Well, where to begin with such an amazing night full of stories bursting to tell. I had not expected to be doing another ghost hunt so soon after Gresley Old Hall. It was just before 8pm when I arrived and straight away the building looked spooky as green light emanated from the big windows of the pool. It wasn’t long before I was allowed to enter the building by the Haunted Evenings staff. Sadly my favourite member of the team Nat wasn’t on this investigation.
At 8:30pm we began on a guided history tour through the maze of tunnels and rooms running under the pool. The pool itself was built in 1933 and its use was seasonal; between spring and summer the pool held lessons, general swimming and competitions; such competitions saw BBC televised coverage of Great Britain vs West Germany as well as France vs Sweden come to the pool. In October the pool was drained and went under extensive work every year to build a sprung dance floor over the pool for dancing as well as concerts. The boarding over of the pool lasted all the way to the 1970s. When the 60s came so did rock n roll, bringing bands such as The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks. It wasn’t just rock n roll that came to the building but also comedy legends such as Tommy Cooper. Whilst rock n roll shone on the stage, a lot of the original rooms were converted into VIP lounges and bars and dressing rooms. 1965 saw the addition of a smaller pool so swimming could continue all year round and former slipper baths were transformed into a sauna and health spa. However not all the buildings history is rock n roll and fame. In WW2 because of the buildings reinforced concrete structure it became a civil defence base and the basement below the pool became a community air raid shelter. Carved into the walls of the air raid shelter is graffiti left by perhaps soldiers or the general public of aircraft and many other things. Concerts didn’t stop while the war was on but were encouraged for the morale of the community. As well as the air raid shelter, a morgue was built for all those that fell victim to the bombs. However, the land itself is much older and when the pool was first built they found a plague pit with many bodies in it. To this day the bodies remain forever encased below the concrete as they continued to build over the top; had they known what this would disturb they would have probably thought twice about doing so!
The moment I walked down the stairs for first time into the basement- and I tell you now I had never ever felt anything like this- an immensely heavy presence and energy came over me and I felt like I was being pushed into the ground by a great weight on my shoulders. I felt almost sick on the inside and really heavy in my heart and gut. It’s so hard to truly describe how I felt but I certainly won’t forget that crushing feeling that made it feel hard to breathe. I was scared. Whatever it was I feel was nothing nice and did not want me there. The feeling lasted for the entirety of the first room and soon as I was out of there I could feel the atmosphere lift, I felt I could breathe again which leads me to think that it was paranormal. I started to take photos as we were guided round the large basement tunnels, on a lot of photos I caught lots of orbs but I am certain these are dust particles as it was so dusty down there, but as I went through my photos a couple attracted my attention in a big way, one even more so than the others. I cannot explain what I captured, all I ca n say is I have no idea what it was so will leave it for you to decide? As we went on further I learnt of quite a regular sighting of a man in a boiler suit with red hair that wanders round the basement. People who go down to the basement, especially contractors, have seen this figure and have even had full blown conversations with him. He likes to say hello to workmen. It’s not until they speak to a member of staff they realise he is a spirit. Other spirits we learnt of on the walk around are of a sweet little child called Emily who lived on the land long before Smethwick Baths was built, she just likes to come and say hello and is frequently seen; Another spirit resides in a small room at the far end of the basement. Not a nice spirit either! He hates women and once a few years ago a group of paranormal investigators, who were all female, went in that room at started to taunt him, despite being warned against doing so. They accused him of having a small penis much to their regret. The table in the room with them was all of a sudden lifted off the ground and thrown at the wall. They left and never came back. The next spirit was in the air raid shelter but had nothing to do with it. The air raid shelter was unfortunately built on top of the plague pit and in one corner when the lights have been switched off a boy has been seen standing there covered in a white powder; the moment you turn the lights back on he fades away before your very eyes. People reckon that the white powder on him is lime powder as it was used to prevent the spreading of disease. In the morgue the spirit of a man with a great big beard has been seen just standing in a corner still as a statue and anyone who has dared to stand in the body shoot for a long period of time has felt sick. Even a spirit of a horse, dog and cat has been seen which is incredible! There’s even a ladies bathroom that’s haunted by a female member of the RAF from WW2. She was found dead in there with a packet of pills next to her. The next story will make you laugh. One time a sceptic was taken on a tour of the basement by the very same member of staff we were with and he all of sudden dropped to his knees in pain. Andy the member of staff went over to him and asked him if he was alright. The man said ‘I’ve just been punched in the stomach.’ They left the basement and went outside and a bit later came back. The same thing happened but this time he said his mouth was bleeding. They left and didn’t return to the basement. The poor man went to the toilet to relieve himself shaking like a leaf. Now, the toilets were the old ones with the cistern above your head with the old chain handle and when he pulled the chain it made a very loud bang. Already scared half to death, he bolted out the toilet with his trousers and pants round his ankles and went straight outside and got in his car and went home.
