Summary of an Investigation at Smuggler's Haunt, Brixham
Saturday 11th February 2006


Introduction:

Set in the truly beautiful Devon coastal town of Brixham, The Smugglers Haunt Inn, just a stones throw away from the harbour, claims to have a few resident ghosts. Guests as well as owners past and present have witnessed strange phenomenon. The Inn has a notorious past history of smuggling but nowadays it is well known for its ghosts with many documented accounts of sightings and paranormal events. Even some of the most sceptical of people have walked away puzzled about their experiences during their stay at this wonderfully, atmospheric Inn.

After the team had assembled we enjoyed a three-course meal before dividing into four groups. These groups were to remain constant for most of the night, rotating to different areas; within the oldest parts of the building, with a different guide for each session. The guides were Ian Addicoat, Stuart Andrews, Will Brunning and Kevin Hynes. We were also privileged to be accompanied by Kizzy Brown from the Anthony Nolan Trust and Fred Moore and Shaun Markham who are Haunting Experience’s IT Consultants; thank you to them for their invaluable assistance during the night.

Ian, Will and Stuart were able to take a brief tour of the areas of the hotel we would be focusing on for the night. This was invaluable in terms of familiarising themselves with the layout of the building. Also to gain some further knowledge of the reputed hauntings, so that they were able to indicate to our guests when they were near the mark in terms of the previously reported phenomenon. However, they naturally did not share any information until after teams had investigated the areas concerned.

Rooms 1 & 2

Room 1 is believed to be a place where a child was placed in the chimney and died there. Knocking noises are often heard and guests have frequently captured light anomalies on camera. In Room 2 a medium picked up on the name Agnes. Many locals do talk about the ghost of young “Aggie” who was a girl who jumped to her death from an upstairs window 70 years ago (the room has now gone and the window would be where the utility room now is).

Stuart:

For this first session my group was split further into two with each half in investigation Room 1 or 2, then rotating to the other. The first sub group picked up on nothing in Room 2 besides a brief EMF fluctuation in the centre of the room; in contrast the second group identified through dowsing a female who’s name began with C and was apparently murdered in this room in the 1940’s. Interesting as no known phenomenon has been reported from this room, and a murder in the 1940’s would most likely be documented.

In Room 1, both groups separately picked up on a male presence. The first group identifying as being murdered in the 18th Century and last name beginning with H; whilst the second group identified the male as dying in the 1940’s again, being from the Torbay area, as having two children and that he likes to move things around.

Interestingly in contrast to the other groups who followed, no mention was made of feeling uncomfortable by the chimney, the reported centre of activity in this room. Again in contrast to the later sessions, no light anomalies were captured on camcorder here; where as later groups picked up on several in this area.

Kevin

Room 1: Through dowsing the following information was picked up.

A male presence was picked up by the bedroom door and a female presence was picked up by the window area.

The group decided to carry out a dowsing experiment where I left the bedroom with another member of the group. In the meantime in the bedroom another member of the group carried out dowsing to find out information regarding the female presence.
On completion myself and the other member of the group returned to the bedroom where I then carried out dowsing to compare information, which on a few occasions was very similar to what the previous dowser had picked up.

Will:

Room 1 seemed to provide the better results out of these two rooms. In this room dowsing information picked up on a teenage girl who claimed she had lived here in the hotel and died of a tragic accident; falling out of a window, but not the window in this room. She was happy for us to be here and was happy with the work that had gone on here. She also claimed she was aware of other presences and even child presences in the hotel. Again some interesting Orbs were caught on both night vision and digital cameras. Towards the end of the vigil here we all heard what sounded like a knock on the door as if someone wanted to enter, but no one was there… I quickly called in over the walkie-talkies to the other groups but everyone was accounted for. During this some of us started to feel very un-nerved and very muggy headed, some of the group also said that that they didn’t like the chimney area for some reason.
In Room 2 a male, aged in his 40’s, was picked up who had passed on in the 1840’s. He was aware of his death but didn’t want to reveal how he died. Through dowsing he claimed to have worked here but to his knowledge he did not show himself to others, a small darkness vigil was held but nothing else of interest was picked.

