Sulgrave Manor has a fascinating history. It was built in 1539 for a Tudor wool merchant, Laurence Washington. He was an ancestor of George Washington, the president of America. For a couple of centuries, it was in the Washington family. It was owned by the Hodges family but was soon lost as their money was bled, and they were forced to sell the land. Then, the civil war resulted in the property becoming derelict as the owners were turfed out on rumours that they were hiding royalty. There is an attic room with a glass panel to show you the space where they believe Elizabeth the First hid. Until the 1900s, the property remained derelict, inhabited only by farmers but never restored. Only in 1912 was a plan made to renovate the property, and they did so for the next two years. It was part of a plan to show the strength between the British and the Americans. However, this plan backfired as later, in 1914, the First World War started and all work on the property ground to halt. Fortunately, it is owned by the National Trust to this day, which has lovingly preserved it.
The investigation began with the usual walk around to familiarise ourselves with the building before we turned the lights out. The house felt quiet and calm as we walked around, except for one area. As soon as we walked into the attic room, a massive headache seared across my frontal lobe, and I felt very dizzy and a little sick. This was definitely not a good thing to feel. Whether it be residual energy or a spirit, something terrible had happened in this room. The moment I left the room, it disappeared. I noted this as a spot to return to later to try and find out why it felt like it did.
The first vigil was in the dining room, conducting a watch-and-wait experiment. Straight away, the cat ball was flashing next to me. We reset it, and still, it continued to flash. There was no natural explanation for it to do this. It fell quiet after a short while, but then the TAD on the table flashed blue, which meant it was going colder. To see if we could build upon the energy in the room, we tried a group call out to see if the spirits reacted more to a particular voice speaking to them. We almost got around the entire group with no reaction until the second to last girl asked if the spirit could make the TAD change colour. It turned straight to red. That was impressive. We had no more activity in this area, so we moved to the next area.
We conducted table tipping next in the kitchen. It took a little persuasion to get the table to move, but slowly, the table started to twist on the flagstone floor. It started to rise onto two legs and then one as it picked up speed. Once we had made contact, we tried to find out who we were talking to by asking the spirit to spin the table clockwise for yes and anticlockwise for no. Through this method, we discovered he was a young boy who worked in the kitchens. He didn’t like the job but didn’t have a choice as he served under his family. I tried to find out his age, but the table didn’t move in any direction to questions about age. This makes me think that he came from a time when many people were never taught how to read and write. After this, the table started to glide across the floor on the uneven flagstone floor, but with how it glided, it seemed like it was actually not touching the floor! If it had been touching the floor, we would have felt it bang and bump against the slight differences in the stones on the floor. What a great point to finish the table tipping on.
We were up in the attic next doing an Ouija board. The first thing I noticed was that the energy had completely changed from how it had felt earlier; the room felt light, calm, and empty. The one thing this did was confirm that it had not just been residual energy in here earlier. If it was residual energy, it would have still been there. I got straight on with the Ouija board hoping to contact whoever had been there. Unfortunately, no activity came through on the Ouija board. Whilst the rest of the group left this area, I remained to try further experiments. I designed a watch-and-wait experiment with cat balls, K2 metre, REM POD, and laser pen. Then a few others came to join me, which helped increase the energy in the room. At first, there was no response, but then one of the women noticed the K2 metre flashing in response to us asking the spirit to make something flash. It continued to flash all the way to red. I don’t believe this was the same spirit as earlier, as the energy was completely different.
To see if the spirit could do anything else, I asked them to walk in front of the green dots of my laser pen mapped out on the wall. There wasn’t a response immediately, but we all noticed after a little wait that the green dots dipped momentarily. Was this a response? The only other thing to note that happened in this room was a cold blast of air being blown directly in one of the women’s faces.
With this team I had formed, we worked our way down the stairs to the living room. This was an area I had felt drawn towards earlier. Unfortunately, there was no activity here. I still had one card up my sleeve and took the group to the kitchen. I set up a watch-and-wait experiment again. The K2 was active immediately, gently flickering away on the table in the centre of the room. There are no electrics in the kitchen to cause it to flash. The woman who felt like something had blown in her face in the attic felt the same again in the kitchen. It makes me wonder if she had an attachment. I was then distracted as I saw a mist-like form appear about an inch above the floor, moving quickly across the floor and disappearing. It happened within a couple of seconds, but there was no denying what I saw. I also wasn’t the only one who saw it.
With the activity becoming still in this area, we re-joined the rest of the group in the basement for some glass divination. Unfortunately, the glass did not move the entire time. But this part of this investigation was still worth mentioning as we all heard a massive bang from upstairs in the kitchen, which sounded like heavy furniture being knocked over. As all of us were in the basement, we can confirm that nobody was up there. Were the spirits annoyed with us? We did one more watch-and-wait experiment upstairs after this. This resulted in just a couple of flashes from one of the cat balls, so we closed the investigation for the night.
Sulgrave Manor is a wonderful place, and even though the activity had been tranquil that night, it showed a glimpse into why many people are scared away from the property in the daytime, with poltergeist activity happening and very oppressive energies hiding within the walls. The highlight of the investigation was seeing the mist shape form and run across the floor like a mouse or something. What would be interesting is to compare notes with others who have investigated the location before to see if there are any similarities to my investigation and to build a picture of how the activity is there. If you enjoy reading my investigation reports and looking at my website, get in touch and tell me what you like or what you would like to see more of.
Phantom Echoes Paranormal 
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