The basement was riddled with holes in walls revealing sneak peaks of what’s beyond; everywhere I walked, I did so with 360 degree vision encase of seeing something, as well as trying to prevent myself from falling in the drainage ditches at the edge of the tunnels or hitting my head on lots of low piping. One part of the basement turned into a very small, dark, tunnel. Pipes ran across the floor, along the walls as well as the ceiling so you had to watch your step. Luckily the basement layout was quite straight forward always bringing you back to where you began, so at least I wouldn’t get lost.
Back at main base I looked through my photos before heading off for the first vigil. This was when I found the weird photo and it wasn’t just me who couldn’t say what it was, all the staff were at a loss to say what was in the photo. I did see another amazing photo of a man with a dog shown to me by a women who had investigated Drakelow Tunnels in Birmingham recently. Unbelievable! For me that’s the holy grail of evidence. What I hope to see myself and capture and show to the world as proof of the afterlife.
The first vigil took us to the back of the stage area into a small room where a Ouija board was set up. We tried everything to get some movement on the board but there was just no activity. This was the first time ever I had no contact on a board. I was still sure something was in the room affecting us even if it didn’t want to use the board. A girl called Jess stood next to me had gone ice cold when the rest of us were quite warm. We all touched her to feel how cold she was; it made no sense for her to be ice cold and for us not to be. As an experiment went asked her to move from to the other side of the table and then I went and stood where she had stood. After only a very short time I felt a definite change in temperature and it was mainly focused around my left hand. What as most unusual was that it kept coming and going; one moment my hand would be quite cold and the next warm. After a while we all began to feel something was walking up and down in the corridor outside and may have even heard footsteps going down the stairs just round the corner from us. We had a look around to see if someone was walking around in the corridor even though we knew no one should be. There wasn’t anyone and we went back to the room. We had closed the door this time so it was pitch black except for a sliver of light under the door. On several occasions it looked as if a shadow was passing back and forth past the door and we all saw it which makes it more compelling. We checked time and time again and we saw nothing when we opened the door. When we came back into room we left the door slightly open. Soon we all began to see movement around the edge of the room and at the same time I was starting to feel angry, to want to shout which wasn’t myself. I shouted quite aggressively for activity of the board challenging the spirit and still nothing happened. Normally I would never want to get aggressive and taunt a spirit as it can cause bag things to happen like attachment. I was starting to question to myself if there was a lot of angry energy trapped within the building slowly seeping out too those who are looking to find it. The rest of the time I spent in that room I felt angry. What I saw next was quite amazing. In the back corner of the room I saw a shadow figure lunge forward from the corner towards the table and back again within the space of a second. Even though the spirits didn’t like the Ouija board we still had a lot on the first vigil.
After a quick refresh we set off for the next vigil. This time we went to the front of the building to investigate the sauna and ladies bathroom. I have to say that the 1930s décor in the front of the building was beautiful; white tiled floors and walls with green lines around the edge of each tile; the railings on the stairs and door handles so typical of art deco. Inside the sauna was very warm and muggy, smelt quite a bit too. Around the room we set up a couple of REM Pods at each end of the room and in one of the steam rooms we put a VIBE Pod inside. We conducted a human pendulum in the sauna and the response we got was amazing! Jess again was affected straight away. To conduct a human pendulum you all stand in a circle holding hands to boost the energy and call out to the spirits to come through, the centre of the circle is the portal of energy. Usually the spirit will communicate through you by pushing you back and forth in response to yes and no questions. Jess was the first to be pushed and she moved to the centre of the circle to try and channel that spirit to come and talk. She had several spirits come through at the same time, though it was none from the actual building. These were all personal connections she was making so it was hard to say anything about it, but from the questions asked I guessed something bad had happened in her family. One spirit came through called Laura and she knew her but refused to talk to her. What was really compelling was the fact at the same time we had recorded an EVP confirming it was Laura. After a while Jess was starting to show real emotion so we got her out the circle and asked for another spirit to come through. This time it was me who got pushed. I stood in the circle and nothing could have prepared me for what happened. At first a spirit from the building came through to say hello then left. The next spirit that came through had a message for me. I soon realised why. My grandpa Derek Liquorish had come to say hello and give me a message for Grandma to let her know he is ok. Now I know your probably thinking how I knew it was him? Well, as well as confirming it by asking him to confirm it by either moving me back or forwards, I could feel it was him on the inside. It’s an unexplainable feeling, but you just feel it in your heart, gut and mind. What was even more compelling just before I felt him come through was the REM Pod behind us in the passageway going off as if he was just walking in to the circle. As well as the REM Pod going off the VIBE Pod continuously kept on triggering. I spoke to my grandpa for a long time and as his spirit left the REM pod went off again almost as if he walked past it to leave. Having experienced that I was quietly emotional to myself and shocked, but at the same time amazed. For such strong responses takes a lot of energy. Briefly another spirit came through straight after this but I had to shake this one off. It was the same spirit Jess refused to talk to called Laura. I got the feeling Laura was here to only cause trouble and I certainly didn’t want her coming through me.
