Beaumanor Hall is somewhere I have investigated several times before, and each time, it has delivered new activity. This was the reason for my choosing the location to try a new formula for the future of Phantom Echoes. I set out to find if I could turn those without as much experience with the paranormal into professional investigators with an action-packed night of investigating.
In previous investigations, I have mentioned briefly the recent history of the hall (1800s-1900s), but the history of known activity on the land is as old as the Norman conquest (1066) when the land was owned by Hugh d’Aranches, 1st Earl of Chester. In the time since then, the land has seen three halls. The Dispenser family built the first in the 13th century, turning the estate into a deer park and hunting lodge. The land remained in the Dispenser family until 1327 when Henry de Beaumont bought the land. He built a new house called Beau Manor in 1330 and also built the local church in 1338. For two hundred and sixty-five years, Beau Manor house remained until 1595. The house was then replaced for Sir William Herrick, a government official under Elizabeth 1st. It was then altered again in 1610 and stood until 1725 when it was altered into a smaller house. That house was destroyed in 1842, and the present hall we know today was built. When you have that much superimposed energy-soaked history on one piece of land, the energy can be very turbulent, bleeding through the layers, which is what makes Beaumanor Hall so haunted.
Before the investigation had even begun, I had an experience in the main hall standing on the middle landing. Looking up at the top of the landing, opposite the large stained glassed window, I saw a mist form and float briefly along the landing at about the head height of a quite tall adult. Fortunately, I was looking right in that direction when it happened. Was this a sign of things to come?
Once everyone had arrived, we had a quick tour of the building and got cracking with the investigation in the King Richard room. It’s known as the King Richard room because it once housed King Richard’s bed. King Richard never actually came to the estate. It now has the letter R painted on the stained glass window in memory of King Richard. Having set up all the trigger objects, we waited quietly to see if we could hear any sounds. It was hard to say what they were or where they came from, but after a while, I was certain I could hear very gentle bangs coming from somewhere. I couldn’t say if it was paranormal or not. It was not enough to go on. It was still for a long while, no matter how I tried to call out. Suddenly, the cat ball closest to the door flashed. We tried to debunk it by shifting our feet as the floorboards were wood. We could not set it off. It was followed by a thunderous creak/ bang next to the fireplace in the room. It was a hard one to decide if the bang was paranormal. Whilst we were still, we did not hear the house creaking, which made me curious. In the entire investigation, it was the only time we heard a loud creak like that. It can be argued that wood can split and make a piercing creak at any given moment. I will let you make up your own minds on the matter. Nothing else happened after that, so we headed into the cellar.
At the far end of the cellar, we conducted an Ouija board. Whilst we called out for the planchette to move, we all heard a few almost metallic-sounding clicks, almost like someone flicking a small stone or a bottle cap. In the dark, we could not find any natural cause, such as a drip of water on one of the surfaces. The movement on the planchette came very briefly when it did, spelling the name Amber and telling us she was six years old. But after that, we felt the energy leave, and the planchette became stationary. As a different experiment, we moved the table into the corridor based on my feeling of the spirits watching from the corridors but not coming forward.
In the corridor, we tried our hands at a table tipping session to try and get the spirits to walk us to the most active area in the cellar on that night. However, the table didn’t move. What did happen, though, was rather surprising and caught us all a little off guard. First, coming from the dark, empty room behind us was a massive bang, which sounded like something heavy being dropped, and then the music box pointing in the direction of that room started to play, which indicated the spirit that had just made that loud crashing sound had come to the doorway and was watching us around the table. Was the spirit annoyed with us for disturbing the peace? With no more activity in this area, we headed back to the base room for a short break.
