The search for the answers to be found in a hidden corner of Essex - the ghosts that just won't rest.

The sight that greeted us on our very first visit.

Ever since Laura and I first started working together, there has been one location that has remained a constant, even as we found ourselves relocating several times around southern and eastern England over the past ten years.

An ancient place of Christian worship, located deep in rural Essex, insular and isolated and, as far as we could tell from our initial visit, of little historical significance - although further research could reveal otherwise.

As any visitor will attest, as they often have, it cannot be denied that the location has a certain atmosphere, one that Laura herself is not to fond of, so we have always found ourselves being drawn back to the church, time and time again.

Needless to say, with so much time spent at the site, we hold a large set of notes on file, that have produced numerous lines of research that we have still yet to investigate fully.

However, we thought that it was time to share with you some of our experiences and discoveries that we have made there, over the last decade or so.

Background

The church building itself dates back several hundred years, of a very distinctive design and, without intending to be unkind in anyway, it certainly looks and smells its age. Over the centuries there have been several major alterations made to the current building, in more recent times, being mostly been enforced due to damage and decay.

The church was effectively abandoned to the elements some 50 years or so ago and now classified as redundant.

The building was only saved following a series of fortunate decisions that initially commenced with a demolition order in the 1970’s, leading ultimately to the substantial conservation work undertaken to halt the decay and underpin the church, that was completed a couple of years ago.

This is how the visitor will find the church today.

Even now, the church is little known outside of the local community and it still retains its sense of isolation.

We first came across the location whilst searching for new research projects in the East Anglian area, where we were both based at the time.

We’d found several reports made by various people mentioning the high number of EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) that were allegedly being recorded there, but little else of note concerning the history of the church, which still remains elusive, even now.

However, this was still enough to pique our interest, so notes were made and the site added to our ever growing list of future locations that we intended to visit.

Thinking nothing more of the matter, we then turned our attention to other areas of interest and simply forgot about the church.

Several months later, during a quiet period, we went back over our notes and decided that it was finally time to undertake a field trip to see if there was any substance to the reports that we’d read.

The start of our relationship with the building had begun.

The visits commence

Our initial visit took place on a warm summer’s evening, the air filled with the rich evening chorus of blackbirds ringing out to accompany the setting sun, greeting us as we left the car.

Despite this pleasant welcome, Laura immediately commented that, to her, the location had a foreboding atmosphere and I noted that she appeared apprehensive as we entered the church grounds.

The entrance to the church stood in front of us, at the foot of the Tudor Bell Tower, almost obstructed by a grave memorial, which in itself we found unusual.

We soon realised that the doorway was a more recent addition to tower, the main entrance being located on the North side of the building, via an impressive 17^th Century wooden porch, that complemented the tower.

The present view, looking up from inside the Tudor Belfry.

To our disappointment, we found that both entrances to the church were securely locked, upon safety grounds as we later found out, due to the desperate condition of the building and the imminent risk of collapse.

Indeed, apart from an annual service, the church had been closed off to the general public for a number of years, until the conservation project was undertaken and completed.

The restoration itself was completed a couple of years ago and thankfully saved the church from demolition, with the added bonus that the public were now able to view the interior of the building, but we digress....

Finding ourselves restricted to the small churchyard, we decided to walk around the structure and examine the building and explore the surrounding churchyard to see what was revealed.

We found that the land surrounding the church was very overgrown, with trees encroaching right up to the building itself in places, adding to the atmosphere of the location.

At the time we recall thinking that someone would need to act quickly, as nature was clearly looking to reclaim what was originally hers with a vengeance.

Thankfully, as events transpired, action was taken.

Darkness falls – a secret to uncover?

As we strained our eyes and looked as far as we could into the wooded areas, we could make out old gravestones dotted amongst the trees – a particularly eerie sight as the sun finally set.

General maintenance of the graveyard had evidently long stopped here, although the remaining grassed areas had clearly been recently mown.

We continued our exploration and, Laura remained unsettled.

In addition to some names and dates, Laura also felt that the location was being used for occult purposes and not in a particularly nice way. This use was both historical and, something that was continuing to the present day.

A quick search of the surrounding area thankfully found no psychical evidence of such activity.

There was one particular monument that Laura was drawn to and which continues to be so to this very day, a very large slab of (type of stone), surrounded by a set low, decorative cast iron rails, protecting the monument.

The memorial was engraved with the name of family members covering a number of years, even some that had left these shores and commenced a new life in a distant country.

However, despite being in a relatively good condition for its age, it was covered in ivy and other fauna and its inscriptions proved difficult to read.

Thankfully, this memorial has also been restored and we now have a complete copy of the inscriptions.

The memorial, now restored, helpfully providing us with a lot of information.

