As you guys know Steve, Hella and myself attended an investigation with Paranormal Devon Undiscovered in January , i have written a report of what happened on the parts of the investigation that Hella, Steve and myself took part in , the investigation was conducted at Orford Mill which lies in north Devon near a small town called Great Torrington.
Location: Orford Mill, Great Torrington, North Devon
Date: 14th January 2011
Time: 09:00pm - 03:00am
Duration of investigation: 6 hours
Investigators from GPS were:
Ian Wilce (Lead investigator)
Hella Norenz (Lead investigator)
Steve Meads (Lead investigator)
There was a fairly large team from Paranormal Devon that i won't mention as i am not sure of all names .
I am afraid that i dont have much history of the location which in a way was good because we were not influenced by any previous information that we would have received .
Investigation part 1 Ian, Hella and Steve on the second floor of the main house Hella, Steve and myself moved up to the first floor of the main house to conduct our first EVP session of the evening, everyone else had left the house which meant that we were the only members of the team in the house, the room that we were going to investigate was the second room on the left where Steve had earlier seen what he thought was a girl sobbing, the room was a double room with two single beds, we placed a K2 meter on each bed and started to call out to who ever Steve had seen previously.
It wasn't long before we all got the uneasy feeling that there was movement on the landing outside the room , Hella continued to call out concentrating on the young female that had been sighted in the room by Steve, we had a few acoustic sounds but I found it difficult to identify where they were coming from , one thing that we did hear was the sound of a door being opened or closed, and it sounded as though it was coming from end of the landing where there was a bathroom, previously I had checked the first and second floor for open windows and was able to confirm that they were all closed at the time so I can rule out the possibility of draft being the cause.
After analysing the EVP I am able to confirm that the sound of door opening or closing can be heard clearly, the only door that seemed to have been moved was the bathroom door, we were all told that doors were not to be moved due to the camera cables , Cliff had been the last person to visit the bathroom and had left the bathroom door open.
We had also set up a trigger object on the second floor which consisted of a metal money box with a couple of coins inside it and a small plastic container with jellied sweets , I placed one of the voice recorders on the carpet next to trigger object and set it to voice activation in the hope that whoever Steve had seen would be tempted to play with the object , when I collected the voice recorder I found three recordings, the first one being my confirmation that the trigger object had been set up after reviewing the recordings I was able to confirm that the recorder has been activated twice during the evening, the first recording sounds like a door opening or closing this was recorded at the time that Hella, Steve and myself were on the first floor conducting our first vigil, this sound was heard by all three of us without the aid of technical equipment , the second is probably the most impressive of the two , its the sound of the coins moving in the money box which happened when Hella was on her solo vigil , due to the time stamp on the dvr we were able to confirm that this took place as Hella was sat in the end bedroom on the same floor , Hella does not recall hearing this happen.
Coins being moved in the money boxHella second floor solo vigil After Ian, Steve and I came down from the first floor, we could hear the groups coming back. I was curious about the second floor and decided to do a solo vigil up there. I was told by Cliff and Jason, that there was a very sad feel to the first floor and that he had sensed the spirit of a woman in Edwardian clothes, who had lost her child to the flu (quite possibly the Spanish flu in 1918-1920 which killed over 50 million people worldwide) and shortly after died of the flu herself. They also had the feeling that there was more than one spirit present on the first floor.
I am not sure if it is due to psychological reasons, but as I went up the stairs I noticed a change of atmosphere. The first floor seemed to be very calm to me, but I did have the feeling that I was being watched closely. When I set foot on the first step of the stairs up to the second floor and looked up to the dark landing I had the strong sensation of someone looking down at me, although I couldn’t see anyone, I also had the feeling that my presence wasn't wanted up there. The feeling I got was not quite hostile, but certainly unwelcoming, probably due to the stories I heard about that floor earlier on and the fact that the landing up there was indeed very dark and not inviting at all. So I gathered my courage and climbed the stairs.
As soon as I was up there I got the feeling of movement in the corridor in front of me, nothing audible or visible, but still there.
