Present:
Julie Fellowes
Mel Dunkley

Wymering Manor is a fantastic building with plenty of crooked staircases, nooks & crannies, a balcony, a couple of priest holes, cellars and enough ghosts to keep any paranormal investigator happy for years. Paranormal Dimensions were invited to go along and spend an evening there by David Scanlan, founder of the Hampshire Ghost Club. Naturally they bit his hand off up to the elbow. The date was set, plans were made, and on the evening of Friday the 14th of January, Jules and Mel set off armed with very little equipment. 'Qoi'? I hear you say....... all will be revealed.
The girls arrived at the Manor at 11pm, unloaded not alot from the car and introduced themselves to Dave. The following hour was spent (after Jules had demanded to know where the coffee was kept) with a tour of the building by Dave followed by some spooky story telling over coffee in the main hall. Dave told them of the many odd occurences that happen on an almost daily basis in the building. He told of male, female and child apparitions which are frequently seen in different parts of the building, some solid in appearance others appearing to be see through. Even the appearance of a tabby cat and a scottish terrier dog have been seen throughout the building. The gardens are not to be left out, boasting a sinister dark figure that walks through the grounds, and is not adverse to creeping up on people. Objects have been known to move and cuttlery to fly, doors to unlock and open, lights to come on, temperature drops, ice cold breaths felt upon ones face, and for those settling down to sleep, a great pressure may be felt on the chest to squeeze the breath from their body. Investigators attempting table tipping experiments have had the table jump from their hands
and move across the floor in front of their very eyes.
Nice one Dave, the girls were spooked but eager to get started.
During this 'girl scaring' session in the main hall, Julie and Mel admitted to constantly seeing things in their peripheral vision, from all areas of the room. Both were convinced that this was because of the vastness of the room and the already advancing hands of fatigue. The day of the investigation was Mel's birthday and so the girls decided that they would take the investigation back to it's roots and spend the evening wandering the building with nothing more than nightvision camcorders & digital stills cameras. It was to be an evening of relaxation and enjoying themselves without the binds of a tonne of equipment, regimes and data logging.
A little after midnight Dave retired for the evening and the girls set off, the first thing they did was to wander around the building taking digital stills pictures of the different rooms and areas within the building. It has to be said that all the rooms were large and oddly shaped making it almost impossible to see all of the room at any given time. The best example of this being the main hall, with two staircases leading up to a balcony and with seven or eight doors leading off from it leading to corridors, rooms and gardens. The very lay out of the rooms were enough to put the bravest of people on edge, and the fearless duo took one look at the place and anounced 'were not seperating for this one' (sad but true, walkie talkies back in the box).
Once the building had been covered and the photos' taken the girls decided to sit in each room in turn and carry out a vigil with the night vision camcorders. As each room was tackled, the girls became less and less nervous of their surroundings, feeling nothing of an unnerving or sinister nature around them.
At around 3am they decided to set up a trigger object experiment in the members kitchen which used to be a chapel followed by a garage before being transformed into the kitchen it is today. The 3 axis motion detector was set up on a large table in the center of the room with one of the sensors remaining on the table top, one on the worktop to the left of the room and one on the worktop to the right of the room. Various objects were selected from the kitchen and placed upon the sensors, the base unit was set to the highest sensitivity level and the experiment left for an hour. During the course of that hour, the girls attempted a table tipping experiment back in the main hall. The experiment was attempted three times within the space of that hour but each attempt was unsuccessful. Back to the kitchen to the trigger object experiment and dissapointment, not so much as a breeze had stirred within the room. The girls set off back to the main hall for a coffee infusion and a chat. They had to admit that the original apprehension
of the building had long since gone, and both felt that there was nothing in the least bit paranormal about to happen
around them that night.
Tiredness had by now taken a firm hold, both were at a loss as to what to do with themselves without the truck load of gadgets they usually bring along and both wanted to go grab some sleep. They were still seeing movement going on out of the corner of their eyes within the main hall, but the novelty had worn off, if something were to happen now they would have to take a 'rain check' the spooks had missed their window as far as they were concerned.
The equipment was packed away and bedroom 3 was selected for nesting in, it was by far the warmest room, held only 3 bunkbeds (the Manor is now used as a youth hostel) and was one of the least odd shaped rooms in the building. Jules took the top bunk and Mel the Bottom bunk nearest to the door (furthest from the window and any sly draft) and settled down for the night. Neither of the girls expected anything to happen during the remainder of the night, and indeed it didn't..........they think.
Considering how tired they both felt, it took them some time to settle, it would go quiet for a while before someone whispered 'are you asleep yet?' and the other would reply with some complaint or other. It was very shortly after one of these exchanges that Jules felt the side of her face go incredibly cold and the feeling that the very slightest breeze almost like a gentle touch of an icy feather across her cheek was felt. She heard Mel sit up and waited for her to comment, but Mel soon lay down again and so Jules assumed that she was just adjusting the pillow or something. So Jules said nothing, assuming that she was just over tired and that maybe there was a breeze traveling from the window and hell bent on getting her and her alone. Never-the-less, Jules did mention this incident to Mel whilst travelling home the following day, and Mel said she had experienced the same thing. From talking about when they thought it happened (in relation to their whispered conversations), it would seem that they had indeed experienced this at the same time. Dave was emailed later that day and asked if anyone else had experienced anything like this in that room. He replied that it had been reported and said that it was odd for that room because it was one of the warmest rooms within the building. He also told us that it was in this room that people would feel a heavy weight pressing on their chest as they lay in bed. So... paranormal or just a draft?
Back at the PD lab later that day, the girls decided to have a look at the photos they had taken. A couple of pictures showed a few questionable orbs, but more interestingly, on the shots taken by Mel in most of the downstairs rooms, a black shadowing effect appeared on two corners of the picture. The possibility of something partially covering the lens or Mel having two fingers (which would have been needed to create this effect) over the lens, was ruled out. However... When Mel had turned the camera lengthways to get a different angled shot, the shadows appeared in the opposite corners, immediately suggesting some kind of camera fault but... In some of the pictures, the shadowing effect appears in three and sometimes all four of the corners of the picture. When looking at the pictures, it was best described 'as if the flash cannot penetrate that area of darkness'. Further more, on all pictures subsequently taken on the upper level of the building, the shadowing is no longer present. Paranormal? Or grubby lens?
Wymering Manor is a truly incredible place and the girls would like to thank Dave Scanlan once again for allowing them access to the Manor and for his hospitality. They have asked for a two night return visit later in the year, this time with their equipment and with 6 other people. They are very excited about this return visit and plans are already being made, with a view to taking along to willing readers of the Paranormal Dimensions website. Keep an eye on the news page for details of this, it should be a very interesting weekend.

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