(UK Paranormal) Mike Driscoll Claire Nicholas Ray Matthews Richard Reynolds Scott Badger Kris West (Medium) Andrew Garley

1 x Digital Video Camera 2 x Analog Video Cameras 4 x Digital Still Cameras 2 x 35mm Still Cameras 4 x Dictaphones 1 x EMF Meter

Visited  16th November 2002
The team began arriving around 6 pm as arranged and first impressions and a few preliminary pictures were taken. When the rest of the team arrived sometime around 8pm 2 hours late after getting lost on the way John Humphries took most of the group on a tour of the property, while Mike Driscoll stayed with our medium for the night Andrew Garley to ensure that he didn't hear anything or see anything that could influence him later on. Below are a copy of the notes taken during the tour;

JOHN'S TOUR NOTES


KITCHEN
Girls in middle of room. Kept awake for years by banging on windows and door slamming. 3 diviners were brought in 1 by 1 and all confirmed a well in middle of floor with 2 bodies in it and 1 evil spirit. Made crude crucifix to lay and spot and that seems to have stopped the noises from the window and the door. Still bothered by loud banging on bedroom trapdoor hatch. (John's brother was thought to be responsible, but is now quiet after spirit was moved on). John shows a post dug up by architects that is believed to be 7000 years old!!!


STABLE
(This room is now used by john as a kind of living room, and area where he entertains guests). Activity (strange lights) in corner by door. 18 year old gent thrown to floor and John flung and pinned against wall. Curtains that john use to divide the room in winter are pinned together, they are often ripped apart and "Incubus" comes through to the door (seen as a black shadow). A man and his son come for the tour and where watching John's video of happenings (John was outside) both ran screaming from the building saying they had seen a ghost rising from the floor. There is a window frame in this room now backed by a mirror that is believed to be possibly the oldest remaining wooden frame in the country.

THE MENS KITCHEN
It is in this room that the ancient grave is located. Secret tunnel believed to run from this room to the church. Shards of metal excavated from the grave have been confirmed by Bristol museum as a dagger possibly used in ritual sacrifice! Equipment trouble in this is common.

UNDER STAIRS
Since students started to dig here looking for the hidden cellar sounds of a baby crying have been heard coming from this spot. John showed us a picture taken by some else that showed the possible face of a presence taken at this spot.

DRINK SERVING AREA
Possible apparirition seen and associated with a cold spot. Clawing sounds as of a large dog have been heard on the door (no longer there). John goes on to tell a story about reading the bible and the incubus feeling up his legs. Bottom of stairs a bad presence is often felt.

STAIRS
People are often thrown up the stairs (on a personal note here I have been pushed by something here 3 times, although the push was downwards and not up).

THE WITCHES ROOM
Witch appears by the bed. Little girl is seen from the outside waving to passers by.

CLOCK ROOM
Grandfather clock has been pictured with a face in it. (The picture and others can be seen here ) Ghost seen to appear by the door to the Bishops Room. When door is banged 3 times with Shepard's crook and the question "is anyone there?" is asked sometimes the door shakes and bangs violently. A visiting medium came to this door and told john to clear the corridor he was then picked up and thrown the length of the corridor.

BISHOPS ROOM
Dogs have been known to attack their owners in this room. Fireplace in this room blocked for 200 years. When it was opened a little round block of wood was found along with a very small horse shoe. These objects have been confirmed as the type used in devil worship and black magic. Creaming has been heard by some mediums possibly some one killed in the fire. The ghost of a cavalier is seen in here, also a lady strangled, a Shepard and his dog, 2 nuns and the incubus.

WEAVERS ATTIC
Orbs often seen and photographed here Nora Fosmin was killed here

CAROLE ANNES ROOM
Cabinet flew across room (full account on the ram web site) Scratch marks are builder's marks. Once this had been completed Andre commenced his first walk through of the building to see what impressions he could pick up. Below are a copy of the notes taken during this time. I must apologies at this time if these notes are a little disjointed. They were made as a back up the video record that I have yet to see. Bearing this in mind it may not be a wholly accurate account and may have details missing. It will be updated once I have had a chance to review the video;

ANDREW'S IMPRESSIONS

KITCHEN
Soldiers in uniform-murder, man hung by feet, throat cut and bleed to death. Someone up and downstairs but not often. Stocky male (ghost form) leaves through window, may have been a door at sometime. He is visiting a grave was related to victim.

