Stockwell Spiritulist Church - Preliminary Report

We will be conducting an investigation at the Stockwell Spiritulist Church, North London on the 9th August 2008.

Location:

Google Map

Here is the preliminary report courtesy of Bongo:

Date: 9th August 2008

Investigators:

Barri Ghai (Lead Investigator UK)
Laura Chalmers (Investigator & Case Manager)
Simon Buckle (Investigator & Technical Manager)
Bongo (Spiritulist Medium)
Rob Powell (Trainee Investigator)
Jamie-Lee Frost (Trainee Investigator)
Report by: Bongo

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General History of Stockwell

c1285 - The manor of South Lambeth was divided to form Stockwell and Vauxhall Manors.
1523 - Sir John Leigh, Lord of the Manor, built the first Stockwell Chapel.
1555 - Queen Mary 1 granted Stockwell Manor to Viscount Montagu in recognition of his services during the rebellions of the Duke of Northumberland and Sir Thomas Wyatt.
1683 - Part of the Manor was sold to John Howland, whose daughter Elizabeth married the Duke of Bedford. Her dowry included land near the present Landor Road.
1767 - Church of St Andrew, Stockwell Green, built on land given by Duke of Bedford (the oldest church in Lambeth after St-Mary-at-Lambeth).
1802 - Manor of Stockwell sold at auction.
c1840 - First houses in Stockwell Park Road and Crescent built.
c1860 - Ernest George, architect, lived in Albert Square whilst a student. He was President of RIBA 1908-1910 and Sir Edwin Lutyens was one of his pupils..
c1870 - Stockwell Orphanage built by Charles Spurgeon, Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle (Stockwell Park School now occupies the site).
1873 - Vincent van Gogh lodged at 87 Hackford Road.
1878 - The poet Sir Edward Thomas was born at 14 Lansdowne Gardens. He fought in the Great War and died at Arras in1917.
1890 - Stockwell Station on the new City and South London Railway opened by the Prince of Wales on 4^th November.
1921 - Stockwell War Memorial and Clocktower erected. Today the main act of Remembrance for the people of Lambeth is held there.
1931 - Lillian Baylis, manager of the Old Vic Theatre, acquired the Saddlers Wells Theatre as avenue for opera and ballet. She lived in Stockwell Park Road where she died in 1937.
1942 - Deep air-raid shelter tunnels constructed next to Stockwell Station. They were not opened until July 1944 by which time the blitz was over, and were originally also planned to be part of an express Northern Line.
1945 - Violette Szabo, a British agent working in France during the Second World War, was arrested and shot as a spy in Ravensbruk prison. She had lived in Burnley Road and was posthumously awarded the George Cross.
1948 - SS Windrush brought 500 West Indian immigrants to Britain, many of whom were accommodated in the deep shelter tunnels between Stockwell and Clapham South.
1990’s - Acid and ambient house pioneers The KLF recorded many of their tunes at Trancentral, AKA 55 Jeffrey’s Road. Following worldwide chart success, they moved to St. Michael’s Road.


The name Stokewell (first recorded in 1197) means the well by the stump or wood and comes from the Old English stocc + wella. There was a Stockwell Wood until the 17th century. The manor of Stockwell was formed in the late 13th century, when King Edward I acquired the manor of South Lambeth and divided it into the two manors of Vauxhall and Stockwell. City merchants built houses along the Clapham Road and Stockwell Road before the 1800s. Residential streets started being laid out in the 1830s, and most of the Stockwell Park area was developed during the 1840s.

The first deep level tunnel to be built on the London Underground was the stretch running from Stockwell to King William Street, Opened in 1890, it was originally designed to be cable operated, but was changed to electric before opening.

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St Michael’s Road

The road runs on a West-East alignment from Stockwell Park Crescent to Stockwell Road. The mid- 19th Century housing is terraced with small front gardens. Where there is housing on both sides the road feels narrow with a strong sense of enclosure. The character is more urban with mostly Italianate style detailing. An interesting break in the character are the Gothic Revival style houses with "staggered" property frontages which closely follow a bend in the street by utilising a series of projections and changes in height to address the subtle changes in level and gentle curve of the street.

