The search for the legendary Scrapfaggot Green

When writing a blog about your experiences, it is inevitable that you sometimes unintentionally give the impression that the paranormal exists around every corner.

To put it bluntly, it isn’t, if it exists at all, it’s about as rare as gnat’s teeth.

That’s exactly why it’s called the paranormal. If it was an everyday occurrence, then it would just be considered ‘normal’ and we probably would have never had heard of Yvette Fielding after she left Blue Peter.

The following account is just an illustration of how a lot of research turns out – unfortunately working in the paranormal field isn’t about chasing shadows at 3am in the morning, it’s about pouring over dusty, out of print books and reports, looking for obscure accounts that will assist you with a case, or even flag possible new cases to research and investigate.

However, even if turns out that there is nothing worth researching, the work that you have undertaken can sometimes reward you in different ways, such as here where we were able to rediscover a long lost location.

It goes without saying that Harry Price’s greatest case was that of Borley Rectory, seated deep in East Anglia, on the Essex/Suffolk border until it was demolished in 1944, five years after a devastating fire.

In fact, the two are inseparable, which is a great shame, as Price was much more than Borley and had involvement in many, many cases, some of which the annals of history have seen barely fit to mention.

The curious case of the Witch of Scrapfaggot Green is just one of them and, what follows, is the strange story of how we found ourselves scouring the Essex Countryside for a location that clearly doesn’t want to be found and you won’t find recorded on any map, no matter how much you look.

The search begins.....

Now, much of the work undertaken in the paranormal field involves research, in fact, research - lots and lots of research. Tedious amounts. I guess that it is fortunate that I don’t mind a bit of reading.

It was during such one such concentrated period of research, that I kept encountering the relatively well-known Essex tale concerning the Witch of Scrapfaggot Green.

Whatever book I picked up, no matter the subject matter, there was often a reference to the story staring back at me in the face. Synchronicity?

To the uninitiated, near Boreham, to the north of Chelmsford, there once existed a small, triangular piece of land, known locally as Scrapfaggot Green.

 

Scrapfaggot Green today, a shadow of it's former self.....

A peculiar name, Scrapfaggot is believed to be an old East Anglian name for a witch.

Here, 70 odd years ago, you could find the final resting place of a witch, allegedly hung following the 16^th Century Chelmsford Witch Trials, with the grave capped by a large stone to prevent the spirit of the witch escaping (that should do it).

Now, I say final resting place but, back in 1944, during the latter stages of World War II, the US Air Force were in the process of constructing the nearby Boreham Airfield and found it necessary to widen the local country lanes to improve access to the new airfield for its construction machinery.

It appears, as part of these road widening works, that the grave was bulldozed and the stone ended up in a ditch.

This was the catalyst for numerous mishaps and unexplained events that occurred locally, that even attracted the attention of the world famous Paranormal Investigator at the time, a certain Harry Price.

The spirit of the witch was subsequently laid to rest when the stone was eventually returned to its original location at Scrapfaggot Green, although there appears to be a wall of silence concerning how (and when) it ended up in the car park of the St Anne’s Castle Inn, in nearby Great Leighs, where you can still find the stone today, half buried in the grass verge outside the car park (1).

As I was diligently researching the subject of coincidence at the time, the frequent cropping up of this case was of great interest to me, even more so as I had moved less than a mile away from Scrapfaggot Green in the last 12 months.

Taking my now almost daily ‘encounter’ with the Witch, I suspended my research into coincidence and turned my full attention to the curious case of the Witch.

The first challenge, as far as I could see, was to find out where, exactly, was Scrapfaggot Green itself?

Not as easy as it first sounds, as I was soon to find out.

Despite the multitude of references to the case, there was no actual mention itself as to its location. Neither was it marked on any map, contemporary nor even the original Ordinance Survey series. I was well and truly stumped.

However, all was not lost.

In one book I found a tantalising reference to the Green being located at the end of Drakes Lane, a lane that still exists even to this very day, albeit presumably much wider than it was prior to 1944.

