The Moat House - Tamworth

23 April 2005

The Team,

Essive Members - Chris, Eleanor, Karl, Paul, Sue, Ian and Rachel.

THE GUESTS, Adam, Mike, Mark, Oliver, Daniel, Ashley, Martin, Lisa, Mikayla. Natalie, Robert, Lucy, Richard, Nicole, Neil and Liam the manager.

Weather,

Dry and mild

First impressions

The team arrived at the location at around 10.00 pm and gathered in the bar area, waiting for the premises to empty to enable the manager Liam to give us a tour of the premises. The only area of the property that was not available for us to investigate was Liam’s own personal quarters.

Eleanor and Chris mentioned that there had been the spirit of a large black stallion galloping around what is now the car park.

At first the building seemed to feel calm, quiet & somewhat inactive, having said that there did seem to be something hidden or hiding in the background.

Tour of Premises

After a quick tour several cold spots and a few places giving a dizzy sensation were noted, one or two presences were also felt. Some of them were: a black stallion which was galloping around in the car park, a not so friendly male and a quiet female. The function room came over as a particularly interesting place as did a few of the rooms on the upper floors. Rachel asked Sue why she had licked her hand and Sue informed Rachel there was no human near her so it could not have been human. It is thought that Rachel’s hand was licked by an Irish Wolf Hound who comes to all investigations with a member of the team welcoming Rachel to the group as this was her first investigation. With the tour over Paul, Chris and Eleanor then went back downstairs to set the equipment up while Ian, Karl, Ian and Sue made their way up to the tower to have a look around; The tower consisted of 3 floors, each being small and narrow.  You could tell that they were used as living quarters as there was a fire place in each of the rooms.  The stairs were very rickety and not that safe.  The top room had what looked like executioners block in there but on thinking about it could have been a bunk bed, but the atmosphere was electric, however we felt the area was unsafe so they were unable to investigate it properly at this time.

Base-line readings,  

Base line readings were to be done room by room and any anomalies recorded due to the size of the building and time limitations. With all the experiments carried out on the night there were no anomalies recorded in base line readings, the only visible fluctuations were in temperature mostly during the séance

Dowsing Session

This was held in the function room, with Mikayla, Lucy, Oliver, Martin, Natalie, Robert, Daniel and Nicole dowsing and Lisa, Sue (ESSIVE), Mike, Ashley, Adam, Richard, Mark, Neil taking answers.  At 12.15 Eleanor, Sue and Rachel experienced the lights flickering off and on in the function room while compiling the answers.

After the dowsing had finished and the team had set up for a vigil on the second floor everyone went back to the ground floor except Karl who stayed on his own for approximately 5 minutes. During this time he heard footsteps walking past the room he was in and down the corridor. He also heard whispering however, everyone was accounted for and he saw nobody pass by, as Karl was on his own this can be noted but cannot be counted as evidence.

Séance style vigil

Paul on camera and Chris on EMF and temperature, Eleanor, Ian, Karl, Sue and Rachel involved in séance.

Guests on video camera, Neil and Liam, and the other 14 guests involved in the séance. 

We conducted a séance style vigil in the middle room on the second floor with the participants standing in a circle and holding hands.  During the séance contact was made with the following spirits, William who owned and lived in the house in the early 1700’s.  He thought that most of the people were working class peasants. One exception was Neil who was on camera, and there were 2 females who’s class he was unsure of but would not say which two they were. A doctor who gave his name as Francis, it is not clear if this is a Christian or surname. A female named Elizabeth who was wearing a lavender coloured dress and was being blocked from communicating by a group of young people who were part of the circle and standing in front of her. There were also two children a boy between 4 and 5 years of age and a girl who was 2½ to 3 years old.

At one point William was standing in the middle of the circle and Ian felt a cold breeze on his face and hands. Rachel said she could feel something cold touching her right arm, Eleanor confirmed a young boy called Joshua was trying to attract her attention. Joshua was dressed in burgundy velvet breeches and a white frilled shirt. Standing to one side of the circle was a very small girl who was wearing a pale nightshirt and said her name was Harry. Several of the younger guests at this point were getting rather boisterous and trying to goad the spirits, a lady called Elizabeth was standing behind them and trying to get into the circle to communicate but their negative energy was blocking her. Elizabeth was wearing a long Victorian style lavender coloured dress, and Eleanor believes that she was a patient when the premises were used as a mental hospital. Elizabeth gave up trying to communicate and moved to one side, at this point Sue felt someone stroke her hair. Several of the participants said they felt as if someone had pushed down on their shoulders and two said that someone had touched their face. The doctor was standing between Eleanor and a young man to her right, he was pushing and draining the young man. As everyone seemed to be getting tired with standing and some of the guests were not being very respectful, the circle was closed by Eleanor, this took 3 attempts due to the noise being made by some of the guests. We then returned to the ground floor for coffee and a break.