An interesting back story surrounds the family commemorated by the memorial, although we have still to undertake any further research relating to this.

Laura felt that the whole location held a secret and that the memorial, or the people listed there, were the key to unlocking the whole thing. The memorial indicates that most of the family emigrated in mid 19th Century, which obviously will form one line of our ongoing research.

The EVPs

Over subsequent visits, various EVP’s were recorded and the ominous feeling that Laura was getting from the location intensified, to the extent that Laura was eventually reluctant to visit the church, even in day light hours.

Laura has never been keen on visiting the church......

It is worth mentioning that, despite continually searching, we’ve thankfully never ever found any evidence of ‘occult’ activity to this present day. Although, in spite of the lack of physical evidence, Laura is absolutely certain that the location is still being used for such purposes.

The EVPs that we record at the location are of varying quality, but at a more frequent level than we experience elsewhere. Helpfully, they are usually in direct response or in context to the conversation that we were having at the time.

We’ve also recorded the same EVP on two separate audio recorders that were recording at the same time, one of the few times that this has occurred for us.

Of greater interest to us, looking back through our notes, Laura has been receiving the name ‘James’ during the majority of our visits, although we weren’t really conscious of this due to the time that had passed between our visits and this has only come to light recently when looking back through our notes.

Curiously, during a recent visit, Laura once again picked up upon ‘James’, only this time our audio recording also picked up another female voice whispering ‘James’ immediately following Laura asking if James was with us at the time.

(As always with EVP, best listened to via headphones)

‘James’ is undoubtedly a person of interest for us in our research, although we have made no progress as to his identification to date.

The restoration...... and a new chapter begins

The restoration of the church itself a couple of years ago affords visitors access to the interior, after many years of being sealed off.

In 2015, having recently moved back to the area, we visited for the first time since the restoration work had been completed and finally found ourselves stood inside the building at last.

Opening the door for the first time, we found ourselves inside a church that looked far bigger inside that it did from the outside, causing us to look around quickly for any Time Lords in the vicinity.

Breathing in the musty air, we found bare plaster walls, compete with sections of 300 year old murals and even older wall paintings.

The pews and pulpit, which, at the time, we took to be of a similar age to the murals, but have subsequently found out had been salvaged from another church locally, were in excellent condition.

The floor mainly consisted of black and red clay tiles, straight onto an earthen floor, that looked to date from Victorian times, but we could be wrong.

Almost immediately, upon entering the building, perhaps unsurprisingly, Laura started to pick up people’s names and dates, together with what she described as a ‘young boy’, around 11 or 12 years old, who was holding her hand.

This was not the first time that she had experienced this at the site, although she was unsure as to whether this was the same ‘boy’ that has been attracted to here on previous visits.

She also felt that there was a room or area beneath the church floor itself, where young children were secretly taken and ‘punished’.

At one point Laura received this impression so strongly, she knelt down to examine the floor for any signs of an entrance to the room below.

Was there a room beneath the floor here. Research has indicated that there isn't, but
was something here in the past?

 When I later pressed Laura for an explanation, she told me that all this activity was linked to a person (or persons) that was connected to the large monument outside (the one that she’d always been drawn to and mentioned previously) – if we could identify the person(s), we would get closer to what had happened and, perhaps, the truth behind it all.

More Research and another visit

Over the following months, I made some discrete enquiries and undertook further research, but could find no mention of an underground room or area - although, tantalisingly, I did find references as to the reason why the church building had been in danger of collapsing, necessitating the restoration, which was down to subsidence, in part caused by vaults, or crypts under the church.

Could it be that one of these vaults be the room that Laura had referred to, where the ‘punishments’ to the children had taken place?

This new information led to me to visiting the church once again, without Laura, to see if I could find any trace of the vaults in the fabric of the floor that remained, although I had my doubts, as the tiles were clearly of a relatively recent vintage.

I particularly wanted to inspect a gap under a pew that we’d noticed on a previous visit, although the task would be made more difficult, in the fading winter light at the time I made the visit.

Although I was unable to determine as to whether there was anything underground, my inspection was nonetheless worthwhile and, undoubtedly necessitated a further visit when the light was better.

Of more significance however, it appeared that my visit to the church had acted as a trigger of some sort, as later that evening Laura received an image and a vision, relating to the church.

The good the bad and the Pigman.......

The image was that a shard of white frosted, or smoky glass, self standing, in the area of where the font is now located, containing an image of a female saint, in prayer.

The Praying Saint

This image quickly faded and was immediately followed by a ‘vision’.

It should be noted that we use the term with reluctance here but there were no other words to describe it – a vision.

In it, Laura was stood at the threshold of church itself, at the entrance in the Tudor Bell Tower, the door wide open.

