Large Residence In Ayrshire
Introduction
The name and exact location of this investigation is withheld at the request of the owner.
Alba Paranormal obtained permission to investigate a large stately home located in Ayrshire.
We arrived on 22nd October 2005 with Steven Douglas, Neil Cameron, John Burns, Bill Black, Tracey Black and Ralph Kelly. The house was in a state of uproar due to a film crew finishing a shoot on the premises. We based ourselves on the first floor to keep clear of the filming which was restricted to the ground floor.
The homeowner welcomed us and gave us a guided tour of the building from top to bottom. She then graciously agreed to be interviewed on video by Stevie. While we conducted this interview, the rest of the team went on a walk round.
The owner told us about an incident that occurred just after she was married. She was trying on some clothes in one of the rooms when she felt a presence that made her feel unwelcome. She left the room quite quickly. Another time, she was woken during the night by a feeling of an evil presence in the room. The presence stayed for a short time then disappeared. She also told us that two of her sons had experienced the same feeling in two other bedrooms.
She next told us about ‘Green Jean’. Jean was a serving girl who was seduced by the Steward of the House and fell pregnant by him. He was not prepared to accept this and murdered her, throwing her body in the river. Jean has been seen over the years and appeared in one of the bedrooms covered in green slime and dripping water. A friend of the owner has exorcised this spirit who, she said, was extremely angry and vengeful. Note: This story has been related in a few other castles and large houses around Scotland although, given the general conditions of the period, it was probably not an uncommon occurrence. Further to this story: During the war, the army was billeted in the building and on the grounds of the estate and the house servants used this room as a temporary sitting room. They frequently reported an evil presence in the room and would leave together.
One other bedroom hosts a spirit, known by the family as Ned. He was a night watchman and the room he inhabits was used by the servants, during the war, as a kitchen. Various strange things happened here including bunches of parsley appearing in a teapot!
One final spirit known by the family is Margaret, a serving girl, who stands on the half landing to the top floor. She has been seen to move out of the way of people climbing the stairs!
Walk Through
While we filmed the interview, Bill and the rest of the team walked through some of the rooms.
Nothing much was picked up at this time. Bill later said that in certain parts of the house, he felt as though something was blocking him from seeing anything psychically. This is very unusual as Bill can normally determine what, if anything is in the area.
In one room on the top floor, Bill picked up on a nanny type from the Victorian era but was unable to get a name or any further information before he felt shut down once more. Bill did pick up on one other name. James Hamilton. The owner confirmed that the Hamiltons have a connection to the house. Unfortunately due to privacy issues, I can’t elaborate any further on this subject.
Somewhat disappointed, the group returned to the base shortly to be joined by Stevie and me. We discussed the lack of psychic phenomena that in a building of this age is very surprising. We decided to go to the basement as there were reports of phenomena being observed by family and staff. Anything the investigators are told before we begin an investigation is withheld from the team psychics. The information we receive from owners etc. help us reconcile some of the information received from the psychics during the investigation.
As we walked along the main basement corridor, I asked Bill to move to a particular part of the corridor. He asked me if I wanted him to tell me about the woman who is seen frequently, hurrying along the corridor as if on a mission! This was precisely the reason I had led him to this corridor!
Bill got the name Martha and the date October 14th 1924. He said he felt it related to a funeral in the house and that she was very agitated and concerned that things weren’t going according to carefully set out plans.
The caretaker, Stewart, invited us into his flat. In the corridor leading to a door from the main entrance hallway, Bill again picked up on a woman who enters via the door from the hall and crosses over to a connecting doorway (blocked up) and disappears through to the basement hallway beyond. Stevie was getting some very strong E.M.F. readings at this point but we found that the BT private exchange for the building is in a cupboard through this connecting door. This type of equipment radiates a strong electrical field which was being picked up by the meter.
Bill’s description of the woman he saw was of an older woman dressed in outdoor clothes, who moved with a distinct sense of purpose. However, Stewart described a younger woman, in her mid twenties with fair hair. This sort of discrepancy is not uncommon as these sightings can be a very subjective thing. According to some spiritualists, a spirit can appear to us as they wish to look.
Bill picked up on Martha again and told us that she was very happy that she was being acknowledged by us. She said that she was in charge of all the servants in the house in the twenties. We asked if that meant she was a housekeeper but Bill said she was telling him that she wasn’t a housekeeper but was above all the servants. (Research carried out recently appears to show that in the Victorian household, the housekeeper was the senior female servant.) While in the bathroom, Bill saw Martha reflected, as if in a mirror, in the shower screen. She was laughing and as Stevie checked the area, the meter jumped for a few seconds. Bill said that he felt as if she was moving down to a lower level. As far as we are aware, there is no lower level in the house. Bill however insisted that she appeared to be walking downstairs. Bill also got a surname for Martha, it sounded like Clatterson. Further research suggests that the name may have been Catterson.
We left the basement and moved to the Gun Room. As we put the lights out to settle down for the vigil, Bill asked if anyone else had seen a light above my head. I checked with the night vision camera but nothing appeared. The entire group agreed they felt uncomfortable in the room. Descriptions ranged from a feeling of being watched to strong anxiety and a desire to get out. Bill picked up on the spirit of Richard Campbell. He said that there had been a serious argument which involved a promise of marriage that may have been broken. This resulted in a duel between Campbell and another man but no further information was forthcoming.
It should be noted that the owner had earlier told me that during the war, officers were billeted in this room and several of them felt so uncomfortable that they refused to sleep here.
The group moved upstairs to one of the bedrooms on the first floor. We held a séance in the room and Bill picked up on a spirit but couldn’t get a name for him. He described him as a middle aged man who was quite happy to be there and was friendly. Our website has an E.V.P. from this room which sounds like a man clearing his throat. The room was closed and no crew members were within earshot of the room at the time of the recording.
We asked for any spirits to contact us but apart from a slight temperature drop, nothing was recorded. This is the room that Ned has been seen in.
The final room we moved to was the billiard room. This is a later addition to the house. Bill said that he wasn’t happy with the results of the night as he felt that something was preventing him from seeing more than he had. The room was very cold and several of us noted small light anomalies around a sofa in the adjoining music room. Unfortunately none of these were caught on camera.
Conclusion
In our opinion, this house is haunted by several spirits, most of whom are friendly and the family are quite comfortable with this situation. However, there is an undercurrent of something not so pleasant especially in the Gun Room. Previous occupants of the room have told of feeling uncomfortable here. The owner has had a few experiences with an entity which may appear to be unfriendly.
We captured a few orbs on stills photographs and on video but these may be dust as they are not conclusive. However, one strange technical hitch caused us some grief on the night. One of the group members used a new video camera, a Sony, on the walk through and later on during a séance. The camera appeared to be working perfectly well except, when I came to edit the video later I discovered that the video was breaking up very badly. It was so poor that I decided I couldn’t use it on the final DVD of the investigation. This is not a tape fault as two different brands of tape proved faulty and the camera has worked flawlessly since this investigation to the extent that I now use it almost exclusively on our investigations. I also experienced battery failure on my video camera during the vigil in the Gun Room. The battery is a high capacity unit which had been fully charged before leaving home that evening. Camera problems have been noted in certain powerfully active areas. This leads us to believe that there may be more, psychically, to this property than we were allowed to see.
Bill experienced the unusual feeling of being ‘shut down’ and has never felt it so strongly before or since. Some aspects of the building bear further investigation if only to find out what was blocking Bill on the night.
Ralph Kelly
Alba Paranormal.
