An
Investigation at Salisbury Guild Hall 16-Feb-2008
When the opportunity arose to spend a night in the dock or lock one or
more of our
Intrepid members in the cells, it was an opportunity not to be
missed
It has often been said, that we needed locking up for what we do, by none
ghost hunters,
and religious freaks
We just had to take up the challenge
Salisbury Guild Hall is the third building by that name, this one dating
back to the late 1700’s
It houses three courts, the Oak Court, the Crown Court and the Juvenile
court.
There is also a splendid large Banqueting hall
adorned by huge paintings of the mayors of the past. There is a wonderful old Ok
and timbered hallway and staircase of the entrance
Opulence in deed, clearly the intension was to
impress
Under the courts are of course the Cells, two
floors of them. Each merely 12 by 4 foot brick built, with heavy doors and no
external windows, all completely empty.
I will describe these a little
later
The courts are still in use as magistrate’s courts, the cells are no
longer used since 2000
There is now a new Crown court in Salisbury, with more modern
facilities
Paranormally speaking there have been reports
of strange sounds and shadows in most parts of the building, as many older
buildings do. No prior research had been done on the property, as we did not
want to be swain to any particular course or view.
Two groups shared the Investigation Ukprs and
Ghostvigils; Ghostvigils also had three representatives for a third Paranormal
Investigation group call RIP. (Research into the
Paranormal)
All members of both groups were experienced
Investigators some that are Sensitive and three “Mediums” were present this
evening.
As usual I will only report on the Vigils that I attended, all of these were with the ghostvigils team
Our first vigil was in the Oak
Court, a wonderful large room completely oppressive of
course
It is a large double, or triple height room
about 40 ft square, Spread over several levels.
The room is old wood lined and has a huge raised judges platform, they would sit many feet higher than everybody else in the room, looking down on the lower masses.
Below their area were the clerks’ pews facing
the court
The remainder of the seating for all other
court attendee’s would face the judges.
It was overpowering to see the room empty. I
can only imagine what the atmosphere would be when the court is in session, more
so in the past when the judges had the power to deport people for the most
trivial of offences. A power, which was frequently
exercised
When this room was in full swing the poor chap
in the dock to the right side of the court would feel very inferior,
deliberately designed this way or course.
By the dock is a narrow set of very steep and
possibly dangerous set of steps leading to the cells.
To the left corner is now a witness box which
may once of been a jury box, as well, but not now as this is a magistrates
court
In front of the clerks is the seating for the
councils and their staff. Behind these is the seating for all those interested
in the case in session. . Above was a viewer’s gallery rounding the back half of
the court.
I had no idea what to expect in the room, but
because of its design we decided to do an open séance, we had one person in the
dock another in the witness box, one in the judges chair
And four others spread equally around the room.
(There was also one observer not taking part)
We wanted to have someone in a position to see
all parts of the room
With tape recorders and camera’s selectively
placed around the room we all sat quietly, taking in the atmosphere.
After a while we started to ask out for spirit
to come forward, to speak to us.
To give us a sign of presence, we asked them to
make a sound or show a light, or touch one of us.
There were noises, some creaks or knocks which
I put down to the vast amount of wood in the room settling as the cool of the
night descended upon us.. Noises from the street outside, they seemed distant,
but did distract a little. There were also noises from the other group within
the building as they moved about, again distant but still
audible.
There were however noises which I could not
explain away. As far as I can tell although audible to many of us in the room,
but were not picked up on the audio or video recording
devices.
I say this because of the startled reaction on
the faces of the people in the room to these noises at the exact time I heard
them
To me this is more tangible than saying did you
here that, and others saying they did.
One such noise came from the balcony, above our
heads. It was like something had been dropped, a penny, or a ring small and
metallic. It was quite clear to my hearing. Another such noise came from the
clerks seating area, which sounded like a click or a light switch, and could not
of been this coming from that area.
All was very interesting, but not exactly
conclusive.
One of the sensitive people in the room felt
that they were being touch by the spirit of a lady
trying to get her attention. She asked for
someone to sit with her to see if they could experience the same thing. Both
people did seem to be feeling a touching sensations and cold shivers, or breath
on their arms
I watched very closely but did not see anything
to support their experiences. The Camera also did not pick up anything out of
the ordinary.
One group member said he could see a shadow on
the left side of the balcony, I raced round to a vantage point but the shadow
had gone, we did not have a camera set up on this spot so we cannot verify this
sighting.
Also a little later there appeared to be a
slight mist above the clock in the centre of the balcony, way above our heads,
now I later put this down to dust, in the shallow light, but at the time, I was
not sure. (Not sure at all)
At the end of the vigil most people in the room
had experienced something, and several people had experienced the same thing at
the same time. I find the room interesting, and would like to lock off this room
for a period of time with recording equipment covering the whole room
to
see if any physical evidence could be
recorded.
Banqueting Hall
The next Vigil was to be the Banqueting
Hall.
This room is huge really, its again 30 foot in
height, maybe 60 feet in length by 30 feet wide
The pictures that covered the walls all round
were of the Mayor’s of the parish going back through the ages, all dressed in
the finest costumes. The quality of these paintings seemed
to
be of the highest standard, no expense had been
spared in this very impressive room..
There were three tables and seating for about
10 people. None of the furniture in the room was in keeping with the stature of
the room, just functional items.
However they would suit our purpose very
well.
It was decided to try a glass séance, using the
table in the centre of the room. We placed around the table seven chairs and
with a locked off camera recording the proceedings
took our seats.
A glass was placed at the tables centre, and
the lights all switched off
.