We moved from this room for the last part of the second vigil to the ladies bathroom upstairs. I never thought in all my time investigating and years to come I would be tempting to contact spirits in a ladies bathroom. It was quite snug to get us all in the bathroom I must admit. I was joking about sitting on the bog. We tried dowsing rods in the bathroom and yes we did get some activity but to give anything conclusive from them would be very hard with everybody’s rods giving different answers. Though whilst in the bathroom we heard a loud scraping sound which sounded like a loud creaking fire exit door being pushed open with force. However no one else was in the part of the building so it couldn’t of been one of them. We never did find the source of it but I was sure it was a door.
The third vigil took us back down to the basement. What I had felt earlier in the first room I now felt nothing which to me confirms that something was there. Down here we got freedom of the whole basement to explore by ourselves with some equipment. I grabbed myself an EVP recorder and K2 metre and headed away from the rest of the noisy lot to try and get some activity. Eventually a couple joined up with me called Stella and Frank and we conducted experiments in every inch of the basement. I captured a lot of dust particles taking photos, but one I caught looked really different just below Franks arm; almost blue in colour. It wasn’t till a little bit later that finally walking around we hit a big energy source and our K2 metres went crazy nearly illuminating every light. We checked for natural explanations but as far as we could tell there wasn’t any. After a couple of seconds the energy reading went and we couldn’t find it again. So whatever it was could move and it’s only now I realise that the height of the energy reading was at about child height. Was it the spirit of Emily saying hello? We all gathered back together in the air raid shelter to conduct an experiment. In the dark we sounded an air raid siren charging the atmosphere with a lot of energy. Whilst it sounded I was sure I could hear whispering and shuffling outside the room and I know for fact it wasn’t any of us as we were all sat down and completely silent. We turned the siren off after a short while and the equipment in the room, especially the K2 metres started to go crazy. We placed two of them on the floor so we all could see them. It is very rare when all the lights up and both k2 metres were fully lit up. We were able to talk to the spirit through them by asking it to light them up for yes. It was most compelling that the spirit that came through was in fact an air raid warden. However he was angry with us telling us we shouldn’t be here and were disrupting his duties. Does this mean he knew it wasn’t a real air raid? Was the war still going on for him? He was very responsive but eventually the activity on the k2 metres stopped and we got no more response from him presuming he had left. For the final part of the night in the air raid shelter we stood in a circle and rubbed our hands together as past as we can to build some energy. This experiment was incredible. A spirit came through and we asked it to affect us by raising our arms. I willed it so hard to do so and eventually but very slowly my arms began to rise from my side. They lifted to almost 90 degrees to my body. Only one other person’s arms moved and it was odd that it was him who stood next to me who should be manipulated. Did it mean the spirit stood by me and him and chose deliberately to affect us? I hope so I have to say. Whilst my arms were raised I felt clearly three times a sharp poke of a finger on my left shoulder. There was no mistaking it. It didn’t scare me as such as it’s not the first time I have been touched. I just think of it as a spirit wanting to let me know it was there. We asked the spirit to lower our arms and straight away both our arms fell down to our sides as if they had just be let go by unseen hands. This brought the night to an end as it was three in the morning. Although I had felt quite threatened here it had been one of the best investigations I had done and I would come back here. I have noticed with the more ghost hunts I do the more activity I get and I start to feel more as if my senses grow stronger. It would be interesting to come back here next year and see what else lurks in the dark. Hopefully now that I have proven myself to be a good ghost hunter that I might one day get asked to work for the team as a professional investigator. Think I will look into seeing if they do any professional ghost hunting nights and join the team members. That would be amazing. For now though I journey to York in December to see what lurks in the very ancient dungeons.
Phantom Echoes Paranormal 
Leave a comment