Ian:

· In Room 1 it was revealed that this particular group had been followed during the evening by a particular presence who was still with them. This was a young girl they had nicknamed Kay. It was very difficult for the team to dowse and get any results as she kept “interfering” and her answers were continually different and misleading as if she was playing with them. Also there were some very peculiar EMF readings during this period of time.
· Eventually a second female was picked up – though little information was found and then a male was found. He was aged over 20 and died here. At this point a lady in the group saw a shadow in the mirror.
· During a darkness vigil, orbs were picked up on video camera and a clicking was heard by the chimney. Also one lady had said as soon as she entered the room that she didn’t like the chimney and found it unnerving throughout.
· In Room 2 the presence of a lady named Edith was detected. She was possibly old and had visited here on holiday with her husband when alive. She had apparently died within the last year and had often come to Brixham and the hotel before this. The last time she stayed had been over 5 years ago and her husband had been called Charles.
· Both a lady and myself could feel a very strange tingling in the area she was believed to be standing.

Fred & Shaun:

During the time in this room Kevin was sent into Room 2 – then in Room 1 one of the females did a lot of dowsing and the other one wrote down questions and answers to the questions she asked.
Kevin was then asked back to dowse and he was coached on the questions to ask, to try to receive the same answers as the female dowser had received. A couple of the answers were indeed the same.


Room 6

A wedding dress has been seen in this room – not a real one!

Kevin:

Through dowsing two presences were picked up: One male and the other female.

The female presence passed in 1883 aged 34 years.
Her name was Christine and her cause of death was from a fall from the window area. She may have suffered from a mental illness.

The male presence passed in 1634.

The group carried out a darkness vigil with all the equipment turned off to see if the presence would communicate with us.

The following are the key points, which took place during the darkness vigil:

Noises were heard from behind the closed bathroom door.
Whilst sitting on the end of the bed with another group member, directly in front of us it seemed to go a lot darker than the rest of the room, even though we had been sat in the same area for the past 10 minutes. Our eyes would have surely adjusted within that space of time. Other members sitting behind us also commented on how dark the area was where we were sitting.
A couple of the group members felt as if they had been touched by something. I called Ian and Stuart to join the group as we were having some interesting results whilst carrying out the darkness vigil.

Séance

Dowsing again also picked up on another presence, which had joined us in the room; this gave us a total of three presences.
The group continued to sit quietly and Ian felt as if someone had touched his ear, this seemed to last for a few minutes.

After a short break I joined a group, which included Ian and returned to room 6 to carry out a group séance.

Key points which occurred during the group séance.

Various members of the group felt sick and light-headed.
Also people felt tingling sensations moving around the circle.
Once again Ian felt something touch his ear and moving downwards towards his shoulder.
I personally felt something touch the top of my head and tingling sensations on my neck and face.
The room also seemed to go darker once again.

Stuart

This was an interesting session as five of the eight persons present reported seeing flashes of light with the naked eye, which to my knowledge was the only room such phenomenon was reported. I cannot comment on the level of any light anomalies recorded in this room as I did not wish to video during this session as there was already three night vision camcorders running and I felt a fourth would only help create lens flares. However the other groups recording in this area produced a large variety of light anomalies, most of these I suspect are due to reflections from equipment etc. Yet there are several which are very interesting in terms of shape and movement, with no source of reflection being apparent.

Three presences were identified through dowsing, two males and a female. The area at the foot of the bed seemed to hold most interest, this being identified by three separate dowsers. I have to mention that I felt the far corner of the bed (against the en-suite) to be uncomfortable, and one of the group did report being touched in this area. This is interesting as the two following groups also enjoyed similar results, picking up high EMF readings, which kept coming and going over the foot of the bed itself.

Whilst dowsing I was frustrated to receive only NO answers to any questions, whilst others were able to get seemingly normal responses. Kizzy identified the female as ‘Aggie’, who is one of the reported supernatural visitors to the hotel. It was then suggested through our combined dowsing results that one or both of the male presences would make themselves further known if I left the room, as they had taken a dislike to me. Unfortunately this produced no further results so the session was concluded.

Return to Room 6

I arrived at Room 6 just in time to witness a guest faint, following an increased level of activity being reported by those present. We made sure he had some water and that the blood-flow had returned to his head, before moving him down to the reception area so that he might recover. With some relief we learnt that he had been prone to fainting in the past.

