Nottingham Gaol
Obviously quite excited about this, I'd watched quite a few episodes of Most Haunted by now and this ghost hunting malarkey looked to be pretty exciting stuff! We arranged this night with Fright Nights which appeared to be a reputable, professional company.
It took ages for us to find the place (I must get myself a TomTom) being hidden away down the back streets of Nottingham, but we got there eventually. Fright Nights is a professional company but they specialize in experiences and I felt as though we were in attendance rather than taking part, although I have heard other people contradict this. The night started with an interesting tour by Martin Jeffrey (founder of Fright Nights), telling tales of the ghostly happenings and giving us some history of the place. He's a good story teller and this part of the night was most enjoyable. During our walk round I noticed the smell of baking in an area of the jail, I mentioned it to Rosie and she said that she could smell it too. Just after I had got the wif Martin told us that the area we were standing in was used for cooking at some point in its history. Wow! A psychic smell! I asked Martin if theres any artificial smells around the building, he said that there wasn't. I can't completely dismiss trickery (after all we were paying customers) or perhaps it was a genuine smell coming from somewhere but as it was at the time I could not give a reasonable explanation.
After our tour with Martin we went on another tour with the psychic (his name escapes me). This dragged on a bit as we had just walked round once already with Martin. The psychic done his thing but nothing really stands out in my mind now. Finally we got back to base and the real ghost hunting begun...
We split into two groups and went off to various parts of the location. A lot of stuff was said and apparently seen that night but as with all my write ups I will keep my writings confined to what I saw and experienced myself.
The first experience I recall is in the womens area of the jail. As I walked into one of the cubicles I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and I started to sweat quite profusely. When I left the area the feeling faded. It was a strange pain, unlike any that I can compare it to really, it was just a sharp pain that hurt on the inside. Paranormal? Possible. But after the incident I recalled that during Martins walk round he had mentioned a man being stabbed in the stomach in this area and that people (men) sometimes experience what I had experienced. Now when I entered the area I was oblivious to what he had said, however I can't omit the fact that this could have been a premeditated response to what I had heard earlier. Still hurt though.
At the Galleries of Justice there are very dark caves at the base. It's an interesting place and apparently the most haunted part of the building. We all congregated in this area and all the lights were turned out. It was black, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. There was a guy that had his video camera on at the other end of the cave, he'd closed the screen and was using the viewfinder so all that was visible was a red LED flashing. I swear I saw little twinkling lights around this fella, at first I just thought it was my eyes playing tricks but the lights stayed, then Rosie said "Can you see those lights down there?" So if I could see them and Rosie could see them then there must've been lights right? We spoke up but the lights we saw were dismissed as something to do with the camcorder and the offender was told to turn it off. I also thought I heard someone walking behind me on the gravelly floor, no one else heard it though so I can't be sure whether I did or not....
Just outside of the caves there is a chapel. Here the group decided to communicate with Spirit using an upturned glass, by asking spirit to move the glass in response to questions. This was interesting as the group seemed genuinely surprised and impressed by what was happening. This held my interest until the group got intrigued by the fact that the "Spirit" claimed to be a three headed demon. Sorry but the limits of my imagination just can't stretch that far, perhaps naively but nah...
We spent time in other parts of the jail where Rosie picked up a few things psychically but I didn't experience anything.
As the caves was the most haunted part of the building the entire party of attendees decided to go back there for a final seance. As I mentioned earlier the caves were pitch black and the group insisted on having complete darkness (what is the obsession!?), however Rosie has a phobia against complete darkness (I know, not ideal for a ghost hunter) and we decided that we would step out from the seance. I was quite pleased about that because I don't know if I fancied anymore entertainment from "Demons". Anyway we decided to sit just outside the caves in the area of the Chapel, just me and Rosie with the rest of the group in the caves. As we sat there we clearly heard gagging from one of the chambers! We just looked at each other, like what the hell was that!? Of course we just had to go and investigate so we made our way to the area where we believed the sound came from. We sat ourselves down and watched and listened. As I stared into the darkness I swear to this day that I could make out the form of a person, not solid but like a haze, almost like a million twinkling lights forming an image. Rosie could see something too and although what we described to each other tallied up I can't be sure that we saw the same. At that same time the small room had got very cold, to the point where I could see my breath (I couldn't previously). Had I been more experienced I would've got up and felt the area where I thought I could see the apparition or whipped out my camera and got the proof. But I didn't do anything just sat and watched until the image faded and the room warmed up again.....
So that was it, my first Ghost hunt. We never done another Fright Night but like I said earlier I have heard a lot of good reports about them since our night at The Galleries, it probably depends on which psychic you get on your night. Rosie attended a Psychic Development weekend that was arranged by a Wyde Tree, a sister group of Fright Nights, which she thoroughly enjoyed and would highly recommend. We visited The Galleries of Justice in 2005 and this write up was done in 2007 so my memory is a little vague as to the bits in between what's described above, but the tales I have told are crystal clear and will stay with me. I'd love to visit there again, but this time with a small informal group of friends, that'd be excellent.
