When I started to research 39 De Grey Street prior to the investigation, I found that there is not much spoken about its history. The few accounts I did find say at some point in was a funeral parlour, then others say it had been used to hang people. None of these are backed up with dates or any names connected to the property. All we know of its history is that it operates as a hostel today. From visiting the property, I would guess it was built around the 1940s. The row of terrace houses looks very similar to other terraced streets, which I know are houses from the 1940s.
The history is glossed over by the paranormal activity that has spread like wildfire over YouTube and the rest of the internet. You only have to type in 39 De Grey Street, and a tone of videos and paranormal websites will pop up. Reading about the activity others wrote about made me a little apprehensive. I have investigated 30 East Drive, which is famous for its sinister hauntings, and yet the written accounts of people being sick, furniture being thrown, and an intense feeling of hatred, amongst so many other things at 39 De Grey Street, made 30 East Drive seem almost friendly. This brings me to my reasoning for wanting to investigate the property: one, to try to document these happenings, and two, to try to get some evidence on the history of the property and land.
We began the investigation of 39 De Grey Street upstairs in the back rooms with a watch-and-wait experiment. For a while, we stood in the pitch black, just listening to the sounds of the houses. We could hear the gentle drip of raindrops outside and the occasional creak from the wooden floorboards; nothing out of the ordinary. So we set up some equipment, placing cat balls around the room, a music box in the hallway, and a REM POD in the next room. We began to call out. The first bit of activity did not take long to come when one of the cat balls started to flash. But after this, we experienced nothing for a long while.
We tried the next room, where we had set the REM POD up, to see if any spirits were residing there. Not long after we had settled, the music box momentarily was triggered in the hallway, but that was the only time it triggered. We called out for the spirit to bang on things. There were a couple of times we all heard some bangs in response coming from the room. At one point, it sounded like the chest behind me was shoved, and I can vouch nobody was leaning against it. After this, one person started to call the spirit by a nickname he had given the spirit from previous experiences in the house. He called the spirit Mr Grumpy. Shortly after this, the person who had called him that nickname started to feel feverishly hot and sick. Was this a retaliation from the spirit to the nickname?
We all went and had a break after this to ensure he was alright before continuing. After the break, we headed back upstairs to try a different method of communication to see if that was any more effective. In the back room, we tried a table tipping session. It started as a gentle movement on the table, but slowly, the movement became stronger as the energy built up. Before long, the table was lifted with force onto two legs. You could feel the strength in the lift. We could never discover who was lifting the table, but I could feel a male presence. I did try to get the table to rock to yes and no questions, but it didn’t want to answer any questions.
After we had finished the table tipping, we headed back downstairs into the living room to do an Ouija board. As soon as we started, the planchette moved easily across the board. The first spirit we got little from, but then we felt a change in the energy and realised a new spirit had come to talk to us. We asked the spirit to spell their name. The planchette spelt the name Rose. Before the investigation, we conducted a pendulum session to try to find some answers to help us with the investigation. Nic had come into contact with a spirit called Rose then. So we then asked the spirit if they were connected to anyone. She was, and the planchette moved towards Nic. This didn’t surprise Nic, but she kept it quiet about exactly who Rose was. Rose told us everything about herself and her husband William.
After the investigation, Nic gave me the documents from Ancestry that revealed exactly who Rose was. Rose was a distant relative of Nic. Rose’s full name is Rose Thompson. She was born on the 7th of March 1877 in Birmingham and lived in Aston, Warwickshire from 1891. Rose died in 1946. In life, she had three husbands. William Srawley, born in 1866, was her second husband. This was the William mentioned on the Ouija board. In life, William had made his success as a professional singer. William died in 1943. At one point, the Ouija board had spelt hook hand. We did not know what this meant until we found out William had also served in the merchant navy. He had fallen from the ship rigging and lost his hand, hence the hook hand. All this is backed up on Ancestry.
After this, we ventured to the places we were interested in investigating. I wanted to try out the attic. Not that it was known then, but I was about to capture a ghostly cry on my EVP Recorder. In truth, I don’t know how many spirits there were or how much of what was said was true on the Ouija board we did in the attic; the planchette often slid between random letters and never truly answered any questions. So on this occasion, I can’t give much detail to what we received. They claimed that they were Rose, but the movement of the planchette felt very different. We did not continue this for long and closed it down.
EVP recording in link: https://youtube.com/shorts/RH-beJCw43E?feature=share
For the last session, we all sat in the room, now called the mirror room, to try the estis method. Other than the white noise from the radio, the house was silent. Nothing responded to our asking for knocks, whistles, and other things. I can normally sense when a spirit is in a room, but when I sat there, the room felt empty. Nothing coming through the radio also confirmed to me that the energy had fallen, so we ended the night’s investigation there.
This investigation had not been as I had expected from written accounts. I went into this investigation expecting some of the most intense activity I have ever seen. There is a chance it might have just been a quiet night. For it to be claimed as one of the most haunted houses in the UK, there surely have to have been some significant happenings going on. However, based on how calm and still the house felt compared to how 30 East Drive felt, I don’t believe the activity is demonic. My theory is that a former owner does not like anyone who attempts to live in his house. I can back this up with one written account that said not much happened until I said I could live in this house. The anger of others being in what the spirit still thinks is his house is probably the fuel that causes this location to cause a lot of fear. Shall I return? Yes, I think I will. I need to prove my theory.
Phantom Echoes Paranormal 
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