All the doors of the rooms stood open, it didn’t matter where I would start my EVP session, so I decided to try the bedroom at the end of the corridor, a master bedroom with an en-suite bathroom.
I switched on my Dictaphone and started my first EVP by introducing myself and explaining the reason why I was there. I addressed the mother who had lost her child and asked her what year it was, when her and her child died, I told her that I had children of my own and that I hoped that she was united with her child again. All the time I thought I could see movement out in the corridor, which I could see from my position on the foot end of the bed. On two occasions I saw flickering lights, the first time in the corridor itself, which could have been someone outside in front of the house taking photos, the flash being cast through the windows of the rooms along the corridor, and the second time I saw a flicker of green lights on the landing, which I could debunk immediately with the fire alarm, that was mounted on the ceiling of the landing.
I did hear a few bangs and cracks in the rooms and also coming from the other rooms, but it was never in response to any of my questions and could have well been the creaking of the floor boards.
After approximately 12 minutes I finished my session in the master bedroom and moved back to the first room next to the landing. The feeling I got in there was totally different, I would describe it as empty.
I asked a few random questions, explained why I was there and what I was trying to achieve with my questions. I knocked on the bedside table and asked for an answer. After a few seconds I got a knock back, but when I asked for a repeat for confirmation everything stayed quiet. After about 10 minutes I felt that nothing would happen and made my way back down.
When I walked along the corridor of the first floor I was drawn to the room where Ian, Steve and I did our vigil earlier on, but I didn’t go in, because I could hear the others downstairs and thought that their voices and movements would quite possibly lead to confusing results.
Although I didn’t get any results, I did find the feelings and impressions that I got on the second floor very interesting, also the drastic change of atmosphere from the first floor to the second floor,I then made my way down to ground floor to join the rest of the group.
Second investigation
Hella & Ian Mere brook Cottage
Hella and myself decided to visit the Mere brook cottage for the next part of our investigation, we started in the living room where we had a average temperature of 7 Degrees and a average reading of 0.5 on the Gauss master, we placed an EMF meter on the dining table and one on the sofa hoping that if anything moved through the middle of the room one of them should pick it up, after about ten mins Hella mentioned that she kept seeing movement out of the corner of her eye coming from the kitchen area, she said that the light that was coming through the kitchen window had been blocked out by something, startled she stood up and made her way to the entrance of the kitchen with a K2 meter in her hand, there were no spikes from on the K2 or the Gauss master.
The light in the cottage was very dim and it was only possible to see the outlines of furniture against the white washed walls or objects that were right in front of us, Hella was stood against the wall between the kitchen and the staircase holding a K2 meter, at this point I had to ask her where exactly she was standing and as she waved the K2 I was then able to see her position which surprised me as I thought that she had been standing further away from the door where I had seen what looked like an outline of someone stood against the wall, Hella's shadow seemed to be shorter than the shadow that I had seen to her right, we tried to debunk this incident by finding out whether the light that was coming through the kitchen window could have created and out of shape shadow of Hella, but neither the angle or the strength of the light was able to reproduce this shadow that I had seen.
We then started to hear sounds from the upstairs area , so we decided to go up to the master bedroom to see if we had more luck there, again the temperature was a steady 7 Degrees and 0.2 on the Gauss master, we didn’t get any spikes on the EMF meters but there was defiantly a strong feeling that there was someone else there other than us, we did then get a few knocks that seemed to respond to the questions that we were asking which we could not associate with the heating cooling down or anything like that because the heating had been turned off for days, we could also hear a sound that resembled someone walking over the carpet with maybe a long dress on that was swishing on the carpet, one sound that did seem to catch my attention was the sound a rather loud tap on one of the walls which seemed to come from the back of the bedroom as I walked to the back of the room I discovered that there was an en suite bathroom, as I entered the bathroom I saw that the pull switch was swinging very lightly from side to side, I looked for any drafts that could have possibly caused the cord to move but all the windows were closed, so I was unable to debunk this incident.
The second bedroom was a double with two single beds , this room gave us a very uneasy feeling on entry, we spent a further 30 mins in that room, we didn’t seem to get any responses, the only sound we seemed to get was the same sound that we had in the other bedroom of someone walking over the carpet with a long dress, we then left the building and returned to the main house for a break with the rest of the group.