DOORWAY
Visit history-someone noble man and woman well dressed.

STABLE
Presence felt-gentleman jailer or executioner? Bald head. Man of justice, or the cloth. Very stern wasn't averse to giving someone a good hiding, sinister looking and very bitter. Shoves people. Andy felt tug on hair. By fireplace. Old men sitting with clay pipes, negative planning and plotting death, over throwing someone of power.

ROOM BY STAIRS (DOWN)
Corner dark strong sense very cold.

STAIRWAY
Lady in long dress walking up stairs

THE DEN
Heart pounding shortness of breath. Murders. Lady long dress, dark maroon colour, bonnet on head back at an angle. Visiting? Connected to house sister of somebody name of M. Melissa? Messa?

BISHOPS ROOM
Very very strong impression of 2 male presences. Andy's head being touched A stern man and slightly younger. Very very cold. Andy's legs are shaky Man- shouting at a woman and holding her by the throat. Vicious beating her uncoucious (she died from this?) "How dare you come into my room? Who do you think you are?" Name John? Has contempt of women, not worthy of his time, aggressive childhood? Man lived here, sitting at writing desk. Fight between religions. Old woman, scarf, small, thin going in and out of each room in turn. Part of the family (loud knocking heard at this point) taking care of rooms, not a maid.

OPPOSITE BISHOPS ROOM
Bodies laid out possibly plague.

THE ATTIC
People locked in, not personal. Scared of something. Woman and a young girl, a boy around 12-13 years old. Woman and young girl, waiting to die. Man from bishop's room has colleagues in here.

CAROL ANNES ROOM
Andy's legs are quivering again Women have been here a long time, not only murdered, face was gouged out or burnt. Andy feels like he is being stabbed in the back.

OVER VIEW
Nothing happy or positive in the entire building. All doom and gloom, terror, murders and persecution. Feeling of not being welcome. We regrouped in the stable area and split into 2 teams. Before the night proper could get going two of the team walked through the building to get some baseline tests. This proved to be pointless as almost the whole building was buzzing with EMF activity. Notes were made of the hotspots of activity as well as explainable area's of activity such as fuse boards ect. The teams split and went into the two rooms we had decided to hold our first vigils in. on the way up to the second floor a Dictaphone was set to record under the stairs where the sound of a baby crying had been reported. Team one consisted of Mike Driscoll, Ray Matthews and Andrew Garley. Team two consisted of Scott Badger, Claire Nicholas, Richard Reynolds and Kris West. John accompanied team one into the Bishops room and team two made themselves comfortable in the Witches room. After 30 mins the teams switched locations.