I then returned to Room 6 to carry out a séance as the previous group had conducted one with surprisingly high results. Many reported feeling sick or light headed and several including two of our guides had reported being touched. Most unusual as I have never known Ian to report such phenomenon, and compelling as it fitted in with earlier sessions.

During this final séance, three people including myself reported a strange obnoxious smell, which at times was likened to vomit. Whilst sitting in the same area that Ian had been touched in, I was surprised to feel as if someone pressed two fingers down on top of my right thigh. A little while later I also felt as if someone was pressing one or two fingers into the side of my right thigh. These findings were interesting, and I might have expected some guests to experience more activity later on in the night due to tiredness etc. However seasoned investigators used to the effects of fatigue found this to be the most active part of the night; in direct contrast to normal findings which normally show a clear tail off of reported activity.


At the time of writing, not all of the camcorder tapes have been analysed, so we are waiting with baited breath to see what else develops! A final note that confuses our findings somewhat is that there is only one known story or report attached to this room. A wedding dress was visualised by a visiting medium in the room’s wardrobe, which to my knowledge nobody picked up on. Could it be that the ghosts who haunt the Smugglers do not confine themselves to the one room and choose where they will make themselves known as and when they feel like it? Our return to the Smuggler’s Haunt will be most interesting to compare findings.

Will:

A “mixed feeling” room, some people had some very good dowsing results here, while others walked away with very little evidence. The main character or presence that was picked up here; by two people which were unaware of each other’s findings to begin with, was that of a Male. He gave no name but gave the information that he was connected with the hotel in some way and claimed to have passed over in his 30’s… Cause of death… not through natural reasons! One lady in this room also felt that a female presence was here with a possible name of ‘Shirley’ dressed in what seemed to be a maids (or similar) outfit. Night vision filming seemed to pick up a lot of moving anomalies, during this we decided to do a few experiments trying to disturb dust particles by moving towels, etc in the hope of explaining some of these moving orbs of light but interestingly enough we could not recreate these in anyway. With no insects in the room could of this have been what some people claim to be spirit energy? Also in this room different temperatures were recorded and cold spots were found; though we could not completely rule out natural causes. EVP showed very little here as the whole room revealed quite high readings.

Ian

This was an interesting room with some peculiar results:


· Dowsing revealed two males; the first of which was a man in his 30s named Darren –Berry Head who was unmarried and he had also had no children. He was apparently murdered – though not in this room. He had been a free-trader (smuggler). He had been killed by a fellow free-trader over contraband in the 1900s He apparently moves around and makes noises. He was not local or born in Brixham but was indeed Cornish. He was apparently buried at Berry Head. He also shot somebody.
· The second presence was revealed as one Daniel – though little else could be ascertained.
· At this stage; a very high EMF reading was found over the bed and it seemed to follow one particular lady around the room. When anybody else took the meter it stopped but when returned to the lady’s hands it would begin to fluctuate again. She had no obvious electrical equipment so this was a mystery. Even stranger was that when I joked that she had “pulled” and she said ”she already had 2 men in her life” the readings ceased.
· During this time several orbs were caught on nightshot video -camera also.

The Séance:

After the last of the rotated sessions I joined Kevin’s group in here, as activity had been apparently widespread. I was directed to sit in a particular area and felt a very strong “tickling / tingling” on both my neck and ear. I have never experienced anything quite so definitive and hard to explain in all my times at “haunted” locations. During the last part of the evening where people were free to return to experience their areas of choice again… I returned here with a group and Kevin to try to carry out a séance.


At first I led proceedings and little occurred but after a while Kevin took over. During this period I was again sat in the back left corner (as before) and once again experienced similar sensations. These feelings began on my shoulder and then my face. At one stage they stopped and without any prompting from me the lady to my right suddenly exclaimed that she was feeling the same. After a while her experiences ceased and it started on me again. The sensations moved from my right across my body ad began moving down my left arm. Suddenly they ceased and then Kevin (to my left) began feeling a tingling on top of his head. When they left him a lady further along felt sick, another felt tingling and then two others felt tightness in their chest and sickness. Then finally a man (a sceptic) began to feel faint and almost passed out at which stage I put a halt to proceedings and we made sure he was o.k. Which I’m glad to say he was.
I have never experienced anything quite like this and still find much of it hard to explain. Autosuggestion / mass hysteria and psychology just didn’t seem enough to explain events!

