The White Hart - Uttoxeter

13 March 2005

People present

ESSIVE members - Chris & Eleanor Thompson, Sue & Paul Wilkinson, Tina & Phillip Cutting & Mark Hibbert.

From the property – Rob & Lynn Woodward (managers), Wendy Jackson, Tony Bancroft, Rik, Sam & Sophie

Weather 

Dry with light wind

Base-line readings

EMF readings were as expected, with high readings around the bar where a large quantity of electrical equipment is situated. The temperature averaged around 20 degrees with no readable ion measurements other than a small-localised area near the bar.

Cellar Base line reading, one anomaly in ion readings around a gas pipe, EMF normal and the temperature averaged 8 degrees in one side and 6 degrees in the other. Karl had a distinct feeling that he was not alone in the oldest part of the cellar.

Tour of the property

Rob and Lynne took the team on a tour of the hotel to give us an insight to what activity has been noted in certain rooms and for us to understand our plan of action. Near the front entrance there is an old fireplace with two arm chairs, Rob explained that these chairs are repeatedly found to have been moved when staff return in the morning. A cold spot was noted in one chair and several members of the team were given the mental image of an old man with a white beard sitting in the left chair to the left of the fireplace.

In the conference room we were drawn to a picture on the wall of three old men and if was felt that one of them possibly being the man who sits in the chair.

In the oak panelled dining room upstairs there is what could have possible been a priest hole and an EMF anomaly was noted which disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

The strong presence of a lady in a long dress was sensed on the blocked off staircase alongside the upstairs kitchen.

A few members of the group began to feel a dizzy sensation in the corridor outside room 7 and as we entered the bedroom a whistle was clearly heard. The room felt cold and Rob told us that the windows were often found open when no-one had been in the room.  Phillip and Eleanor felt that the room had once contained a four-poster bed and had the feeling it had been a lover’s room. Phillip was joined by the spirit of a young lady named Carrie; she started by gently stroking his face and blowing in his ear.

The group entered room 19, and straight in front of the main entrance is the door to the bathroom, as Paul opened the door a grey mist which almost resembled a rain cloud, passed him at high speed and exited into the corridor, several people said it felt as if an energy field had gone past or through them. Unfortunately we did not have a camera on at the time and therefore although this was witnessed by several members of the group we have no media proof of this incident. Mark was the first to go back out onto the landing and was closely followed by Sue. Mark stood with both hands on the hand rail looking down at a patch of carpet inside a closed off area and Sue stood on the stairs facing the door at the bottom and facing away from the carpeted area. Everyone else was still in room 19.  As Mark stared down at the pattern on the carpet something dropped onto that very same place (no more than an inch away from the part of the pattern he had been looking directly at). It fell with a faint tap sound which Sue heard as she turned towards the sound and saw something on the carpet and said "what was that?”. It looked like a small part from a Childs Lego set at first but when Sue reached in and picked it up said it was a sort of a top off something. We traced a line up from where it lay and above it was a beam, but there was absolutely no way we could get the top to rest on the beam at all. It sloped away from the wall and there was no place for it to have been perched prior to it dropping. Nevertheless we imitated the top dropping onto the carpet from the height of the beam but it bounced and rolled away with a much louder tap than had been heard and as Mark said to Sue when the top first fell "it was as if it just appeared from nowhere from a foot above where it fell" as Mark was concentrating on the area. We once again tried dropping the top from a foot or so above the carpet and both Mark and Sue agreed that was the sound they had heard and sure enough the top only bounced very slightly and lay in the same place that it had dropped. This whole incident followed a rush of energy we all experienced from the bathroom as we opened the door and which went through to this very same landing area 2 minutes before.

Rob felt drawn to a room upstairs and insisted that only Tina and two members of staff went with him. As they approached the room Rob felt that one of the staff members present should not be there as she would get hurt and insisted she return downstairs. Rob opened the door to room 21 and immediately felt he was being told to leave so he also went downstairs. Tina and the remaining staff member entered the room and sat on the bed for a while. A presence was sensed it seemed to be standing in the corner of the room, Tina was given the impression that a back street abortion had taken place there. They left the room and entered the adjacent room next and once again sat on the bed, the presence of two children was noted which seemed to follow them into the corridor where a putrid smell of blood was experienced by both of them.

Base-line readings

Taken by Paul, Mark and Sue.

