Now a small working theatre this Victorianbuilding was once the main police station and courthouse for the area, it is grade 2 listed and the cells are original. It is known that the performance area was once the main courtroom. During the investigation many members experienced CEP (Corner Eye Phononom) and temperature variations. However many of these can be put down to the design of the building.
Shadowy figures were seen walking up the main staircase when there was no one with a pulse on the stairway. I saw one on the section in the second photograph. The main staircase was also one location where Leigh Paranormal’s medium and I had a simultaneous experience that made us grab for the hand rail; we both experienced the sudden overwhelming feeing that the stairs were collapsing under our feet and that the ceiling was coming down. The medium felt it concerned the chandelier while I got the impression of a bomb, possibly from WW2. We both agreed people were on the stairs at the time, resulting in them being hurt and calling out or falling.
We also shared personal experiences in the female cells; this time the sound of conversation between at least two women in the corridor and, the feeling of women detainees being ‘visited’ in their cells by male warders for their own pleasure. The female warder happily turned a ‘blind eye’ to these goings on. In the female exercise yard the medium and I both ‘saw’ the bloodied beaten body of a prisoner curled in the corner between the cellar window and the wall. We were both positive that this prisoner did not survive the beating.
This old iron gate was found in the male exercise yard when it was being cleared of years of weeds and has been rehung in its original position by the volunteers who look after the Old Nick. The wooden door just beyond it leads into the male exercise yard where all the drainpipes etc., are built into the walls to prevent climbing. After this is a long corridor leading to the two holding cells.
The corridor taken from the male cells.
Two seperate occurrences happened in this corridor one to each of the investigating teams; the first one involves a whistle. Three members of the team were in the second male cell when they hear a whistle from in the corridor, one member came out of the cell to ask if someone in the corridor had whistled, but the two members nearest the cell, just outside the cell, had not heard a whistle, however the remaining two members close to the door to the exercise yard had heard it.
The second incident occurred while a couple of members of the other team were walking down the corridor toward the male cells when they heard what sounded like stones bring thrown at them. There was no one else in the corridor at the time.
The second male cell.
Both the Team Medium and I pick up on very similar sensations as, separately, we entered the first cell; those of there being someone in there waiting to give someone a good beating.
Due to the popularity of ghost hunting shows on television K2 meters have become a common sight on paranormal investigations. A K2 meter measures electromagnetic fields (abbreviated to EMF); the earth has its own EMFs as does everything that uses electricity, and this includes the human body. It is the residue of this that some ghost hunters believe lingers after death.
Electromagnetic fields can be generated by electromagnetic radiation flux density (DC fields) or the change in an electromagnetic field over time (AC fields). An EMF meter measures AC electromagnetic fields (electricians use them to track wiring in walls), while the more expensive Gauss meters or magnetometers measure DC fields; these occur naturally in the Earth's geomagnetic field. Most ghost hunters use a single axis EMF meter; tri-axis meters are more expensive. The majority of EMF meters are calibrated to measure between 50 and 60 Hz alternating fields, the frequency of US and European mains electricity. K2 meters use a series of LEDs to measure the strength of an energy field.
Ghost hunters use K2 meters to measure the energy that some of them believe ghosts emit. Some ask the ghost to make the lights flash in response to verbal questions similar to the old ‘knock once for yes, twice for no’ thing. Others will ask the ‘spirit’ to walk in front on the K2 so that the LED display will respond to the change in EMF. However the sensors on the most common form of K2 are located on the back of the meter in line with the LED display and as they are single axis the ghost would have to walk in line with the sensor, so, in this photo, the ghost would have to walk under the stool.
When ghost hunting it is good practise to do a ‘base-line test’ before the start of the investigation; walk slowly around the area holding the meter steady at arm's length and note where the meter’s display spikes. Then look for non-paranormal reasons for the spike; lamps, ceiling fans, electrical wiring, equipment or sockets, or the mobile phone in your pocket. These will increase their EMF when receiving or automatically searching for a signal, which is why, when on a paranormal investigation you will be asked to; switch them off, put them in plane mode, or leave them in a designated area. Move your K2 away from the area where you get a spike, check the readings, look for a source of the field and make a note of it so, later, you know to discount any activity there.
Not every K2 spike will be a ghost but once you have eliminated every other possibility only then can you look to a paranormal explanation.
Some Vivitar DVR 510HD digital camcorders.They have 2 GB of built-in memory, are compatible with Windows XP and above, or Macintosh with Intel processor running Mac OSXV10.4.6 or later.They are powered by 4x AAA alkaline batteries and can be augmented with SD memory cards up to 8 GB.
They appear to be quite simple to use so here’s hoping we catch more strange things on our investigations as the aim is for each team to have one.I’ll let you know how we get on….
What an interesting night, we want to go back and this is before we examine the taped evidence properly! So far on one handheld we have caught what appears to be someone coming down a staircase, only the staircase was gated off and the image was not picked up on the static camera covering the room.Inthe same room, one of our team heard a noise that made him jump, but he was on his own and there was no one in the next room. The evidence for this and his startled reaction to the noise is on film. Other team members reported sensing a 'busy man' pacing in the room.