Unfortunately when it came to the analyses of the EVP's from this house the sound of the mill outside with its rushing water was very overpowering and made it difficult to identify sounds that we had heard.
We headed back to the main house to join the rest of the group for a break .
Mere brook cottage second visitWe returned to the cottage with a bigger group this time which included Dean the group leader and Jason the groups other medium , during the next hour we experienced multiple responses to requests for knocks and bangs , I was up on the top floor with Carole as we were getting knocks that seemed to be coming from one of the top bedrooms the EMF readings in both rooms were extremely low 0.1 – 0.2 gauss which is very normal for this kind of area the temperature was a steady 7 degrees.
Dean was situated at the bottom of the stairs asking questions and we were able to record an extremely loud bang which seemed to be the response that he had requested , Both Dean and Jamie then came up onto the first landing with the video camera to investigate where the sounds were coming from as he started to talk to me , I thought that I heard something resembling a sharp intake of breath which caused me to interrupt what he was saying, after waiting for 3 or 4 seconds we carried on talking, when all of a sudden we seemed to hear a sound that came from above us , it sounded like something metallic, at this point Carole turned to look into the double bedroom and to our surprise she was thrown to the floor after reviewing this incident on camera we can clearly see that she is thrown to the floor with some force,fortunately she was not injured just shaken from the incident, at this point the whole group then came up and we entered the room with the single beds , by this point Jason had picked up on what seemed to be a rather nasty presence and took up position in the doorway of the room.
Mere brook cottage second visit We returned to the cottage with a bigger group this time which included Dean the group leader and Jason the groups other medium , during the next hour we experienced multiple responses to requests for knocks and bangs , I was up on the top floor with Carole as we were getting knocks that seemed to be coming from one of the top bedrooms the EMF readings in both rooms were extremely low 0.1 – 0.2 gauss which is very normal for this kind of area the temperature was a steady 7 degrees. Dean was situated at the bottom of the stairs asking questions and we were able to record an extremely loud bang which seemed to be the response that he had requested , Both Dean and Jamie then came up onto the first landing with the video camera to investigate where the sounds were coming from as he started to talk to me , I thought that I heard something resembling a sharp intake of breath which caused me to interrupt what he was saying, after waiting for 3 or 4 seconds we carried on talking, when all of a sudden we seemed to hear a sound that came from above us , it sounded like something metallic, at this point Carole turned to look into the double bedroom and to our surprise she was thrown to the floor after reviewing this incident on camera we can clearly see that she is thrown to the floor with some force,fortunately she was not injured just shaken from the incident, at this point the whole group then came up and we entered the room with the single beds , by this point Jason had picked up on what seemed to be a rather nasty presence and took up position in the doorway of the room.
All EVP's are available as attachements at the end of the post.
Dean started to call out once more and requested that who ever it is that is here should bang on something loud to convince Colin who was a member of the group and an avid sceptic that he was there, after about 4 seconds there was a very loud bang on the wardrobe that was on the other side of the room at this point there was no one touching the wardrobe, it was at this point that Jason mentioned that who ever it was, was now standing in the doorway , Jason suggested going down stairs on his own to divert attention away from the group , but as we have the rule that no one is to be left on their own I decided to go with him.
I sat myself on the Sofa and Jason sat at the dining room table where he had placed a scrying mirror earlier in the evening, the knocking continued up stairs but we were also starting to get some strange noises downstairs as well, the temperature in the room also dropped from 7 to 4 degrees, at one point I had asked Jason where he was in the room , to me it seemed as though he had stood up and was standing behind where he had been sat , he answered that he was still sat at the table , which was quite alarming to me, after also asking him where he thought the presence is he answered “I am not sure” a couple of mins later I asked him if he was okay and there was no answer , with that Dean and the others came down the stairs and switched on the light and to my surprise Jason's face was completely without expression and he seemed to be slumped to one side , had he been affected by who ever was roaming the house ????, fortunately with the help of Cliff Jason recovered fairly quickly , we then returned to the cottage that we were using as our HUB to discuss what had happened .