Furthermore, looking at the map, there was another green marked on the map not more than half a mile to the east, at what looked like could have originally been the end of Drakes Lane.

Having seemingly re-discovered the site, I was very keen to make a location visit to verifying my find one way or another so, without informing Laura of what, why or where we would be going, I arranged for an evening out in the sunny Essex countryside.

Then, just prior to leaving to make drive to Scrapfaggot Green and Great Leighs, to view the stone itself, it suddenly struck me that perhaps I was looking in the wrong place for the original location of the Witch’s Stone. It just seemed too easy.

So, with a couple of minutes to spare, I pulled out the ordinance survey map yet again and it dawned on me that perhaps Scrapfaggot Green could equally be located at the western end of Drakes Lane, not the eastern end where I originally thought it was.

I thought that this would make sense as far as the legend went, as the western end of the lane was only a mile or so from St Martin’s Church at Little Waltham, where tradition holds that the witch’s remains were allegedly interred after their discovery back in the 1940’s.

Still keeping all this from Laura, we jumper in the car and headed off toward Great Leighs, diverting via my now two best guesses at the location of the Green.

We would reach the western end of Drakes Lane first, but despite being familiar with the approximate location, I couldn’t recognise any landmarks that would identify Scrapfaggot Green, or indeed any sign posts to tell us that we were actually in Drakes Lane.

As we drove eastwards along the road I thought to myself that perhaps the blocked off side road was the start of the Lane, but at this point I wasn’t even sure that we were in the right area – this was much more confusing than looking at the map at home.

After about a mile or so I pulled over into a make shift lay-by, opposite a factory unit and tried to work out where we were.

If we were on Drakes Lane we must be coming to the end of it, approaching its junction at the eastern end with the main Great Leighs / Boreham Road.

Having consulted the map, I decided to abandon our search for Scrapfaggot Green for another evening.

Disappointed, we continued our drive to St Anne’s Castle Inn, this time activating the navigation device to avoid any further confusion and delay.

Almost immediately we found ourselves at the junction with the Great Leighs / Boreham Road and, to my right I spotted the road sign confirming that we were indeed at the eastern end of Drakes Lane and, one of the possible locations that I’d proposed for the Green.

However, quickly looking around, there was no indication that we were at one of our targets – we were at an ordinary T-Junction and, judging by the size of the trees on both sides of the road, it was very difficult to see how any green had fitted in at this junction.

Resigning ourselves to the fact that we’d probably driven right past Scrapfaggot Green, I turned left and we made our way to Great Leighs.

As we made our way along the winding country lanes, Laura commented that, as we’d driven past the blocked side road, she had picked up the name ‘Alan’ and the place name ‘Carlisle’, which we presumed was the town in Northern England.

I asked Laura if it was possible that ‘Carlisle’ was a surname (as opposed to the town), but Laura assured me that it was definitely a place name, as she’d sought clarification of this and it was definitely the town.

At this point I confirmed to Laura that this was interesting, as the blocked road junction was more than likely what remained of the Green. This being so, we made a note to try and return home via this route and check the possibility this location was indeed the case.

St Anne’s Castle Inn

After a short drive we found ourselves in the car park of St Anne’s Castle Inn. Pulling into a parking space I looked around for the Witch’s Stone that was supposed to be located on the grassed area in the car park.

We have in our possession a booklet from the early 1980’s that shows a boulder, approximately 18 inches or so high long, sitting randomly in the car park, so we thought that it should be relatively easy to find.

However, there was nothing to be seen.

This was a concern, but I was sure that the stone had merely been moved elsewhere on site and we’d try and locate it later.

Entering the almost empty bar, we ordered some drinks and sat down at a table next to the old fireplace.

Settled, Laura read though a local arts magazine on the table whilst I debated how on earth we’d driven past our target and what, if anything, did the information that Laura had picked up amount to?

Having finished scanning the magazine, Laura told me that as we drove along the country lane to the Inn, she kept picking up the word ‘sanctuary’. This feeling ended when we arrived at the Inn.

My ears pricked up at this, but I kept quiet and allowed Laura to continue.