Cellar - Ion max at 1.36 with no EMF but a peak of 5 on EMF was noted in the back cellar. Just to eliminate noises heard during the initial walk around Chris walked across the bar floor whilst the three members were in the cellar from this we were able to explain the noises.

Restaurant – no EMF or Ion readings, however it was noted that when the walkie-talkie was being used there was a high EMF reading.

Kitchen – Ion saturated was noted just before they entered the kitchen, both Ion and EMF were nil in the freezer room however a tap was head but there was nobody in the room.

Dining Room and old kitchen – both EMF and Ion were continually fluctuating and would not settle. An EMF reading of 1-2 and maximum Ion reading was taken by the panel which once had a secret room behind it. The EMF reading appeared to move from one end of the panel to the other.

Room 7 – The EMF reading was 3.5 and Ion 1.36. All three team members could clearly hear doors banging in the corridor however there was nobody in sight when they went out to check.

Corridor – An EMF reading was noted by a large mirror and Ion readings were fluctuating. As the team passed room 4 voices were heard, however on checking which rooms were occupied room 4 was not one of them.

A dowsing session was held in one of the small dining rooms on the ground floor.
(four of the dowsers were non ESSIVE members)

Glass Divination
 

Held in the oak panelled dining room on the first floor, the temperature was 19.5° at the start of the séance. A male spirit who gave his name as Charles Stanhope made his presence known by pulling on two of the sitters’ arms and causing the temperature to drop to 16° and rise slightly to 17.5°. Eliza once again made her presence known by causing Rob to start shaking so much the whole floor was vibrating. The temperature round Rob dropped back down to 16°, Rob appeared to become rather distressed so Phillip stood behind him to try and alleviate his shaking. Eliza made it known she had a message for Rob but would not tell the group, the more Eliza was pressed for details the more Rob shook. As the shaking got worse Eleanor was replaced in the circle by Paul to enable her to stand behind Rob and try to stop the shaking by grounding him. This helped a little but not enough so Chris replaces Sue in the circle to take the pressure off Rob, Eliza then seemed to back off and Rob slowly stopped shaking. Rick and Edward also made their presence known and Lynn who was sitting on a table observing the proceedings felt as if a small hand had been placed just in front of her face and her ear tickled. Eleanor confirmed a young boy was sitting behind Lynn and wanted to play. The séance then seemed to go quite and the temperature started to climb back up so the session was closed and within a few minutes the temperature climbed to 20°.

We started in room 7 and although we got an answer of yes to the question “are there any spirits present?” the next four questions we asked were all answered with ‘Bye’ so we closed the session and relocated  to room 19. In this room we ascertained there were 3 spirits present; however none of them appeared to want to communicate with any of us. One of them seemed to be a very young child who did not know their age and after receiving ‘bye’ for an answer 4 times we moved the board into the bathroom. Although the room is reportedly active we got the same results as before with no spirits willing to communicate with us so we decided to end our attempts and try something different.

We all moved down to the cellar into a room down the corridor to the left at the bottom of the stairs. We all stood in a circle and joined hands and conducted a séance in the room with the lights off. Eleanor, Paul and Rob could all hear someone shuffling in the corridor the group had just come down, however there was nobody else around. Eleanor picked up on a man holding a wooden mallet in one hand and what looked like a wooden stake on the other, Rob said that a barrel of Bass had been pegged when nobody had been in the cellar. Maybe this is the spirit of a previous landlord still going about his daily business.  Eleanor, Paul and Rob also heard what sounded like someone banging on the door to the area thought to have been a tunnel and calling for help. Eleanor picked up on a man who had been imprisoned in the small room, had been given stale bread and water as sustenance and a monk’s habit to wear. He was still being held in the cellar unable le move on. A further investigation may be required to help him leave if he wishes to. Rob confirmed that a former member of staff had seen what he described as a monk in the area of the cellar where Eleanor said he had been locked.

The whole team feel that we had a very good night at the White heart and the only problem was time restrictions, as the location is a large one we could not cover all of it in one night.

It is however a very historical building and has a very varied history so for anyone to say there could be no chance of energy being left and memories still being relived would be a very narrow minded view.

We would like to Thank Rob and Lynne for letting us hold an investigation in there fantastic home and once more we have found more things we do not yet understand. It is for reason and this reason alone we will continue to strive to find and resources for investigation to future our knowledge of the Paranormal