Here, she found herself facing a priest, who was stood immediately inside the church.

Beyond the priest, she could see a figure, a man with a pig’s head (the skull being almost skeletal, coloured brown, but she could definitely see ears, albeit dried and curling over).

The ‘pigman’ (for the lack of a better term) was stood at the end of the pews, in the open area adjacent to the font, next to the North Entrance to the church.

In her ‘vision’, as Laura strained to see beyond the clergyman, the ‘pigman’ asked her if she was coming in.

As she thought carefully about the invitation, the vision faded and ended.

Laura, re-enacting her 'vision' of the pigman

Looking at my phone I could see that it was approximately midnight (my phone was displaying the time of 00:00 am).

Things did not end here and, at approximately 00:40 am, Laura received her final image of the night, of a rectangular, almost square headstone, that was in the churchyard, lying flat on the surface of the ground but raised (rather than level with the surface), with the inscription of a young woman’s name and age.

To bring this particular episode to a close, the next day Laura saw a set of symbols that she drew for my inspection when I returned home that evening.

At the time, I attempted to link these events together and felt that perhaps the best to interpret the whole affair was on a symbolic level – clearly British history had not been awash with reports of pig headed men, from our current level of understanding at least.

We therefore decided that a further visit was necessary, this time with Laura in attendance, to try and make sense of the vision.

The follow up

Within a week Laura and I found ourselves at the location, this time late morning - the first time that we’d visited the location at this time of day.

Laura, having just had her hand 'held' by a child once again.

As I stopped to get my equipment ready, Laura stopped ahead of me and turned to tell me that she’d been touched by a child, although she was not certain that it was one of the ones that had made contact with her previously.

We started off with a tour of the graveyard, meeting a friendly dog (and owner) out enjoying the crisp spring air.

This was the first time that we’d really inspected the area surrounding the church together in detail since its restoration, so we spent some time looking at the memorials, wondering if any of the names were familiar to us from our previous visits.

We then turned our attention to the church and began to walk the circumference of the building in a clockwise direction.

At an area on the south side of the church, Laura suddenly knelt down and started ‘sweeping’ her arm across the grass.

Catching my attention, I asked her what was wrong?

Laura informed me that, at this spot, she had felt the urge to immediately kneel down and pray, which then quickly turned to the desire to uncover something that was buried, or concealed, beneath the ground.

The ‘spot’ was close to the south wall of the church, immediately next to a bricked up (very large) door or window, with the ground being uneven or disturbed, which we’d always put down to rubble being dumped there in previous years.

Subsequent investigation revealed that the bricked up aperture was the grand entrance to a private chapel attached to the south side of the church, which had been destroyed and removed in the past. This had resulted in the disturbed ground where Laura had felt the need to pray.

The former entrance to the chapel, that stood in the grassed area to the lower left of the image. It was in this area that Laura felt the need to pray and uncover a concealed object.

With nothing else forthcoming, we made our way to the Tudor Bell Tower and into the church itself.

Once inside the church, Laura pointed out where she’d been standing during her vision and, where the ‘pigman’ and priest were stood in relation to her, but nothing further was forthcoming.

As we moved further into the church, Laura mentioned (as she had done on her previous visit inside the church), that she felt that we were once again being watched by a man high up in the church, against the Bell Tower. She felt that the man lived in the church, or at least had the habit of staying overnight there and, was possibly a curate that was attached to the church.

Laura walked towards the altar and sat down on the step in silence and attempted to tap into the atmosphere of the building.

After several minutes in quiet contemplation, she arose, walked forward several feet and then bent her knees and touched the floor at a certain point in the aisle. She insisted that there was still, or had been, a room or chamber below.

It was at this point that Laura asked out aloud if James was with us now, sensing that he was possibly close, resulting in us recording the female voice whispering ‘James’ that we referred to earlier.

The present day.

As we mentioned right at the start, our research is still ongoing and there is clearly far more to be revealed at this location.

However, we have reached the point where we have started to make some progress, so perhaps this is an opportune moment to cover some of our experiences at the location, together with our current findings date:

1.     There are a lot of children connected to the location

This has been a constant for Laura ever since we first visited the location - the building would have served at sometime as a sort of workhouse, possibly a school.

Whilst we’ve been unable to establish anything definitively, in a recent conversation with a local historian, from his research, he believed that there was a second chamber within the church, no longer existing, that was used either as a school room at some point, or indeed where a priest lived (which also ties us to point 5. below).

As you can imagine, this has been an important development for us and has now become a strong line of research for us, which we will hopefully be able to expand upon at a future date.

