East Yorkshire stately home Burton Constable Hall allowed a paranormal investigation team through its doors for the first time to check out any unusual activity. Debbie Hall learned what they discovered.
THINGS don't always go bump in the night. Sometimes, they pat you on the shoulder, brush past your legs or turn the atmosphere decidedly chilly.
Such is the world of Totally Paranormal Events (TPE), a company set up to investigate paranormal activity at locations around the East Riding and beyond.
In the run-up to Halloween, Josephine Affleck and her TPE team were offered the opportunity to investigate ghostly goings-on at Burton Constable Hall, an Elizabethan mansion near Sproatley.
Their findings will add an even greater thrill for visitors to the hall for its annual sell-out ghost tours night on Friday.
Kelly Wainwright, curator at Burton Constable Hall, joined three of her colleagues and TPE guests for the spooky 9pm to 3am vigil.
Kelly said: "It was a really interesting and exciting night and it flew by.
"It's the first time we have done anything like this at the hall and I have to say how professional Josephine and her team were.
"They set up a table with all their technical equipment and demonstrated everything for us, how they work and what triggers them.
"We went on a recce round with the equipment first to test it and to make sure there was no interference.
"One of the machines started to go berserk next to a window that's always opening itself and the team didn't know that.
"It's always happening, despite being on quite a tight latch."
Kelly said the party was split into groups and spent about an hour, in darkness, in each area.
"We had our first session in the Great Drawing Room and one of the machines, set in the doorway, was going crazy. It kept setting off and draining the battery.
"A few people thought they heard piano sounds over the white noise machine."
Kelly said: "If I am honest, I am still a bit sceptical, but there were a couple of things that were quite interesting, like the window, and a few people felt funny on the staircase.
"We have had several visitors over the years who have had a similar experience, and it all ties together.
"It is all good fun and gives us some extra stories to tell on Halloween."
Josephine, who lives in Hull and is mum to Tom, 22, has been running TPE for almost two years.
She said: "I absolutely love it. I think investigations we have done at Saltmarshe Hall and Fort Paull have been the most significant ones so far, but being able to investigate Burton Constable Hall, which no one has ever done before, has been the Mount Everest for us."
While investigating the corridor above the Great Hall, the team's MEL meter showed an electro magnetic field spike, just as Kelly was about to say they were next to the window that always opened on its own.
A second strange spike came as the team ventured up onto the roof. One member said they felt a massive gust of air, as if someone had walked past them.
"The area was checked for open windows and draughts etc, but there was none," said Josephine.
"Throughout the walk around various noises and footsteps were heard – the team were all together and a few people were left in the Great Hall, so everyone was accounted for.
"When we started the night off all together as one group, in a standing séance, we were in the Great Hall.
"Various people could hear noises coming from the landing upstairs and some people could see someone moving around on the landing."
There were eight people in the TPE team who took seven cases full of equipment to locations, including infrared cameras, sensors that detected changes in temperature and sound recording machines.
The team generally works at night, and in pitch-black, because there is more difficulty with noise and light pollution during the day.
"Everything we get we set out to debunk and disprove straight away," said Josephine.
"We get all sorts of people coming along to our investigations, those from the purely scientific standpoint to the really firm believers.
"I love it when we have the sceptics with us and you end up pulling a man out of the room nearly crying after 20 minutes because something unexplainable has just touched him.
"Do I get scared? You do jump occasionally, but I think I have been doing this for so long that I am now of the opinion, the freakier the better."
Software engineer Geoff Saul and his daughter, Helena, 20, are both tour guides at Burton Constable Hall.
Geoff, of Sproatley, is the designer of a computer software program called Alice, which invites spirit entities to engage with it. Single words or entire phrases can be displayed on screen.
While Alice was active on the Burton Constable Hall visit, two words, "Third" and "Felony" came up. The third Viscount Dunbar committed a murder around 1650.
Geoff said: "During the Burton Constable investigation, I was sitting on a chair in the dark near a carpeted walkway where it was roped off. There was no one else near me.
"Something flicked past with some force and one of the stanchions fell and hit me on the side.
"One of my friends was touched on the shoulder and in some of the photographs taken on the night, there is a really obvious face in an orb.
"Some of the people on the visit said they felt like they were being pulled back on the stairs."• TPE will be hosting a Help For Heroes charity night, with guest medium Ralph Keeton, at Fort Paull on November 15, from 9pm to 3am. The cost is £30 including light refreshments. For further information, email admin@totallyparanormal.comBurton Constable Hall's 700-year history
BURTON Constable Hall has been the home of the Constable family for 700 years and its interiors of faded splendour are filled with fine furniture, paintings and sculpture.
There have been numerous unusual sightings of various things over the years, many of them documented, and they include a nun who floats down the Long Gallery.
The Gold Bedroom has been known as the "haunted chamber" since the 1800s and there are unexplained movements of objects and lights going on and off in the cellar.
It is understood that about 150 years ago, staff rations included beer that was brewed by one man on site.
Unfortunately, on one occasion, the entire batch went bad and the man was so worried he hanged himself in the cellar.