TEAM ONE
The team entered the room and had a quick look around. Mike swept the room with the Emf meter and found a large anomaly over one of the beds, so it was decided that we would try the dowsing rods. Both Mike and Ray tried using them both having the same result of the rods crossing over on part of the central bed. Andrew made himself comfortable in a chair by the door, so did John on the opposite side of the door. The lights were switched off and the team sat quietly for a while. There was a small amount of light coming into the room from above the closed door. Ray reported seeing what he described as the tip of a cats tail moving across the bed nearest the window. As we had a Dictaphone running in the room Andrew was asked to try asking some questions of the spirits to see if we could get any EVP responses. During his questions Andrew asked if anyone could indicate what year it was. To our surprise we got what seems to be response. (click here for EVP page). Andrew got up and started move around the room giving us impressions he was picking up, these are much the same as in his walk through earlier in the night. On several occasions he reported being pushed and was observed by all in the room rocking back on his heels as if he had indeed been pushed. The video was running on infrared at all times in the room and what were thought to be floating orbs where captured over the bed. On further investigation of the tapes all but one can be ruled out as moths or insects, (wing beats can be seen in a frame by frame analysis). The one "orb" that can't be dismissed as an insect can be seen by clicking here ). As can be seen in the clip the object moves really fast from one side of the shot to the other. In a frame by frame analysis the object appears to be at least 8 inches long in a single frame! At this time we can not explain what it is.
At the end of the 30 minutes John treated us to his "door knocking" show. All members of the team gathered in the bishops room, John lit a candle, picked up his crook and left the room turning out all lights in the process. Starting from the Witches room at the opposite end of the corridor John walked the length of the corridor banging his crook on the floor. When he reached the door of the Bishops room he knocked 3 times and intoned the question "is any one there?" he repeated this 3 times and then opened the door and entered the room walked the length of the room turned and left hitting the floor all the way. It has been reported that this has in the past caused apparitions to appear in the room and also the doorway. On this occasion however, although great drama, it produced no results. Scott had a go at recreating the ritual and again produced no results. Full marks to Scott on his sense of drama though!
John retired for the night at this point and the team had a short break outside.
Once again the team spilt into its separate parts and changed locations in the rooms upstairs.
Team one entering the witches room for what was about to be a very interesting experience! We decided to sit quietly for a while and take no pictures so as to "soak up" the atmosphere. No sounds of any importance were heard during this time so we agreed to try an experiment with Andrew attempting to call the spirits to him in the room while Ray and Mike took digital pictures to see if we could capture any orbs to order or indeed an apparition. Unfortunately no apparitions. However orbs were caught in almost every picture, some if not most of these have to be written off to dust in the room but two pictures stick out in this experiment. Taken seconds apart by two different cameras. Shot one shows an orb on one side Andrews chest, shot two shows what appears to be the same orb on the other side of Andrews's chest. The circumstances that these pictures where taken add weight to the spirit orb intelligence theory, i.e. appearing on request and taken by separate cameras appearing to move between shots. The pictures can by seen by clicking here . We once again sat quietly for a short time and then Andrew informed us of the presence of a small girl in the room. Ray tried to get to her to appear in a photo for us but to no avail. After a short time Andrew informed us that he managed to "bring the light down to move the child on". He told us it had been hard work and he had indeed been thwarted on a previous attempt, but had been successful this time, he told us she was happy to go and that a nun like figure had come to "to take her home".
Mike was by now standing in the corner of the room furthest from the door, ray was stood by the door and Andrew moved to somewhere in-between. All three of us noticed a sudden drop in temperature. Ray informed us he was about to take a flash picture. Just after the flash Mike said "I just saw someone beside me but when I reached to see who it was there was no one there". Second's later ray asked Andrew if he had walked in front of him, the answer came back no he hadn't moved. Ray told us he had seen someone walk in front of him towards the front of the building; he later confirmed that the voices (Mike and Andrews) came from the other side of the room. It seems that both Ray and Mike had possibly seen an apparition! All three people in the room reported a feeling of menace and the Emf meter once again went off the scale! A cold spot was also located in front of mike. The light was turned on and a line of Emf activity was traced across the room. The line appeared to gain strength towards the ceiling so we went into the attic to see if we could find it up there. The atmosphere was again very threatening in the attic and Emf activity was off the scale. As the end of the scheduled 30 mins was Mike asked two members from team two go up in the attic and see what they thought. Scott and Richard went up and after a few minutes came back down to report that the Emf meter was going off the scale, they didn't however register any bad feelings.