2.     An underground vault, where children were abused (not sexually)

This has, so far, proved a dead end for us. Apart from a reference to underground vaults, or crypts, being mainly responsible for the subsidence at the church, we’ve not been able to progress this any further so far, even with physical inspections at the location itself.

a.      A secret connected to the family mentioned  in the large memorial slab, adjacent to the Tudor Bell Tower

b.      A woman, her young son torn away from her, still upset; and

c.      James

Laura feels strongly that these three separate ‘events’ are potentially linked.

Throughout our visits Laura frequently senses the presence of a woman, who is grieving, having had her son taken away from her.

In the same way, she feels that this woman is linked to the family detailed on the memorial slab and that the child was taken away because of the shame that it brought onto the family.

Less confidently, Laura feels that the James that lingers there could possibly be this child, but she has never receive any answers to this when she has asked.

At this moment, this remains an ongoing line of research, with the only facts that we’ve been able to establish is the names on the family memorial. However, Laura feels that we’re close to getting an answer here, so only time will tell.

3.     Something concealed beneath the ground where the chapel was located.

Again, our enquiries are ongoing, but details of the former chapel are sparse and obviously we’re not in a position to go around digging up church yards.

However, the fact that Laura felt the strong need to kneel pray and then uncover a concealed item beneath what we now know would have been the chapel floor provides an interesting line of research for us.

4.     That the location is used, both historically and currently by people for occult purposes

Whilst we are not in possession of any supporting evidence whatsoever for this, the relative seclusion and remoteness of the location would not appear to exclude this. Interestingly, Laura has felt that a particular person could have visited this location and, in a completely unrelated conversation recently, another person suggested something that could support this.

This is one aspect that we’ll maintain a watching brief upon.

5.     The man, possibly a curate, that watched from high, who lived in the church

As mentioned in point 1. above, a recent discussion with a local historian revealed that he believed that historically, there used to be a second chamber within the church that was where the priest used to live or was used as a school room (possibly both), who produced an historical plan of the church, a few hundred years old, to illustrate his point.

When asked why would the priest live inside the church and not elsewhere, the historian explained that during Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries, from 1536 to 1541, the priest in residence was ejected from the neighbouring Manor House when it was seized by Henry's men and he therefore took residence in the church itself.

 This would support what Laura had picked up, but how does this explain the ‘watching from above’ element?

The area of the Nave from which Laura has always felt that we were being watched, from above.

This part was clarified by another historian, who advised that in the past, there was a former upper floor gallery at the rear of the Nave, as was popular in churches at the time, which would clearly have provided the platform ‘from above’ that would allow the man to observe visitors.

6.     The gentleman, unflatteringly referred to as ‘Pigman’

It probably goes without saying that Laura’s vision of the ‘pigman’ was the most difficult to understand.

We initially thought that we needed to interpret this at a symbolic level, especially in light of the symbols that she received and drew, the following morning after the vision.

We thought that we arrived at a plausible interpretation for the vision and symbols, when taking into account other things that were occurring with Laura at the time. However, subsequent events led us to dismiss his interpretation.

A few weeks later I met an historian at the church who, whilst discussing the development of the building over the centuries, mentioned the upper gallery at the rear of the Nave, as discussed in point 5. above.

As I’d tentatively touched upon the reason for enquiring about the gallery during our conversation and hadn’t been rebuffed, I pressed on and, after providing a lengthy introduction as to what I was going to say, explained what Laura had seen and threw myself at the historian’s mercy.

To my surprise, the response was not what I was expecting.

The historian explained that the grave immediately outside the ‘new’ entrance, in the Tudor Bell Tower, was that of a gentleman, an ex-serviceman, who served the church and, was in the habit of standing at the corner of the building, directing people around to the North Porch entrance. Being ex-military, he had a certain way about him and the historian could imagine him standing there, asking, of any stragglers, are they coming in?

Although the gentleman was of a different age, the historian knew that he had a certain reputation locally, of being a ‘pig’........

Another possible explanation provided by the historian was the locality’s connection to pigs, dating back to Anglo Saxon times, if not earlier. Was the vision a link to this?

Either way, had we finally found our ‘pigman’?

The future?

It must be said that we both found this very difficult to write.

Not only was there so much that we could have written (there is a lot that we’ve simply left for another time), but things that have been moving at such a rate, we have had to constantly re-write, add or remove elements.

 Indeed, we started writing this over 15 months ago and even now were in two minds as to whether or not to publish what we had written.

Unlike most if the other pieces that we’ve written about here, there is no conclusion to our research and we simply, at this stage, do not know where it is going, so it’s fair to say that we will be issuing further updates, from times to time.

However, what we are certain about is that this location has many secrets to reveal, which we both feel we are on the cusp of discovering.

 In some ways, our journey with this location has most definitely only just begun.