Laura explained that she’d sought clarification of the term – was it in reference to an animal sanctuary? A children’s home? But all she could come up with was that it the context of how she received ‘sanctuary’ in a spiritual way.

I decided to reveal all to Laura, the story of the curse of the Witch’s Stone, its removal to St Anne’s Castle Inn, the fact that it allegedly was the oldest public house in England.

I went on to describe, perhaps more importantly, the building’s original function as a Norman Priory and, subsequently, a monastic hospice for the many pilgrims that used to pass, making their way to holy shrines such as the chapel and holy well of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk and, in the opposite direction, the tomb of Thomas a’Beckett at Canterbury, Kent. Perhaps this was the ‘sanctuary’ that Laura was picking up as we drove towards the Inn?

As I told her all this, Laura took my note pad and started writing. After had finished talking, I could see that she’d written:

 ‘Indola / Ingola’

‘Wise’

‘Matheson’

‘Audley End’ (this could refer to two locations, both within 20 miles of the pub).

With nothing more forthcoming, we decided to drink up and leave.

As I finished my drink Laura told me that she’d just had a cold shudder all over and showed me the goose pimples on her arm.

She then picked up the name ‘Digby’ and informed me that she was ‘attracted’ to the men’s toilets situated nearby.

I was too much a gentleman to press her on the latter part of her sentence.......

Leaving the Inn, we decided to spend some time and see if we could locate the missing Witch’s Stone. As chance would have it, I quickly located it near the entrance to the car park on the main road, near an advertising board.

It was smaller than I’d imagined and was laid flat, sunk into the neatly mown grass verge. (1)

I decided to take some pictures using my mobile phone for prosperity but, mysteriously, the shutter failed to open.

Finding this mildly amusing, I turned the camera function off and tried once again, but again the shutter failed to open. This had never happened before in the four months that I’d owned the phone and a couple of hundred pictures. You couldn’t make this up.

Trying again for a third time, the shutter opened on cue and I took a couple of photographs without any further problems.

Returning to the car, we jumped in and retraced our route through the back lanes. As we drove we discussed the information that Laura had picked up and how she had arrived and some of her conclusions.

Soon, we found ourselves at the blocked road and it was then that it dawned upon us that we were finally at Scrapfaggot Green, the original location of the Witch’s Stone until it was moved back in 1944 (coincidently, the same year that Borley Rectory was demolished).

Looking out of the car at the junction ahead of us, there was a very small triangle of grass in the centre that, sadly, was clearly all that remained of the Green after its impromptu redesign by the Americans Forces over 70 years earlier.

 

Looking in the mirror, wondering
what he'd look like with a bit of CGI applied.

At this stage, night was falling fast and, being a road junction, it was not an ideal place to be walking around in the dark, taking photographs. Tufty the Squirrel would have been extremely proud of us.

Satisfied that we’d finally managed to locate Scrapfaggot Green, we decided to leave matters at that and return to take some photographs at a later date.

The return visit

As things eventually turned out, it was actually quite a while before we managed to return to the Green, but eventually we had some time free in our schedule, so we decided to take a drive out to the Essex countryside once again and visit the location.

The main purpose of the trip was to take some photographs that we could use on our website that we used to run, but it would be interesting if Laura could pick anything up at the location.

It was a nice sunny summer’s morning and the journey to Scrapfaggot Green proved uneventful, the traffic flowing freely at the usual bottlenecks on the A12 as we headed northwards.

As neared our destination, conversation turned to mundane matters and how familiar the countryside seemed despite having moved away from the area over 18 months ago and it being over two year since our last visit.

As we approached the green, turning into the side road to park up, Laura, to my surprise, suddenly announced that she could feel firm pressure around her neck. 

As I quickly pulled over, the pressure around Laura’s neck eased and she began to explain what she’d experienced.

Laura told me that as we were chatting, without warning she had the feeling of what could only be described as a strong ‘pressure’, as if someone was clutching her neck, forcing her head back.

 The sensation was so real to her that she could even feel the fingers and thumb of an invisible hand around her neck.

Laura was visibly shaken by the experience.

