The Grail Court Hotel

Grail Court Hotel

5th December 2004

Team members present at this investigation were Chris & Eleanor Thompson, Vicky Greaves, Kev Isham and Sue Wilkinson, Mark Hibbert joined us later in the evening.

For the whole team this turned out to be a rather disappointing evening, having heard tales of the apparent activity reportedly happening this was an extremely quiet investigation. Eleanor and Chris arrived at the hotel around 3:30 and introduced themselves to Ian the manager and after eating a meal in the restaurant relocated to room 21 for a rest prior to the evenings investigation. At around 6pm Ian took Eleanor and Chris on a tour of the premises, Vicky, Sue and Kev arrived to join them at around 7.00pm. On being introduced to Ian, the three new arrivals felt that they were not particularly welcome which seemed to set the mood for the whole night. Ian gave the whole team a briefing and, what seemed to be a reluctant history lesson on the Hotel, explaining that it was an early 19th Century building.

To begin with, Chris and Eleanor started on the baseline tests while the rest explored the downstairs area, taking pictures and setting up equipment. The temperature was 10 degrees in the main bar area and 18.5 in the back room and entrance to the night club. In the front bar area, Eleanor felt that something was "not right" around the leather chair near the windows and was getting an ion reading which would not settle. Kev’s head started to hurt when he entered the front room and, although he couldn't sense anything around the leather chair (other than a deep cold) he did detect the vague presence of something at the other end near the doors to the night-club area, when Kev left the front room and his head cleared instantly. Chris found an odd anomaly with his laser-measure which seemed to have located old walls that had been torn down long ago.

Dowsing session 1

	Question	Dowser 1	Dowser 2
1	Are there any spirits present?	Yes	Yes
2	Is there more than one spirit present?	Yes	N/A
3	Are you aware of the ghost walk?	Yes	No
4	Are you mentioned on the ghost walk?	N/A	No
5	Are you female?	No	N/A
6	Did you work here?	No	No
7	Are you earthbound?	No	No
8	Was this place known as the Midland Hotel when you were alive?	No	Yes
9	Do you visit other places in Burton?	Yes	N/A
10	Do you interact with the guests?	Yes	No

Afterward the dowsing session Kev found that the date on his camcorder had changed to 05/12/03. He had checked the equipment that afternoon before leaving home and it had been correct. Now it had lost a full year. Later that evening, Sue discovered both laptops she had brought along were out of battery power and, she claimed, they had both been fully charged prior to arriving at the hotel.

Séance 1

Sitters Chris, Eleanor, Sue, Vicky and Kev, Ian had left the room and returned just as the séance was ending.

Very little occurred during the séance, other than the spirit of a man called Robert who had worked with horses in nearby stables during the 1500’s. He had died in a fire at the stables, the fire had possibly been set to kill him as both Eleanor and Kev picked up that he had not been good enough for the woman he had been seeing, so her family had murdered him

Both Vicky and Eleanor felt burning down their left-hand sides whilst the rest of the group were really cold. We believe that some of the shire horses also died in the fire because both Kev and Vicky felt sick with the smell of roasting horse-flesh. Sue claimed to see a strange swirling mist, like smoke, and some of the team heard noises behind them.

After the séance had concluded, Kev found that the coins he had stood on some of the tables had fallen over, but whether this was a result of traffic vibrations we will never know.

To enable Ian to lock up and go to bed the whole team relocated upstairs to Room 21, supposedly a haunted bedroom. Mark joined us at around 11.00pm.

Dowsing session 2

		Dowser
	Question	1	2	3	4
1	Are there any spirits present?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2	Is there more than one spirit present?	No	No	Yes	Yes
3	Have we come across you before tonight?	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A
4	Was this your bedroom?	No	Yes	No	No
5	Have you any children?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
6	Are you male?	No	Yes	Yes	No
7	Did you die before the second world war?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
8	Are you seen at the window?	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
9	Do you attract attention to yourself?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
10	Did you die here?	No	Yes	Yes	No

At around 12.40 am we switched off the lights and sat in the dark to see what would happen. We all felt very cold and heard various strange noises. At one point, something pulled off one of Eleanor's shoes and started tickling her toes, something that happened to Vicky also, Kev felt something stroking and tickling his face. We finished around 1.30am.

We decided to try an experiment with remote viewing. The location chosen was a private house that some of the team had been investigating. Most of the group described the house almost perfectly, however Kev appeared to be "hijacked" to the scene of a strange dream that he had recently been having. He found himself standing in a dark, cobble stoned, courtyard, misty and cold, with the feeling of not being alone. It was not a nice experience and he said he was glad when he "returned" to the hotel bedroom. During the experiment we entered a bedroom in the house and Paul said shall I close the door, just as he was doing it however Mark was still outside on the landing and later said it felt as if he had been hit in the face with a door. On checking with the family the following day they said they had heard a bang at around 2 am, but on checking there was nobody else awake in the house.

Séance 2

During the second séance we made contact with two little girls, one who stands at the window, and the other who runs up and down beside the bed, but unfortunately no names picked up for them. There was also a woman who had died of a heart attack, Vicky felt chest pains and Kev felt intense pain down his left arm. Kev’s left hand clawed and he appeared to be unable to move it. His left arm and hand swelled up, afterwards he had to remove his wedding band and watch as his hand and wrist had swelled alarmingly. The marks from the ring and watch were plainly visible.

During our time in room 21 the light in the bathroom kept playing up and coming on when no-one was in there and not coming on when the switch was pulled.

Other than these few odd occurrences, the evening was a bit of a disappointment and we have to conclude that the Grail Court is either one of the least haunted buildings in town or the majority of the reported spirits had taken the night off. After taking and checking literally dozens of photos, not one showed anything that might be called or even resemble an orb.

Although as previously stated we were disappointed with the night’s investigation it does seem very interesting that not only was very little picked up psychically but also, not one orb was caught on camera. Is it therefore possible that there is a connection between orbs and psychic activity even if it is that orbs are something in the atmosphere which we could possibly be inhaling and causing some form of mild hallucination?

Whether we were welcome or not we would like to thank Ian and the management of the Grail Court for letting us investigate.