TEAM TWO
Scotty, Richard, Claire and Kris entered the Witches room, after a quick look round at the marvellous room we settled into various places, after we had got our bearings we switched off the lights, the room takes on a very different persona when the lights are switched off - the atmosphere becomes heavier - this may be down to the stories surrounding the building and room. Several pictures were taken within the 30 min vigil, but as far as we know nothing was captured apart from the usual orbs, most of which can be explained away by dust in the air or fibres on the curtains. We then switched rooms with Team One and preceded to the Bishops room, the bishops room comes with a lot of history so expectancy was very high on my part, as before we acquainted ourselves with the layout and decided we would try doing some dowsing - Claire took the rods and started a full sweep of the room, we had a crossing of the rods at the fire place, this was tried twice more with the same results from Claire, we also had a crossing of the rods at the picture of the old man's head - Kris then had a dowsing session, her results were similar to Claire's with a crossing at the picture and at the fire place. Richards turn resulted in a crossing at the fire place and I could only manage a closeness of the rods near the old man's head picture, we then switched the lights of again and took several pictures.
Mike came down from the loft area and requested that me and Richard go and see if we could see or sense anything - I've had the use of the same EMF meter of Mike's on other investigations and have never seen it be virtually off the scale near enough all the time, no matter where we moved the meter in the loft the readings were very high, we returned downstairs to report the EMF readings, but nothing was felt by me or Richard.
We regrouped once more and decided it was time to set up a couple of controlled experiments. In the Bishops room we set up a crucifix on a piece of paper with the outline clearly marked. A night vision camera was set up to "watch" the cross making sure the whole area was covered as well as a good amount of empty space around the experiment so we could see if any body tampered with the cross or the paper just in case it moved. After asking any spirits in the room to move the cross for us we turned out the lights and shut the door on the way out leaving a Dictaphone running in the room as a back up to the video cameras sound recording. In the witch's room Scotty had set his camera looking towards the bed were he stood a cassette case on end just in case he could also capture any movement. After setting another Dictaphone running in the room the door was shut and we set up another couple of Dictaphones in strategic areas around the house and went outside so we would not disturb any possible results we gained. We returned to the rooms after an hour but alas no movement. So we set up the 35mm camera on tripod and turned off the lights once more to take some long exposure shots. The reasoning behind this is simple. IF orbs exist and IF they are self illuminating and IF they move we should at some point be able to capture them moving across the shot. As a further twist to the experiment we introduced Andrew into the equation to try once again calling the spirits into the shot. I have not as yet had the film developed so results are pending on this one. It had been noted that all the activity seemed to be around Team One.
It was speculated that maybe Andrew had been the catalyst attracting the spirits to him, so Team Two were sent off to the witch's room for a second time, but with the medium in tow. Apart from a strong smell of perfume noticed upon entering the room nothing else happened. Andrew told the team that the spirits seemed to have drawn away for the time being. Whilst this was happening Mike and Ray re-entered the Bishops room to try a question and answer session with a Dictaphone to try and gain some insight into who might have been haunting the premises. No tangible results were gained. We packed up and left the property locked up as arranged. The entire group moved to the front of the building for some group shots before leaving for home. Once this was done I remembered that I had got no pictures of the windows, so I returned to the drive way to get some. The pictures I took had two of the most interesting of the night (click Here to view the Ram's Photo's Page) in the first is some sort of fog or mist I was not smoking at the time! In the second there is a possible face in the upper most window this could be a trick of the light but it looks like a face to me.

So is this The Ancient Ram Inn haunted?
That is a very difficult question to answer as I have no wish to give a definite positive answer on the back of the meagre evidence we gathered on the night, neither do I wish to say no it isn't! I can say this however, of the places that I myself and indeed the team on the night have visited in the past that have a reputation for being haunted, this place is by far the most convincing seen to this date. UK Paranormal. I don't as rule do this but I feel it's relevant this time. So on a personal note I would like add something. I have visited the Ram now on two separate occasions, once with my wife to do a recce and once with the team. On both visit's I have been pushed by something unseen on the stairs, quite an unnerving experience I can tell you. Also since we visited the Ram I noticed that I had left my note book behind. After speaking to the team members who were there on the night I ascertained that none of them had picked it up by mistake. Several members remember me putting it down next to my briefcase near the front door of the property. I phoned john to see if he had found it. He told me he had indeed found a black note book on the landing on the first floor! I was the last to leave the building to make sure all was locked up so I know no one went back in and moved it. So how did it get from the front door through three rooms and up the stairs?

Mike Driscoll.