Mere brook cottageAfter discussing what had happened on the last part of the vigil in the cottage we decided to go back and investigate further this time taking Cliff with us to be on the safe side, as we entered the cottage we split up, Hella, John and myself went upstairs to see if we could get any audio reactions there and the rest of the group stayed down in the lounge area , again we were not let down there were taps and knocks coming from the bedrooms again but the fun really started when the group downstairs asked me if I was stood on the stairs because they were seeing someone stood on the first landing as we moved to the top of the stairs we noticed that we could see what seemed like the outline of a crouched figure on the stairs and it seemed to dart down the stairs , so not wanting to let this chance go I moved down towards the first landing where the figure had been seen, at this point Jason started to act strange once again, his voice changed and he took on a very strong Scottish accent, I decided to challenge him and was then subject to 3 or 4 mins of verbal abuse and bad language, Cliff had to intervene and calm the situation down which seemed to work.
The temperature dropped quite a bit as I reached the spot where the rest of the group had seen it, I sat on the third step up from the bottom and it was at that moment that Cliff said that I was sitting in the same spot where the figure was standing, the air seemed colder than the rest of the stairway, 5 degrees to be exact, from where I was sat I had a view of the kitchen entrance and could see into the kitchen , it was at this point that we started to see strange lights coming out of the kitchen at one point it seemed like someone had walked past the kitchen window with a torch, but from where I was sat I could see part of the window and could see that no one had walked past, the whole group saw some small blue and red lights that seemed to dart along the wall, these lights still remain unexplainable.
Over the next ten mins we all experienced strange sounds and shadows moving along the back wall of the dining room , the little bit of light that we had was on three occasion sucked from the room in a matter of seconds which is something that I have never experienced before, at the same time the temperature would fall to 3 degrees which is a difference of 4 degrees from the original room temperature, normally you would expect the temperature to rise with the amount of people present but it didn't.
Whilst standing in the middle of the dining room area Cliff mentioned that who ever it was, was now sat on the chair in the corner , so I moved towards that chair and sat myself down in his place , which I was told had made him very angry , at that same moment I saw movement in the kitchen out of the corner of my eye which I mentioned to the rest of the group , Andrew then stood up and came with me into the kitchen to see what was going on , in the kitchen the K2 meter spiked several times before settling on red and staying there for a couple of seconds we also noticed that there was a very pungent smell of what I would say was decaying meat, at the same time we heard Cliff in the living room mention that he could also smell something foul , not mentioning what we had smelt I asked him what he thought it was and he replied that it smelt of rotting meat or meat that had gone off, ( After reviewing the evidence this voice was caught in the kitchen)
On returning to the living room I stood in the middle of the room discussing with the rest of the group what we had experienced as I glanced towards the kitchen again I noticed that there seemed to be someone stood in the corner by the doorway, this figure seemed quite tall and had long spindly arms that were waving , at first I thought that this was my imagination playing tricks on me but when two other members of the group also asked if anyone can see the figure stood in the corner a cold feeling shot down my spine, some of the group were also mentioning that they could see smaller figures moving through the frosted glass door which led to the porch area of the cottage, it seemed at this point that the activity in this cottage was peaking ,but the activity seemed to stop as quick as I had begun.
After a 10 min lull in activity we decided to retire to the HUB and regroup.
All in all I must sat that I have never experienced such intense activity in one location before allot of the experiences that we witnessed we can only label as being personal experiences, but several of those experiences were witnessed by more than one person in the group at the same time, and I think that some of the EVP's that we captured speak for themselves .
If I was asked whether I think that there is paranormal activity happening at Orford Mill I would have to say “Very much so”, it's an incredible place to visit.
A big thanks goes to Angela Cooper and her son Jamie for letting us investigate this beautiful location and of course a big thanks to Paranormal Devon Undiscovered for inviting us along for the evening it was fantastic , it's such a pleasure to work with a group that has so much dedication and passion for the Paranormal and also carries out their investigation with such a high standard of professionalism
Sat Jan 04, 2014 1:48 pm by Ian
ZOOM0006 Bang on the wardrobe .mp3 