Fred & Shaun

Fred saw a very short flash of a pinprick size but vivid red light on the corner of the bed nearest to him and there was no electronic source nearby at the time. No one else saw the same light
Kizzy was dowsing, among others, and Stuart was disturbed because apparently the dowsed person (or one of them) would not communicate with him. At one point he left the room for a short while.


Room 7

Lots of peculiar things allegedly happen in here: light bulbs blow, fire doors open and the kettle has been played with. Also the owner was once sat on the chest when she felt physically shaken.
Also guests have seen an old lady sitting in a rocking chair (no such chair exists there now).

Kevin:

Through dowsing the group picked up the following information:

Two male presences picked up – One by the bedroom door the other male presence was by the chair.

The male presence by the bedroom door was aware he had passed. He died in 1673 aged 43 years by natural causes (a disease that affected his brain).
He comes here in visitation as he had worked in Brixham and his job was connected with the sea and may have been illegal smuggling. He is aware of the other presences.

The male presence by the chair was aware he had passed. He died in 1865 aged 16 years of natural causes (heart related).
He comes here also in visitation and his name is Doug possible surname Gome. He is French and his family were wealthy, they were involved in the fishing business.
Doug is also aware of the other presences in the room and building.

A female presence was picked up in the bathroom area. This female presence joined us as the group were talking. She was very interested in what we were doing. She is aware she has passed and was only 5 years old. She is also aware of the other presences but is not connected to any of them.


EMF analysis showed a high reading of 6mg and was picked up near to the window area. Possible electrical source but nothing seemed obvious. A reading of 4 was also picked up in the bathroom around the door area. Once again the group checked for any possible reasons.


Darkness vigil – orbs were captured in front of Kizzy on night vision and also a strange noise was heard by the whole group and sounded like marbles knocking together.

Stuart

I was expecting some form of activity in this room, as both staff and the owner in this room had experienced abnormal activity. However, very little happened and the entire group felt this room to be calm and welcoming. There was a small temperature and EMF irregularity in the vicinity of the radiator, but this was not really of significance and is presumed to have been natural.
No anomalies were captured on either camcorder or camera, although Ryan (who is also an investigator with the PRO) identified a single female presence in the vicinity of the en-suite door. He further identified her as having worked within the building, being quite happy having died at 51 years old in the 1870’s and with a possible name of Kathy. As with the previous session, there was nothing of interest that I can personally add to the findings.

Will

This for me was the most quiet of the vigils of the night with very little evidence gathered. Again a different group, dowsing information picked up on a Male presence, which seemed to have followed this team from another location in the building. This presence claimed to have passed over in the 19th Century was a local who died in a result of drowning/murder. Another presence picked up in this area seemed to be that of an elderly lady who passed away in her late 60’s she claimed to have moved things in this room and was standing near the kettle, unknown to the group was the fact that this kettle is the one that people in the past have had experiences with. They have said they have turned it off and pulled out the plug and left the room, on returning it has been found that it had been strangely turned on and boiling with the plug back in the socket!

Ian

For my group this was clearly the quietest room on the night and very little occurred of interest apart from a few temperature variations.


Fred & Shaun


Not very much happened whilst we were here but we heard stories of the things that had happened to other groups in this room this evening. By then it was well after 4am and even if there had been an earthquake it might have escaped our notice.


Room 17

In this room a medium had previously picked up on a smuggler who was seen “stuffing” things into the attic above. This is interesting because there is no attic now and it is a flat roof! Some suggest this may link with the famous smuggler Bob Elliott who is said to have owned the building (then one of 2 cottages) in the past.

Kevin

Dowsing revealed the following information:

Ryan dowsed and picked up on a female presence.


The female presence passed in 1906 she was in her 50’s and died from natural causes.
She was married and had 3 daughters. Her name began with a C although some of the group felt that her name was Julie.
The female is not grounded but comes here in visitation.