Also caught on film are orbs that appeared on command while the team I was with were sitting on the darkened dance floor in the corner shown in the photo. Unlike dust or insect orbs these appear to eave trails behind them as they fly smartly upward from approximately the samepoint of origin before vanishing. Reflections and torches, none of which were on, have already been ruled out as cause of these light phenomena. The tripod for one of the static cameras is on the right of the photo.
It was while sitting here that I experienced two overlaying psychic images; one of feed or grain sacks stacked in a corner against a wall overlaid with the image of large wooden tools like an old fashioned horse pulled plough or possibly a carriage arm that links the carriage to the horse. These two images appeared to be on a loop with one of a broken stone wall with dark woodland beyond it. Another image, seen once, was of a high hedgerow in heavy green leaf next to a track, this occurred when another member of the team was calling out. My report of the two overlaying images will have been picked up on EVP. Later I was informed that that part of the building had at one time been a barn.
The night had started off by me seeing a tall robed figure outside the old chapel. in one part of the Old Hall I could see that the floor should have been lower, stone flagged and that it had a fine scattering of straw on it. This section also contained a large, up off the floor fire in a square container. The roof supports were also wrong; they should have been more of an 'A' frame and in this space there lived a family of six, the eldest of the four children was male and was wearing a knee lenght shirt with a 'V' shaped neck. His knobbly knees and skinny, none too clean, lower legs were visible beneath the tattered hem of the shirt. The family did not have full run of the roof space, only approximately half of it and this was divided by a wattle and daub type partition (not a full wall) into living and sleeping areas. One team member later discovered that he had caught a French speaking lady's voice on his EVP while in this section of the Hall.
Later in the night the team I was with revisited the chapel. While standing within its walls and asking out one team member caught a m ist that appears to move around the wall (right of photo) and through the doorway into the chapel on his handheld digital video camera. When he asked for a repeat appearance he caught another light anomaly, this time a streak of light came around the left side of the door. at either time no memberof the team had their torches on nor were they moving.
Another team reported seeing a row of four gravestones behind the chapel; they could describe them clearly as a single stone, then a double stone, behind which was a larger single stone then a tall stone. All of them had ivy growing on then and the fiest one had dark letter like shapes on it. As one member of that team reached out to move the ivy out of the way so they could read the inscription all the gravestones vanished. All that team report seeing the same things at the same time.
The following research into Penrhyn Old Hall, as with every other investigation, was done post investigation as I do not, am not allowed to by L-PIT, look into the histories of investigation locations until after the event.
The History of Penrhyn Old Hall
There is a possiblity that the last King of the Britons built a palace on this location in the 8th century and it is probable that the Romans used an ancient track way that past this spot on their way too and from their copper mines on the Great Orme. This is supported by the discoveries of Roam coins in 1873 and 1907. In 1549 Penrhyn was described as an ancient stone house, a 1575 map shows four churches in the area but only one manour house, Penrhyn, even though Gloddaeth hall and Bodysgallen Hall were in existence.
In Elizabethan times Plas Penrhyn was in a lonely rural district and occupied by a Roman Catholic Family named Pugh, Robert Pugh of Penrhyn was High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire in 1561. A priest officiated in the chapel in the grounds of the house: the chapel is believed to be the original St Mary's built in 1447. In 1900 the chapel was used as a stable. After being restored in 1926 the chapel was in use until the church in St David's Road was built in 1930.
In 1760 Penrhyn Hall was home to Dr. John Williams, Archbishop of York and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of King James 1, and in the late 1800s to a family named Owen.
Architecturally the greater portion of the present building, the wing with the stepped gable end, was completed in 1422. The Elizabethan portion is shaped like the letter H, a central block containing the main entrance joining the two wings together. The entrance hall was partly cut out of solid rock which still forms part of the wall.
A Madonna cupboard with the inscription, "Heddwch, Llonyddwch, a Chymdogaeth Dda", (loosely Peace, Tranquillity and Good Neighbourliness), dating from the 18th century, stands in the hall.
After 1739 Penrhyn was an ordinary farmhouse. From 1850 until 1899 the farm was occupied by Mr Dan Phillips. Later it was occupied by Mr Booth-Jones until his death on the Lusitania in May 1915. Penrhyn Old Hall was then bought by Mr Carrington-Sellers who used it as a private house. The Hall has since seen service as an antque shop and museum, a hotel, a private house and tearooms.
A Penrhyn Legend
In the 16th century a Roman catholic conspiracy to put to death all the Protestants in Creuddyn, the local area, was foiled when a girl in service at Penrhyn discovered the plot and informed an employee of Gloddaeth Hall who raised the alarm. A 'Troop of Horse' surrounded Penrhyn but some conspirators escaped. Nearly a year later the priests invovled were captured trying to board a boat to Ireland from Holyhead. One of them was William Davis; he was hung, drawn and quartered in Beaumaris in 1593.
The legend says the Pugh's aquired his and and concealed it in a hole behind the house. After the Pugh's had departed the house an old trunk was discovered. it was opened to reveal a withered hand supposedly belonging to the priest William Davis. The stone, dated 1590, above the large fireplace in the Tudor Bar commemorates his stay here. The fireplace aslo hides a priest hole. William Davis was beatified by the Pope in 1990.