This obviously put a dampener on proceedings so, checking that Laura had recovered, I quickly took a couple of photographs and jumped back into the car.

 

Finally, Scrapfaggot Green in all it's glory

As we drove away, we discussed what had happened. Laura advised that although the sensation had now gone, she could still feel the after effects of her encounter when she swallowed.

As she continued describing her experience, Laura grew pale and was hit by a wave of severe nausea which lasted for approximately 30 minutes. The nausea was so strong we had to contemplate pulling over onto the side of the dual carriageway on two occasions during the drive home.  

There were no marks present on Laura’s neck and any lingering sensations in her neck disappeared within 24 hours. To this day, Laura is unable to offer any explanation as to what had happened and confirmed that she didn’t pick up any additional information as perhaps we would have usually expected.

So, a lot to think about with plenty that can be tied in with any future visits that we may make to the location.

As always, we welcome any discussion relating to the Witch at Scrapfaggot Green, so feel free to make comments or contact us directly if you prefer.

As with all our cases, we will hopefully add updates should anything further crop up during our research and any future visits.

Laura and Mark

Footnote(s)

 (1). The Landlady of St Anne’s Castle Inn kindly informed us, in correspondence, that she’d read somewhere that the stone was placed at St Anne’s Castle Inn because it was on the cross roads of the main road through Great Leighs.

Synchronicity – Seeking answers at The Psychic Questing Weekender – Avebury, September 2008

We found that our recent visit to Orford Castle has got us thinking quite a bit, particularly in relation to Laura’s experience of being compelled to seek out an ‘object’.

At the time, Laura was of the opinion that this was the first time that she’d encountered this although after some reflection, we eventually recalled that a similar thing had occurred a couple of years ago, when we attended a conference, covering psychic questing, at Avebury, back in 2008.

 

An invitation to treat - how could we resist?

The conference was organised and hosted by Andrew Collins and sought to examine the history of psychic questing and also cover more recent projects that he was working on.

For those unfamiliar with Collins, he is a respected author in his field, writing almost exclusively about alternative history, science, archaeology and the paranormal for the last 35 years or so and who is also widely credited with rediscovering psychic questing for the 20th Century.

Recently, in April earlier this year, Collins re-issued a revised edition of his cult classic “The Black Alchemist”, to mark 30 years passing since the events documented in the book, which became an immediate best seller.

As for psychic questing, what exactly does the term mean?

Collins himself defines the term as ‘using intuitively inspired thoughts and information for creative purposes, be it the exploration of history, the search for hidden artefacts or simply the quest for enlightenment'.

In simple layman’s terms - you get an ‘inclination’ to go out, seek and discovery something, be it a physical object, or a piece of information.

Looking back, this was very ironic in the context of what we were to experience whilst at the conference.

The fun begins

To cut to the chase, early in the proceedings, Collins revealed that he had concealed, within the henge at Avebury, an artefact that had featured in a previous quest of his and, over the course of the weekend, it would be the task of the assembled audience to attempt to recover the item in true questing fashion.

To set us all up for this ‘quest’, this was then followed by a group meditation session.

Now, mediation is something that I've never been able to manage to do successfully and, I knew that this was something that Laura also struggled with. Regardless, we both were willing to give it our best shot!

During the meditation, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Laura was busy scribbling on her programme, which obviously piqued my interest.

The programme that Laura had shamefully defaced,
with the profile of the stone middle right.

At the end of the meditation session, Laura turned to me and gave me her programme to look at.

It was covered in scribbles and, amongst some names and dates, she'd drawn the profile of what I took to be one of the standing stones located in the Avebury Henge itself.

In timely fashion, a short refreshment break was announced, so we took the opportunity to return to the car and retrieve the artist sketch pad that Laura often uses to scribble down notes and draw sketches from what she 'senses'.

As we walked back to the car park, Laura told me that during the meditation she had visualized herself standing in front of the stone that she’d drawn on the programme, with the concealed artefact held in the outstretched palm of her hand.

She advised that the artefact was the size of her palm, was made of metal and, was 'copperish' in colour. I made my own mental note of this, with the intention of noting it down later at some point.