Key points

One member of the group felt slightly uneasy and very cold.
There were also some sudden drops in temperature, by a couple of degrees which was picked up by the laser thermometer.
Another member of the group felt that something was touching him whilst he lay on the bed.
Karen had an image in her minds eye of three women standing beside the bed on the right hand side looking down at a male who was dying in the bed.


Room 17 - Revisited


Group séance


Once again a group séance took place.
Overall: cold breezes were felt and some of the group felt a very sudden drop in temperature.

Stuart

At last my group caught the first ‘orbs’ or light anomalies of the night (for me at least) on night vision camcorder. Indeed many were caught in this room, although I am suspicious of some being caused by reflections etc. I was also able to obtain strong dowsing results, which indicated two presences, one by the en-suite and a further between the chair and the window in the room itself.


At one point I was able to pinpoint one of these presences as being to the side of a guest who reported that she felt much colder and if something was there. A temperature drop accompanied this from 18 to 15 degrees, despite the fact that the background temperature should have rose due to our combined body heat. The window was shut, and there were no obvious draughts to explain this. Many of the group, myself included did not feel comfortable in the vicinity of the door to the room. It would follow that if one was feeling apprehensive in any area of a room, you would expect it to be at the furthest point from the escape route, rather than directly in front of it.


Just as we were leaving and had switched the lights back on, the Negative Ion detector went off the scale and continued to read for nearly a minute. In the years that I have been investigating using this piece of equipment, this is the first time a reading of this level and length of duration has been recorded. Many believe a change in the ion count within a room, indicates a possible spirit presence. Perhaps it was asking us not to leave or maybe it was showing its approval that we were! We were certainly not able to gain any details through dowsing, often as with Room 6, receiving NO answers to every question.

Will

A very interesting room and some very interesting results too! The team picked up on a small girl presence aged around 5-6 with the initials K.H. Very strange EMF readings were recorded in the place where she had said she was standing, only for them to completely disappear on later inspection and in conjunction with this a temperature reading fell from 20ºc to 14ºc. We tried different experiments to try and communicate with her and using night vision and EVP recording we gathered some amazing results. Orbs seemed to appear on command on night vision camera; with some even flashing anomalies and one of our guests caught a very strange EVP of a young girl saying 1,2,3… As well as these events; some of us also caught orbs on still camera, related to one interesting photo was that at one point one of the guests here felt very un-naturally cold on her legs, I took a photo and what was caught was an orb on her knee… was this just a coincidence? Other dowsing picked up on a male presence in this room but he didn’t want to communicate in anyway, he seemed angered at the little girls presence here due to this being “his room”. All in all a very interesting vigil and some very happy ghost hunters!

Ian:

This was a quiet session for me, although the group I was with later told me this had been their most “active” location during the night.


· One member of the team felt that an area to the right of the bed and across the room was strange. He had a peculiar feeling about it.
· AT one stage an orb was captured on video camera moving above the bed and this coincided wit a 2º drop in temperature in the same area.
· A few draughts were felt and there appeared to be no obvious source for these. Also they were not consistent.
· A lady picked up on a male presence in the chair and both a man and later a lady in the group did feel odd here.
· A few light anomalies were witnessed on the ceiling
· Dowsing revealed a man who had been hung in the 1600s.

Fred / Shaun:

During the start of the time in this room Shaun felt drawn to the ceiling having thought several times that he noticed flashing lights on the ceiling but was initially of the opinion that they were caused by the considerable number of electronic units in the room. Later though, Ian informed the group that there had been a happening in the room, that had involved the ceiling, with people having been seen going into/through the ceiling. Others of the group, separately, saw lights on one wall above the bed from time to time.


Restaurant

In this area a man has previously been seen at a table – usually in the mirror. He is described as in his 40s, wearing a cloth cap, long raincoat, with long hair. In the bar a man has been seen walking through and both pipe smoke and perfume has been smelt. The kitchens are also said to be very active and on one occasion a chef was covered in cream after “Mickey taking” out of the ghost.

Stuart

A séance was carried out with approximately half of the entire team, held around the table that we had previously been advised as active. Unfortunately, there was nothing experienced by any present and nothing abnormal has been caught on the night vision camera facing the group. Following this I decided to venture upstairs and see how the luck was progressing with the other two groups, who had split up covering Rooms 17 and 6.