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Stockwell Spiritualist Church




In 1936 Brixton Spiritualists moved into the church in St Michael's Road Stockwell. Throughout the last 72 years regular services, physical séances, development circles and healing sessions have taken place there. There is no official graveyard at the church, however cremated remains of many supporters of the church are buried in the church garden. The church has a reputation for hosting the largest number of metaphysical phenomena of all the London Spiritualist Churches.
Personally I have witnessed examples of these phenomena including a vase of flowers flying off a shelf during a church service, many auditory phenomena including bangs, knocks, raps, voices and laughter. Spirit lights make a regular appearance, and more often than not photographs taken in the church revealing both orbs and other strange artefacts. We have regularly heard footsteps and the front door to the church can be heard opening and closing even when bolted. There are also regular visiting spirit cats both in the church and the garden, with numerous reports of the feeling of a cat brushing up against visitors legs.

Other phenomena witnessed are apports (paranormal transference of an article from one place to another, or an appearance of an article from an unknown source): multiple occurrences of psychic breezes, luminous apparitions and areas of ectoplasm mist.

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Video Clips:

This clip were taken during a clearing session by the stockwell closed circle . Watch the lower half of the screen.

I'm very excited by coming to this church, i love going to spiritalist churches and ive so far enjoyed the relaxing atmospher in the churches ive been to.
The videos are very interesing and i could watch them for hours trying to work things out and find reasons, but its hard to explain.

This looks like it will be a fantastic case , and i am sure that the team will conduct an excellent investigation , and thanks to Bongo for the great prelim report , thats an excellent piece of work .


greetz
phantom

The investigation will be slightly different to the ones we are used to undertaking folks.

We will be firstly giving a presentation about ghost hunting and our techniques to the whole closed cirlce. When finished the wholw group will watch us set up, and start the investigation to put what we have talked about into practice.

Then the first two levels of the circle (beginners, and intermediate groups) will be asked to leave and the advanced circle members that went to Plumstead will remain for most of the night. As yet I am still unsure as to what time we will be finished as Bongo said that she has to work the next morning. I will update you all soon as possible about the finer details.

Well it looks like you have everything planned , so i think that it will go well , i will keep my fingers crossed .

greetz
phantom

Can everybody who wants to definitely attend the Stockwell investigation on August 9th please register your names below:

So far I have:

Simon Buckle
Laura Chalmers
Jamie Lee Frost
Barri Ghai

Come on folks!!!! I need confirmation of numbers and then need to organise the event! Put your names here.....NOW!!!!! LOL

I am SO happy I lost my job so I can stay late now

come on guys if you are going to stockwell it is 2 days away we need to know right now

sorry i would love to be there but i have no chance before sept
cannot wait to see results though.good luck

Okay, I have had a bit of a poor response regarding this folks.

The only people confirmed to be going tomorrow are:

Laura Chlamers
Simon Buckle
Barri Ghai

I have had several unsure messages about this investigation and need to know tonight please.

Thank you.

sounds an interesting evening....absolute shame i cldnt be there for the evening...but am looking forward to the next... having been a member for many years of spiritualist church in Sevenoaks and occasionally maidstone,for some reason Stockwell somewhere along the line had been mentioned a few times, guess i know why now if its as active as one says.....

Well Stockwell is over and it was a great experience for all involved. I would like to say a big thank you to Investigators Simon Buckle, who as usual displayed an excellent sense of awareness, attitude, and knowledge. Laura Chalmers, for her brilliant research, planning, and professional approach to the case, and finally Rob Powell for his first ghost hunt, and the dedication, commitment, and highly professional behaviour he demonstrated throughout the night.

Also a special thank you to Bongo (and the whole psychic circle) for arranging the investigation and facilitating the evening.

The investigation report will be complete in the next 24 hours and we have now been through the hours of video, audio and photographs. Although we had a great time and worked extremely well as a team, we didn't get amazing evidence on this occasion. Most of the images were considered to be dust particles caught in the light of the flash.

Simon did capture what we thought was a red apparition but if you look at the homepage of the website you will see what our analysis concluded.

Anyway the final report will be in the website tonight so you can all read it there!

We are all looking forward to the next one now.