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Information taken from
http://www.ghostconnections.com/The%20Woodman.htm 2006.
THE WOODMAN, OTFORD.
Investigators:
Kim, Dave, Ian, Paddy and Sarah, accompanied by Paul and Shelley, the
owners, and Karly and Jamie.
Aim:
To investigate recent press and personal reports of paranormal activity.
Background:
In the small town of Otford, just a couple of miles north of Sevenoaks,
visitors will find The Woodman, located on the main street near to the
village green. The pub dates back to the 18th century when it was built
as a wheelwright's business. There are reputed to be tunnels which lead
from under the pub to the parish church and other buildings in the
village, though these have never been found. Like many old buildings, it
is reputed to also have a resident ghost which has been seen by a number
of customers and members of staff over the years.
Our hosts, Paul and Shelley Wills, have been the at The Woodman for a
year now and they say that they and their staff and friends have
experienced some occurrences. A vase of flowers has been repeatedly
found on the floor in the morning, always the same vase from the same
window ledge, in fact the landlord has actually seen it move and falling
to the floor! Also in the morning the candles in the bars are found lit!
Footsteps are heard above walking across the second floor attic and
items up there have been moved. On one occasion all the doors exiting
the building had been found bolted when no one had done so. There has
also been odd shuffling and movement heard in the bottom front bar when
no one is there. Coughing has been heard and a figure of a woman has
been seen on the cctv screen sitting in the rear bar and when
investigated she’s gone. This might be the same woman that one member of
staff saw for herself approximately 18 months ago?
This venue has not been investigated before by GCUK or by any other
group, although we have been told that friends and family who have
visited the venue have acknowledged that there is a presence in The
Woodman. Some of these people claim to have a degree psychic ability and
are reputed to have identified and contacted some individuals during a
séance held using an upturned glass. This glass, we are told, was
subjected to a lot of violent movement around the table.
Needless to say with this information in hand GCUK felt that The Woodman
certainly warranted a full investigation.
Apparatus:
Cameras: Nikon Coolpix 3100 digital camera, Fuji Finepix 4900 digital
camera, Kodak Easyshare cx7310 digital camera, Olympus Camedia C160
digital camera, Fuji Finepix S550 digital camera.
Camcorders: Sony DCR- HC30E with Sony IR Emitter HVL-IRM, Sony DCR-HC19
with Sony IR Emitter HVL-IRM, Samsung VP-D351 Mini DV with night vision.
CCTV: IR Nightvision Wireless CCTV Cameras (x2), Monitor / Receiver (x2)
VCR’s (x2).
EMF: Gauss EMF Meter.
EVP: Olympus DM-20 voice recorder.
Other: Data Logger EL-USB2, Torches, Tripods, Tapes (VHS/DVD/Cassette)
Trigger object (vase of Chrysanthemums).
Method:
The plan was to arrive at the venue at 23.30 and have a have a walk
about the venue to acquaint ourselves with it and taking photo's as we
went before setting up our static equipment. This was EVP and data
logger to be set up in the second floor attic, an attempted linkup of
our DVD recorder to the venue's own cctv, and setting up two of our own
cctv cameras, one in the front bar and one in the rear bar focused on
the trigger object (vase of Chrysanthemums on a window ledge).
The remainder of the investigation was to take the form of two groups
carrying out silent vigils in both the front and rear bar areas, both
groups to spend time in each location swapping after an hour. All
sessions to be recorded on camcorder. This was to be followed by an
experimental séance with a glass, again to be recorded on camcorder. We
felt it may prove interesting given that this had reportedly produced
results before. This was to be with the GCUK team only at first but our
guests were to be invited to join half way through.
Before the end of the investigation it was intended (with the owners
permission) to take time to investigate the fabric of the building to
see if we could find evidence of the existence of the tunnels.
We deviated from this during the investigation due to a late start, and
decided to conducted the séance in between the proposed vigils instead
of after, and we were unable to carry out the proposed structural
investigation of the building, but this did not cause a problem because
this counteracted our later start. Also it was not possible to link
Paddy’s DVD recorder to the venues CCTV.
The Investigation:
After setting up the equipment we started the investigation at 1.00am
with the first of our vigils, Ian, Paddy and Sarah in the front bar with
Kim, Dave and guests in the rear bar. There was a lot of traffic noise
and lights from the road. Each group could hear the other and there was
a degree of noise from the appliances behind the bars. Ian, Paddy and
Sarah heard some noise from the archway and dart board area. Ian and
paddy also heard another “click” in the front bar but each heard it from
opposite directions, a shuffling noise was also heard from an
indistinguishable direction. Both teams tried calling for spirit
activity but none was forthcoming.
At 2.40am, after a break, the group tried the séance with an upturned
glass. Ian, Kim, Dave and Sarah started this with Paddy filming on
camcorder. Despite numerous requests nothing happened, apart from Sarah
began to feel decidedly unwell in the head and stomach so decided to
leave the table, she returned only to experience the same feelings so
left the session permanently. Shelley joined but still there was no
movement of the glass. We do not normally use a Ouijia Board but decided
to do so because of the lack of results. Still there was no movement so
we decided to end this unproductive session.
After a further break (3.50am) the whole group held a vigil in the front
bar. Sarah thought she saw a movement on the venues own CCTV monitors
but after a while there were still no results to speak of, so the group
moved to the small alcove table. Whilst here Dave commented on a drop in
the temperature even though there wasn’t one according to our equipment.
There was also multiple knocks heard around the alcove. Paddy got the
impression of movement from across the lower front bar, but there was no
real reason for this, he described it as more of a “feeling“, there were
further knocks heard within the alcove some most certainly to be
attributed to the central heating which by now had been on for a while,
others were more ambiguous. At 4.40am we decided to close the
investigation.
Conclusion.
Regrettably nothing happened during our investigation that would enable
us to firmly say that there is paranormal activity at The Woodman.
However the reported phenomena have occurred over a period of a year so
there would be no reason for such phenomena to have occurred during the
brief time we were there. No evidence was captured by any of our
equipment but we did receive a certain amount of psychic information.
Although this cannot be treated as evidence it at least gives you food
for thought, GCUK will look further into this and try to validate some
of the information that was presented. Any developments will be reported
at a later date. Ghost Connections conducts scientifically based
investigations and does not publish any psychic or clairvoyant
observations. However, this information is held on a separate database.
Sadly we did not achieve our aim, being to substantiate the existence of
paranormal phenomena at this location, and on the evidence obtained
during our investigation we can only say that our findings were
inconclusive at best.
Thanks to:
We would like to thank Shelley and Paul for their hospitality and for
allowing us to investigate The Woodman.
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