Fred & Shaun

Just after 5am there was a séance in the lounge. We were in the lounge and there was no contact noticed with anyone other than the living people in the room. We heard reports that things had indeed happened in the other room however and that one of the group there had even fainted.


Conclusion

An excellent night had by all; hopefully everybody who attended came away with something to remember.


Thank you to the owners and staff for their warm welcome and hospitality.


A very eventful night for many of our guests, which we must add, was a good balance of believers, non-believers and those in-between had some genuine experiences. We look forward to our next visit to this lovely hotel to compare the findings from the two nights and wish to thank all those who attended the night and the fundraisers for doing such a fine job raising money for such a deserving charity – The Anthon Nolan Trust and the staff and owners of the Smugglers Haunt for being such great hosts.

Comments from our guests:

· Hi, Many thanks for the haunted experience at the Smuggler's Haunt. We had a great time and really enjoyed the experience and sharing the knowledge/experiences of the team who were excellent throughout the evening. Please keep us updated of any future evenings ...
· Thanx again for a brill night @ the smugglershaunt brixham.
· Thanks for a great evening at the Smugglers Haunt in Brixham. My partner and I were given the evening by my dad as a Christmas present. We felt the evening was really well organised. We appreciated being in a smaller group for the vigils as we felt more able to discuss things freely. The Team Leaders were informative and happy to answer questions or to discuss topics. Having never been to such an evening before I didn't know what to expect. My partner and I both had experiences. In room 17, one of the group experienced three people standing beside what was described as a sick bed. My partner who was lying on the left hand side of the bed felt as though somebody was placing their hand on his. In room 1, I was lying on the left hand side of the bed and had an overwhelming feeling of dread and anxiety, which made my legs feel wobbly, and my palms become sweaty. I had sat elsewhere in the room and hadn't experienced this feeling. My partner participated in the séance held in the dining room though nothing seemed to be happening. We left at about 5.15am, as we were extremely tired though I'm aware that other séance’s were productive. It would be interesting to know how things ended. You'll see that I have included attachments of three photos taken in the same room. Two photos have spherical shapes in them (see below) and one doesn't. The photo's were not taken at the same time but I cannot say how long there is between photos. I took photos both with lights on and off. I would appreciate your comments though think it could be flash glare. The evening has renewed our interest of the paranormal and we certainly hope to attend more events. Thanks again



· Hi, We thoroughly enjoyed the evening and would be interested in attending another similar event. It would have been good if we could have gone into the cellars but the whole experience was very stimulating nevertheless. We were in the group whereby we experienced the very strange goings on in room 6 and my husband became faint during the séance. There were also some interesting photos taken in room 17 for which

 

 

Will was present on what looked like an orb on my knee and on video recording also. I would be very interested to know more about all the groups findings and also if there were common findings from each group. Thanks again for a great evening and we would ask you to keep us posted on future events.



· Haunted Devon Team: Our group commenced investigation in room 17 and were offered some hope by a display of light anomalies on the wall behind the bed in an early darkness vigil. Gill felt extremely uncomfortable in the chair to the end of the bed which was interesting as several unconnected group females had experienced the same feelings of nausea and generally feeling unwell. Room 17 was also used for a later séance held by Byron and Kev in the early hours of the morning where both a male and female presences' made themselves known by dropping the temperature dramatically and upon request to members of the circle. Rooms 1 and 2 appeared to be a little quiet initially but we captured some really good light anomalies on the bed and across Kev’s left shoulder whilst dowsing. Gill and Kev also had some remarkable experiences whilst dowsing; correctly picking up on several details of a female presence independently. Whilst Rooms 6 and 7 were flat for our group another group had readings from a negative ion reader for over 3 minutes in room 6. Additionally a presence of an old lady was picked up in room 7.

Bedroom 17. Some interesting light anomalies

Bedroom 1. Some very good orbs caught on Camcorder on the area of the bed and across Kev’s shoulder.

Bedroom 6. Some connection made with several presences however very confusing due to there being on different plains.

A good evening and whilst we were not able to be in all places at once - we were all happy with the display offered by those departed.



MEDIA LINKS:

www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk - 17th February 2006

 

www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk - 12th January 2006

 

www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk - 27th December 2005

 

www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk - 15th December 2005