After the break, we returned to the cellars to conduct the experiment I was most looking forward to. We were in for some great activity! The idea behind this experiment came from the success of a very similar experiment I conducted at Gresley Old Hall, where I played Victorian Christmas Carols and captured singing in response. As Beaumanor Hall has an air raid shelter and significant WW2 history, I played a recording of a WW2 air raid siren, followed by some popular music from the 1940s to try and recreate the energy of that time. I believe it was a success; as clear as day from the far end of the air raid shelter, we all heard very clearly a woman’s voice. We could also hear knocking coming from somewhere, but we couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. One of the guests also developed a strong headache that had only come on after playing the air raid siren. When she moved to sit somewhere else, the headache went away. Believing we had drawn some spirits into the room, we tried a hand at table tipping again. This time we were successful, and soon, the table was spinning on one leg in the centre of the air raid shelter. But when we tried to get the spirits to walk the table, the table fell still and didn’t move again, indicating that the spirit had left. I finished the experiment by playing a recording of the WW2 all-clear siren, which sounded at the end of We headed up to the attic now. Unfortunately, the upper attic was closed off due to restoration work going on. So, in the lower attic, we set up a line of balls along the floor and different trigger objects in other rooms. The first thing I noticed was the change in feelings as we walked between the different rooms. Room 72 was the only room in the entire building that made me feel a little uncomfortable. There was no logical explanation for it other than the feeling of a cumbersome energy within the room. However, no activity was captured in this room. The first thing happened in the next room. I had placed my REM POD in there by itself with a fresh battery in it. Until then, it had been quiet all night; the temperature sensor was the first to start sounding. I went and checked it, and the light was red, indicating it was getting much warmer around the device. I returned to the other room to see what would happen, and the alarm got much louder; the green light on top of the REM POD started to flash and alarm, indicating that something was touching the metal aerial. To try and capture what was happening in the other rooms, I split everyone into separate rooms. Should the experiment work, it could also possibly indicate who the spirits were drawn towards. Once everyone was in their separate room, I began to call out for the spirits to interact with any of us. Perhaps it was because I was most vocal that the K2 metre in my room started to flash the orange light shortly after. I checked to see if the others had experienced anything in their rooms. Finding out they hadn’t, I called to them to join my room, where the K2 was still flashing. I really wanted to get some hard evidence we could later back up with the history books, so I conducted an Ouija board with the group. The activity on the Ouija board was almost instant. That alone could back up the activity on the K2, as well as the quiet knocks and what sounded like whispers to say we had a spirit with us in the room. The whispering didn’t stop either; whilst undertaking the Ouija board, a few of us thought we could hear what could only be described as a hushed conversation going on outside the room. There was no one there. The spirit that spoke to us through the board claimed to be connected to me, but after questioning the spirit to find out their name, I am not so sure. The response we got asking for their name was BMPM. We weren’t able to expand upon these letters, so unfortunately, we didn’t learn anything on this occasion. After this, the planchette stopped moving, so we closed the Ouija board.
Orb photo captured in the lower attic
The opportunity came to me when speaking with the owners to investigate the bar area, which I had been told had never been investigated before. It had been avoided because of a loud pump behind the bar, but now that was gone. I was excited to see what we would find in the bar. Given that the bar lounge had good seating, we decided a Victorian séance would be a nice experiment to try and tune in more with our senses to see if the spirits preferred to communicate that way. We may have heard footsteps as soft as a whisper on the carpet outside, but other than that, we felt very little in this room, and as a result, we experienced no particular significant activity.
To finish off the investigation, we headed back down to the cellars to the kitchen on the far side of the cellars. The cellars go on and on, threatening to lose those who brave the dark passages. We could have spent the entire five-hour investigation investigating them alone. As we had been hearing quite a few voices throughout the night, I decided we should do an EVP session. Sadly, no voices were captured. We tried one last time with the Ouija board to try and get some names and dates. We discovered a spirit related to the Herrick family and was there in 1831, which was the previous hall to the current one. She worked in the kitchens. I was curious to know if the cellars were original and if the new halls had just been built on top of them. I asked the spirit that exact question, and the spirit said yes. That was all we had time for as the investigation had come to an end.
I can say that Beaumanor Hall has many spirits from my experiences there. And tonight was no exception. Although quiet at first, hearing those voices and the sounds of what sounded like things being thrown made for an exciting investigation. Hearing the voices was certainly a new experience at Beaumanor Hall. Had I had the chance to turn back the clock and do the investigation again, I would have perhaps switched a few of the experiments around; in the bar lounge, I perhaps would have tried an Ouija board instead, and in the vast cellars, spread us more out amongst the many rooms to try and locate the hiding spirits. For this reason and wanting to experience the activity in the upper attic that is said to house some of the most intense activity in the whole of Beaumanor Hall, I find myself drawn back to investigate again. Hopefully, then, the activity will deliver its full potential I know it to have.
Phantom Echoes Paranormal 
Leave a comment