Returning to the lectures, Laura continued to make notes and sketches as the morning’s programme progressed, including a remarkably accurate drawing of one of the road junctions that approached the edge of the henge from the south, where she picked up a couple of names that she associated with a traffic fatality and subsequent suicide taking place there, that was linked to the traffic fatality.

A view of the junction, where the B4003 joins Beckhampton Road
Was this the scene of the tragedy seen by Laura?

She also included a another drawing sketch of the standing stone where the article had been concealed that she'd visualised earlier, again showing the identifying angle of one of it's sides.

Laura was also able to draw a quick sketch of what she thought at the time was the concealed artefact, which (to me) looked like the silhouette of the head and shoulders of a bust, surrounded by spikes, similar to the radiated light surrounding a religious icon that you sometimes see.

Interestingly, Laura had also drawn, as part of a map, something that looked like a building that had three gables, or perhaps three terraced houses, the central portion marked with the number ‘81’. The building(s) was located on Reeves Rd.

Beneath the map she had jotted down the name 'KELEHER' and the number '33'.

Although I didn't reveal anything to Laura at this time, the similarity to the surname of Alexander Keiller, was striking.

Keiller was the archaeologist most identified with the Avebury Henge and was active at the site during the 1930's, although not until the latter part of the decade.

In addition, later that afternoon during our tour of the henge, Laura would identify the Alexander Keiller Museum building itself, located in the henge, as the building that she had sketched earlier that morning.

Breaking for lunch, we took the opportunity to take a walk around the henge in the late autumn sunshine and visit some of the shops.

It was whilst visiting one of these shops that Laura suddenly drew my attention to a box full of horse brasses - "that's it!" Laura exclaimed "that’s what the artefact is - a horse brass!"

I could see the similarity with the Laura's sketch, so this was an interesting development, but only time would tell if Laura was correct.

Nothing further of interest was picked up by Laura during the remainder of the day’s sessions, leaving us a lot to discuss before the conference re-commenced the next morning.

Things get interesting

Sunday’s session started with updates on Collins’ recent psychic questing activity, interwoven with a couple of meditation sessions, before the talks turned their focus towards Collins forthcoming book ‘Beneath the Pyramids’, documenting his research of the Crystal Chambers, which was due to be published soon.

As we commenced the first meditation session of the morning, Laura immediately started to draw and make notes in her sketch pad.

Leaning over her shoulder, I could see that she’d written the names (amongst others) Eggerton and Melaya (a reference to Meonia? - discussed later in the day in a talk regarding the green stone saga), but most prominent of all was a crucifix, with what at first sight appeared to be flames shooting up from the base.

As the meditation drew to a close, Laura turned to me and asked me how close we were to the village church? I pointed out that it was immediately opposite the village hall, where the conference was taking place.

“We have to go there” said Laura, explaining that she had a sudden compulsion to visit.

As we quietly discussed the developing situation, proceedings were conveniently brought to a close for a 30 minute break, before we all commenced the hunt for the hidden questing artefact.

This allowed us a bit of time to explore the church grounds and hopefully gain access to the church itself to try and establish the reason behind Laura’s feelings.

Perhaps there was a connection to the traffic fatality (and subsequent suicide linked to the event) that Laura picked up on yesterday?

To the Church
Making our way out of the hall, we quickly headed across the road and into the church grounds.

 

St James's Church, Avebury

St James’ Church was the archetypical English village church, Anglo Saxon in origin with the oldest part of the building dating back to around 1000 AD. The building that visitors will recognise now, including the tower, dates from the 15th Century, although major work had been underway since the 12th Century.

We both took several photographs as we explored the churchyard, examining the names etched into the memorial stones. Slowly, we made our way towards the church porch, where we were faced with two old heavy wooden doors, complete with wrought iron fittings, barring our way.

I approached the doors and pushed – to my surprise they slowly creaked open. We were in luck!

Upon entering the church we split up, on the basis that we could cover more ground in the limited time we had available to us, Laura turning left towards the tower, whilst I went right, walking through the nave and into the chancel.