Glass divination

We once again made our way to the third floor where we were split in to two groups to try glass divination. The first group consisted of Rachel and four guests where we came across a small child called either Harry or Josh that had not died on the premises but had liked it there in life and therefore returned for frequent visits. When the spirit was asked if it played with the other children the glass was still, therefore no answer was given. The second group consisted of four guests, with Paul asking questions and Ian observing, the glass moved very slightly. However it looked like the movement was more to do with the glass being pushed than being moved by spirits. So Paul swapped with one of the guests and restarted asking more questions. The glass did not move so Paul closed the session. Ian then went to the bottom room where he could hear people shouting, as he entered the room he was informed by the group which was made up entirely of young guests that the glass kept sliding off table. However it soon became apparent that they were just pushing it around and messing about so he left the room and rejoined the rest of the team. Eleanor returned to the room that is thought to have been a nursery to join a group of five guests who were trying to find out if the glass was being pushed or moving in response to the questions. Liam was controlling the session and the participants had their fingers on the glass with the fingernail facing down and touching the glass. There was a little movement during this session but nothing convincing so the session was closed and the group returned to the ground floor for a break.

Séance

For this séance we split into two groups in the function room with Eleanor controlling one table and Karl the other. Sue and seven guests were in Eleanor’s group and Rachel and seven guests were in Karl’s group, Paul and Chris were on camera and Ian was monitoring the laptop.

Karl’s table started communicating by flickering a candle when asked, then by moving a small telekinetic enhancer which had been placed on the table. It was established that there was a male spirit over the age of 35 who knew of William but didn't actually know him. The lady named Elizabeth was present but was more inclined to just watch.

Eleanor’s table was communicating using an inverted bell asking the spirits which way they would move the pendulum for yes, it moved anticlockwise and which way they would move the pendulum for no, it moved clockwise. They made contact with the spirit of a young lady who worked in the kitchens on this floor but, as some of the sitters were giving negative vibes she withdrew her energy. The spirit of a seventeen year old male called Robert who claimed to be a good friend of one of the sitters and her brother came forward. Robert, who was wheelchair bound, had suffered a lot of pain during the last few months of his life. He had wanted to say goodbye to his friends as he had not had chance in life, he said that he had seen the young lady standing outside at his funeral which she confirmed. William was standing between Sue and Eleanor, both could feel his presence but he only wanted to watch.

Two lights were seen to flash at the bar end of the room and there were temperature drops under the tables and on the table around the sitters hands. Most of the people present heard a loud noise which seemed to come from the upper floor which upon investigation could not be explained as there was nobody up there.

Eleanor’s séance was concluded first due to two of the guests wanting to go to the toilet. Not long after Karl closed his séance due to the spirits withdrawing their energy and the noise that the guests who had been on the other table making a lot of noise even though we had asked them to sit quietly.

Rocking Spirit Board

We relocated to the library and used a spirit board designed by two members of the team. Chris and Ian were observing, Paul was on camera and asking the questions, Eleanor, Rachel, Liam’s Fiancé and Sue using the Spirit Board.

After three ‘Byes’ we closed the Rocking Spirit Board Paul thanked the spirits for co-operating and said we shall see and speak to you again.

We feel that what had happened was amazing a lot of questions were answered, even though some results are still to be checked. On our return visit in July we will hopefully have the chance to once again use the board and gain further answers. After we had closed the spirit board session Ian felt strange, he had not been part of the group using board but was concentrating on the ball going round and when the ball had stopped, Ian had not and was left feeling dizzy. After leaving the library Eleanor helped Ian to settle and come back down to earth. 

Conclusion

All in all the location was and still is very promising and we did gain a few limited results but the size of the team and free roaming of them during the night restricted the investigation. There is a lot of energy and history in the building which promised to give good results ad as a team we are looking forward to a return visit with a smaller and more receptive team.