed there was a priory in Colchester. He didn’t want to go to the light, he wanted to be at the monastery but come back and visit here when he liked – so we encouraged him to do exactly that.

I felt a hand on my leg – it was a little boy. He called himself “Johnjohn” I asked him his full name and he said John Peter. He said he had been in the cellar, one of the ladies confirmed she had felt a small presence. He moved around the table and came back to lean against my leg. He showed himself aged 5 with blonde hair and big blue eyes, he was small for his age, malnourished and badly treated. He passed around the age of 8 but chose to show himself as 5. He told me he moves things and hides things, the things that fall on the floor (which Dave confirmed) is him.

An Irishman named Eamonn came through, he sat in a corner and was a regular, he had the classic ruddy nosed drinkers face, only comes in rarely,lived in the 1800s. He had a dirty shirt, rolled up sleeves, and would pop in for a drink and go home.

A lady with long skirts, long dark hair made herself known, she worked here and was not a landlady, felt more like a barmaid, she was certainly here every day. She has something wrong with her neck, my neck was pushed to one side.. then she showed me this is how she died in a fall in her 30s. Plain looking, wavy hair, and as she gave her surname as “Cook” we later found EVP on audio and video recordings. Her brother worked here and she stayed here for a while, she was a “Miss” not married. She showed me something I would recognise, the red shop front of the travel agents “Thomas Cook”! So I assumed her brother’s name was Thomas. She then confirmed her name was Sarah Cook, she stayed there for 2 years, which were some of the happiest times of her life. She is the female apparition seen behind the bar. I closed the circle safely and wound down the investigation.

RESEARCH AND  VALIDATION AFTER THE INVESTIGATION :

We found proof of many of the names mentioned by our medium Rachel:

David Lenney  - resided in the pub early 1900s

Jane and James Burgess – landlord of the pub in the 1870s and Jane Burgess was landlady after James died.

Charles “BA” = Charles Bateman, landlord in the 1890s

George Taylor – former landlord in the late 1820s

Eliza – In the 1841 census records we found an Eliza Dowsett, Servant aged 20.

We haven’t found trace of Alice or Cedric, as they weren’t officially residents.

One of the team knows some local history and says it is very likely the Romans were local recruits who would have been late era as they were worn out and still wearing basic uniform although it was tatty. The British recruits kept the uniforms and wore them after the occupation ceased.

The landlord told us about 2 incidents in the recent past when the pub was open and strong activity occurred with many witnesses. Both incidents were where pints of beer levitated and dropped on the floor at occupied tables –one by the round table next to the fireplace where Lisa felt uneasy – once at a small table by the toilets during a football match watched on tv!