As I entered the chancel, I noticed some memorial plaques on the north wall, one immediately capturing my eye.

Constructed of white marble, mounted on black marble, it was dedicated to William and Mary Ann Tanner, who both passed away in the mid 19th Century.

The Tanner Memorial

However, what was striking was the stonemason’s name etched in the lower right corner – ‘Reeves Bath’. Taking into account that Avebury was located just off the A4 roman road to Bath, was this the ‘Reeves Rd’ Laura had picked up on during yesterday’s meditations?

Reeves Road?

Even more surprises were to come.

Continuing deeper into the chancel, on the opposite south wall, I spotted a large brass crucifix, highly ornate, with small fleur-de-lys sprouting out from the main column of the cross.

Again, was this the crucifix that Laura had sketched?

The 'flaming' Crucifix?

There were no ‘flames’, but it didn’t stretch the imagination too much to suggest that the fleur-de-lys could, perhaps, be an alternative take on the flames that Laura saw.

Excited by my find, I went and found Laura to show her the memorial and crucifix.

Laura could see my reasoning with the name on the Tanner memorial, but what did she think about the crucifix?

Laura clarified that she didn’t actually interpret the crucifix in her sketch as having flames, but instead, as having ‘something’ coming up from the base, as opposed to a straight forward cross design.

In this context, the large crucifix stood in front of us could be accepted as a match.

Looking at my watch and conscious of the time, I suggested that we wrap things up in the church and meet up with the others and come back on a later occasion if we felt the need too.

Laura exited the church, whilst I paused to read a notice on the south aisle wall, next to the doors. As I left the church I was faced with Laura, who, with a look of surprise on her face, told me that she thought she’d found a third match with her sketches.

She asked me to walk towards her and turn around to face the doors. I did as I was told and slowly turned around.

I immediately saw the reason for Laura’s excitement.

Were these the 'spikes' that Laura sketched?

Looking at the old church doors, there, to my astonishment, was the ‘bust’, surrounded by spikes, as originally sketched by Laura – the church doors representing the bust, whilst the carvings in the archway over the door representing the spikes.

As we walked quickly to meet up with the rest of the group, we discussed our morning’s findings but still struggled to arrive at a meaning to all this.

We’d possibly found matched for three of Laura’s sketches, but there appeared to be no links, that we knew of at least, to the road fatality and suicide that I’d originally assumed we’d be searching for.

Puzzles answered with even more puzzles. Very frustrating.

Joining up with everyone else back in the Village Hall, all the conversation seemed to be about who would be locating the artefact and, what exactly the artefact itself actually was.

Satisfied that everyone was now assembled, Andrew and his then wife Sue led us into the north east quadrant of the henge, where the search for the artefact was to take place.

As we walked into the field, I noted the stone that I thought visually looked the closest to Laura’s sketch.

Laura herself had changed her mind and now thought that the artefact was actually located elsewhere.

With more of an interest in documenting the event than actually joining in with the search, I made the decision at this point not to take part in the hunt, but take photographs for prosperity instead.

Andrew gathered everyone in the centre of the field and asked people to start walking to where they thought that the artefact was located.

Laura headed westwards, towards her new target.

After a less than a minute, Collins asked everyone to stop and eliminated those, including Laura, on the wrong side of an imaginary line.

He confirmed that those still left were heading for the correct general direction.

Off went the remaining contestants, towards their chosen mark.

The elimination process was repeated a couple of times until the contestants were narrowed down to the final two, who were gathered around, to my surprise, the stone I’d been able to identify from Laura’s sketch.

 

Laura's sketch of the stone, showing the angle of one of the sides
compared to the actual stone where the artefact was hidden.

The Artefact revealed

After a bit of prompting (and some subtle hands on help from Andrew himself) the artefact, a horse brass with a swan design, was finally recovered by Michael, who proved to be a most popular winner.

Inside I was again surprised – not only had I been able to identify the correct stone from Laura’s sketches, the artefact itself had also been correctly identified by Laura as a horse brass.

More food for thought. Perhaps.

