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| Paranormal Research Group |
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Welcome to Haunted Yorkshire Paranormal research group. Take a step into the Paranormal side of Yorkshire! | ||||||||||||
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Illingworth Gaol, Halifax Member’s in Attendance Dawn Russ Tracy Graham Saturday the 12th March 2006, Haunted Yorkshire undertook an investigation of the old gaol (jail) in Illingworth, just on the outskirts of Halifax, West Yorkshire... The Goal was built in 1823 and had four cells, which housed local drunks, vagabonds and the like… The Gaol its self stands at the side of the road that runs straight through the village of Illingworth, and from the out side looks like an old stone barn with its small windows and doorway, its not until you look again you see the remains of the bars up at the windows and the stocks to the left hand side, that you realise what this old building is... The stocks were used quite frequently in bygone years as a method of punishment for crimes such as not being able to pay a fine, you would be placed in the stocks and local villagers would come and hurl rotting old veg as well as verbally abuse you whilst you were encased on the stocks! There are several sets of stocks that survive to this in the Halifax area to this day and outside Illingworth gaol, is one of those sets.... The weather was cold, and it was snowing ever so slightly as we walked up the hill to the gaol... First impressions on standing outside were one of awe, with the bars on the windows and the wobbly looking roof of slate that had obviously seen better days! We walked on in through a big door which was rounded at the top and quite tall, into the downstairs area, we had been asked not to investigate the downstairs area due to the amount of things stored there… The building it self was smaller that I had imagined it would be from our view of it outside.... But once inside, I noticed the floor was solid stone, which lead you to the staircase, which was also made of sand stone and quite steep. Upstairs you basically have two separate rooms now, and any evidence of the cells had obviously long gone in the ravages of time... We found an area for our kit and started to get ready for our investigation.... Our baseline testing showed a fluctuation in temperature in both rooms, one being warmer than the other.... I found no particular reading on the EMF meter, but temperature was fluctuating in the rooms from 0.4 degrees to minus 2 in places.....Obviously this was going to be a cold night. I set the hygrometer up in the first room, which showed low levels of humidity... Graham and Tracy were walking round getting a feel for the place....as we walked into one of the upstairs rooms, we nearly jumped right out of our skin, as we saw a black shape on the far back wall! At first glance it looked like a hooded shape, the building is now used to store what appears to be all sorts of effigies and things that may be used for the theatre ect… but on second glance it was quite apparent it was nothing more than a cloak someone had hung up on the back wall, with a face mask... Graham walked into the room and stood in the corner with his hands on the wall....he said he was picking up on a male energy. I checked the area and again there were no flickers from the EMF meter evident, temperature was pretty much the same as previously, although everyone was commenting on how cold it was feeling. There was an area to that room where Graham could feel an energy....again, nothing on the EMF meter... I brought the hygrometer through to this room, and sat it down to get a reading on humidity levels, and again the levels were around 41 percent... Tracy wandered into the second of the two rooms upstairs, this room was much colder, but that was to be expected as a couple of the windows were slightly broken.... She mentioned that she was picking up on an energy in the far end of the room. From there we walked back into the other room, and stood quite for a while, everyone was very still and from the left hand side of me we all quite clearly heard a noise like someone moving! As we were all stood still, it certainly wasn't one of us... Graham was starting to get a name..... I asked Graham whether he thought the man was working at the Gaol or an inmate... Graham’s Words Well from the time we were in the building it seemed that there was some form of paranormal activity around the dummy sat in the chair in that area there was a cold draught colder than the rest of the room, unfortunately due to the noise from the traffic outside it was difficult to listen for any noise within the building, Tracy did hear a deep breath from someone in the same room which was neither from Russ or myself, there was also a noise which came from the left hand side of that room ( left on entering the door ) there was also an energy around the first room where the pipes were against the back wall. My own personal thoughts are that there was more activity going on downstairs where we were not allowed to go due to the amount of things stored there, it was down there where the name John Ffox came into my mind as we were leaving the building I can not give you any dates for this person but on looking on the pictures I have taken I get the feeling that this man was a vagrant. Tracy’s Words While we were waiting to go inside I got the feeling that there was many souls inside. On entering the building it was very calm which I didn’t expect at all.... Upstairs after a short while, I was drawn to the right corner outside wall (room with the stair case in) and in the other room where the cupboard was (inside back wall). Things were just starting to happen for me when we had to leave. As we hadn’t been given a lot of time to investigate the Gaol, we had to draw to a close, but hopefully we will be able to go there again in the future, to further this investigation…
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Copyright © 2005, Dawn Stead
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