Or, Ever Want To Visit A Haunted House?
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Most Haunted: Yvette Fielding’s Top 5 Spooky Places in Britain
Written by Yvette Fielding August 2014
British paranormal reality series Most Haunted is back from the dead. The spooky show, which sees ghost hunter Yvette Fielding search eerie properties for signs of the undead, has returned to UKTV’s Really channel, this time the paranormal investigator and her team will visit the chilling Royal Court Theatre in Lancashire, Sheffield’s National Emergency Services Museum and Newton House in Wales, among others spooky spots.
England rugby player Ben Foden will also join them in the shadows, as will Welsh metal band Bullet for My Valentine. We catch up with Yvette ahead of the show to find out about the UK’s top haunted spots open to the public, so you too can do some investigations of your own (if you dare)…
1. Tatton Old Hall, Cheshire, England
It’s always freezing inside. It used to be the gamekeeper’s cottage from what I understand, but I’ve investigated it a couple of times, and I’m not joking, if someone offered me a million pounds to sleep there the night – no way, no way. However, it’s a great place to go and visit because it’s got the most amazing history. Inside, each individual room is themed for a different time. They’ve got dining sets from the 1930s, and upstairs it’s as it would have been in Saxon times. It’s just a really wonderful place to go. It’s one of the most haunted places that I’ve ever been in. As I say, I would never sleep the night there. It’s too creepy, and it’s very active indeed. I’m terrified, absolutely terrified for my life in that place. I heard everything thrown at us, but not just like ooh here’s a little stir, this was with absolute force and could have cut our heads. The knocking that we heard was like somebody had a mallet on the other side of the wall, and went bang, bang. It’s everything you actually imagine horror nightmares to be
2. Newton House, Llandeilo, Wales
The amount of poltergeist activity that we experienced in that place was just unbelievable. Even when I was sort of clearing up at the end of the investigation, the band [Bullet for My Valentine join Yvette during the investigation in episode two of the new series] had gone, it was just me. I was in the tearoom and the lights were going on and off. The door to the kitchen area was opening and closing and I thought “oh good god, please please not now, I just want to go home”. Everywhere you went without a shadow of a doubt, something happened. Newton House is open to the public, it’s a beautiful building with a fantastic history and is up there for paranormal activity.
3. Edinburgh Vaults, Scotland
Underneath the city there’s Mary King’s Close, and there’s South Bridge Vaults –which we’ve investigated on numerous occasions. We did a live show once and Stuart Torvell [a paranormal investigator on Most Haunted] actually got scratched, he still has the scars on his back, in one of the corridors in the Edinburgh Vaults. It’s where a lot of the very poor people and homeless people lived. There were also villains living there and rapists. They were all bungled in together. Men, women, and children. They all had to live together in these terrible confined conditions. It’s just endless tunnels and you can’t even see your hand in front of your face sometimes – it’s terrifying, but worth visiting. They are genuinely haunted, and there are regular tour guides that take you around with a candle and give you a ghost tour. It’s absolutely brilliant.
4. Ye Olde King’s Head, Chester, England
We did a show at Ye Olde King’s Head in Chester for Really channel and the television there kept coming on and off on its own. Weirdly enough, every time we turned the tap on, the telly would come on, and any time we turned the tap off, the telly would come off. It was just really odd. There are so many ghosts in this pub. Just going for a pint, you’ll see things move. The people who work there often feel a presence, and the chef in the kitchen has had knives thrown at him. The horrible thing is if you’re staying in room six the bed covers may be pulled off you and then you see this horrible grotesque man leering over the top of you. Avoid room six in Ye Old King’s Head.
5. Drakelow Tunnels, Kidderminster, England
Also featured on Most Haunted for Really channel, it is four and a half miles of tunnels, which were used as a shadow factory during World War II. It was used to make Rover Cars – so if any of the main factories broke down, this particular factory would take over and manufacture cars. Later on, during the Cold War, it was a place where all the local government and local councillors and everybody would come and live. It had its own kitchens; it had its own dormitories and showers. There’s even a really weird BBC telecommunication radio centre to tell you that the world had ended. It’s really weird. I was nearly in tears because I got so disorientated and lost. There’s a ghost there that’s really violent and likes to push you around. The owner said he was on a ladder doing some refurbishments to one of the tunnels and something pushed him off. He broke his leg in two places, and he won’t go down there anymore on his own. He has to go down with his dogs because he’s so frightened or take somebody with him. I would never go down on my own. It’s the most terrifying place ever. But they do open it as a venue, you can have parties there, or just have a walk around, but it is a sight for sore eyes. It’s unbelievable, just unbelievable.
Top tips for ghost spotting:
If you have a person in your group who’s a little bit negative or sceptical, nothing will happen. It’s like a bad fart at a party. You need positive people that really want to experience it, that are really interested in it, and not necessarily believe but are just up for it. If you use the same group of people and you travel, you’re more likely to get something happening.
<3 Anna