Summary

We didn’t have the opportunity to go back to the church to pick up where we had left off and, to this day, we have never returned to Avebury, despite it being one of my favourite venues.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend and, on a personal level for both Laura and myself, it raised a set of whole new questions with no immediate sign of any answers.

What exactly was Laura ‘sensing’?

Was it purely imagination or was there an actual relationship with the real world?

Were the matches we made with this information pure coincidence or just wishful thinking?

Hopefully we’ll find the answers one day!

As a footnote to this account of the events that occurred almost seven years ago now, we know that we will return to Avebury.

We both accept that we will need to go back to the church and continue where we had left off, perhaps then and only then, will we find the answers that we seek.

Laura and Mark.

Orford Castle Keep, Suffolk (United Kingdom) - 25th August 2015

Orford Castle Keep

After a dull start to the day weather-wise, we decided to pop over the border to Suffolk and pay a visit to Orford Castle, on the East Anglian Coast. We’d both visited the location in the past, but we hadn’t been for a number of years, so it would be good to reacquaint ourselves with the Castle.

To provide some background, Orford, these days, is a sleepy Suffolk village on the East Anglian Coast, about a 20 minute drive from Ipswich.

However, back in its heyday in the middle ages, it was an important shipping port, so much to the extent that, in 1175, Henry II commenced work on his new castle, to consolidate his power in the region.

Orford Castle is a bit of a misnomer as today, only the Keep remains - the curtain walls being robbed long ago in the 18^th century, after the port fell into decline following the silting up of the River Ore. This prohibited the entry to the port of the larger trading ships, sealing the fate of the town.

In passing, it cannot escape mention that the Castle is also famous in its association with the Wild Man (or Merman) of Orford legend, where the Merman was held captive in the Keep for six months, until he made good his escape.

I had also taken part in a couple of investigations at the Castle previously and was aware of the paranormal history, including some reports that had not been reported in the public domain.

We arrived at the Castle in the late afternoon, giving us a couple of hours before closing time. The weather was warm but wet, further reducing the number of visitors at the location.

Entering the Castle Keep
Having negotiated our way past the two ladies on reception, trying to ply us with English Heritage’s finest home grown cherry wine (and very nice it was too), we entered the Lower Hall and began our tour of the building.

We decided to leave the basement level containing the Well Room until last and make our way up to the roof, exploring the side chambers and passages on each floor as we progress.

Although we’d planned our visit just a normal day out, things started to develop on a paranormal level as we made our way clockwise around the Lower Hall, when Laura reported the she felt that there was ‘something’ about the fire place, but she couldn’t establish anything else.

Nothing further was forthcoming from this level, even from the Constable’s Room, where I had heard a disembodied whistle immediately behind me whilst retrieving equipment following a previous investigation back in 2005.

Making our way up the main staircase, which was contained within the South Turret, to visit the Chapel, Laura was given a name of a female. This appeared to be the precursor for a rush of information that Laura appeared to be able to tap into.

The Chapel and Chaplin's Room
We entered the narrow corridor that contained the Chapel (on the immediate left) and, at the very end, the Chaplin’s Room.

The Chapel itself was a small room, still containing a rudimentary brick alter still in situ. It already had a couple of visitors intently listening to their audio guides, so I continued my journey along the corridor, leaving Laura to take a closer look at the Chapel herself.

As she left the Chapel, Laura was given a male name (forename / surname), but then things started to take a turn for the worse , as she felt her chest tightening and a strong feeling of anxiety overcame her.

The corridor, looking back towards the staircase

Laura then felt a need to get to the end of the corridor and, unbeknown to her at the time, the Chaplin’s Room.

As she made her way along the corridor, Laura felt that someone was following her, someone was chasing her along the corridor and she was expecting to hear footsteps behind her any second.

Upon reaching the end of the corridor, Laura found herself outside the Chaplin’s Room. Pausing, Laura decided that she needed to get out of the area as quickly as she could and re-join me, where I was now waiting at the entrance to the Great Hall on the next floor.

Laura made her way upstairs, relieved to leave the unpleasant atmosphere that she had encountered in the Chapel corridor.

Our ‘tour’ of the Great Hall proved uneventful it itself, apart from in one of the side rooms where Laura felt ‘someone’ tugging the hair on the back of her head.

The Well Room
Exhausting the areas that we could explore contained in the upper levels of the Keep, we made our way down to the basement, to the Well Room, where the food and supplies would have originally been stored when the Castle was in daily use.

Again, we found the room reasonably empty, so I used the opportunity to take some photographs.

As I fired off some shots, I suddenly became aware of Laura crouched down on her haunches, in one of the storage chambers set into the side of the room, arm outstretched, as if she was feeling for something.

 

the chamber where Laura sensed the body of the girl

Now looking on with great interest, I could see her hand hovering, manoeuvring back and forth, as if tracing the outline of a large object. Curious.

After a short while, Laura turned, left the storage chamber and went back up the stairs to the Lower Hall.  

When I had caught up with her later, Laura informed me that she had seen a girl’s body on the floor in the corner of the chamber, lying in the foetal position. The body had been concealed there, to delay its discovery.

The ‘vision’ was so strong; it was if the girl was laying there in real life.

the spot where the body lay

The girl was dressed in a fairly nondescript slip / night dress / undergarment, very flimsy, which, unfortunately for us, makes it next to impossible to date the period that she was from.

Laura also got a forename for the girl.

Whilst she was in the chamber, Laura suddenly felt that she had to go to a particular location in the Keep to find ‘something’. The feeling was very intense and conveyed a matter of urgency in the task – she needed to find ‘it’.

Leaving the Well Room, Laura returned to the Lower Hall and found herself entering one of the side chambers. Travelling to the end of the short passage, she looked up and immediately spotted her goal.

(At the time of writing, we’re still making enquiries, so unfortunately we’re unable to reveal exactly what Laura found, but we will issue an update on the situation when our enquiries are complete.)

From Laura’s perspective, this was a strange experience for her, as this was the first time that she’d ever been compelled to find something.

She later advised that she wasn’t entirely sure where her final destination would be until she had physically reached it. However, once she had got there, she spotted immediately what she was meant to find.

As for what exactly finding her target means, at this point, only time will tell, as nothing further was forthcoming.

After Laura had spent some time at the location, she came back out to attempt to find me and show me what she’d found for confirmation that she wasn’t imagining things.

As bizarre as it sounds, I was able to validate what she’d found and took some photographs, for the record,  although they were not of good quality due to the poor lighting and a flash having to be used.

By now, we were nearing closing time, so we made a final visit to the museum on the 2^nd level, where Laura heard a male voice shout “bitch” in the side room at the entrance to the great hall (Laura didn’t think that this was directed at her in particular).

After spending a short time looking at the exhibits in the cabinets, we made our way back to the Lower Hall, paying the Constable’s Room a final visit before we left the location.

As a parting gift, as we entered the room, Laura immediately felt her chest tighten, as it had done earlier on the main stair case, near the Chapel.

This was interesting, as she’d got no reaction when we’d first visited the room earlier in the day.

She immediately got a full name and a place name.

By this point I could see that Laura was physically shaking, so we exited the room and left the building, making our way back to the car, taking some outside shots of the Keep on the way.

Summary
Obviously our visit left us with a lot of food for thought and further research, which contained a certain irony, as we only intended a pleasure visit to pass away the afternoon on a wet summer’s day.

It would not have escaped your notice that our account fails to mention any of the names that Laura picked up, not what Laura actually found. This is a deliberate action on our part as it stops the names getting out into the public domain and potentially influencing any experiences that other visitors to the location may have.

However, once we’ve completed our research we will issue an update to this account, even if our research turns up a series of blanks, but we thought that an account of our visit, combined with the launch of our blog, would provide an interesting platform upon which we can build.

If anyone is able to add to what we have written, we would encourage you to contact us, in complete confidence, so we can discuss further.

Laura and Mark.

Part two of this feature can be viewed at: Orford Caste - Part Two
Part three of this feature can be viewed at: Orford Castle - Part Three