BLACK SWAN – May 2007
Investigation Site
Black Swan Public House
Market Place
Devizes
History of the Site
The current building started to be used as the Public house around 1732, but building itself was built in the early 18th century and was once owned by a horse dealer and highwayman. The function room upstairs were used as a meeting place for Local freemasons and traders. It is believed that the cellars beneath the pub have been there since the 1600's and were part of the famous tunnels that ran underneath the town.
Investigating Team
The members of the team present for this investigation:
Marlene
Sandra
Gill
Sue
Pete
Special Member: Alison (Local Medium)
Paranormal Activity Eyewitness Reports
As the Pub has been standing for the past 275 years, it is not unusual to expect that the walls
contain masses of history, and this can also be said about paranormal activity. Due to this the Pub and grounds are a very common expedition for paranormal investigators. There have been many reported sightings of various
activities, and none more so than A young women wearing a long dress floating though the walls. She has also been
known to sit in a chair by the window in room 4.
The function room has had poltergeist activity reported on the odd occasion and the cellar has had a number of sightings of a dark figure wearing a three corner Hat.
Investigation Report
Due to the high amount of paranormal activity experienced at this location, this is a second visit for a number of the team, and we were hoping to communicate with the spirits that are said to be still present within the building.
The team arrived at the Black Swan Public house at around 9.30pm. We were instantly met by Alison (the medium) who was going to be assisting us around the location due to Pam the landlady being away.
We initially walked around the pub to get some familiarization to the location of the various rooms within the building, and to decide where best to setup the equipment. We decided to use the cellar, the function room and guest room 12 as the 3 main areas of interest.
The investigation started at 11pm by performing the standard baseline tests of checking the temperatures in various locations around the pub, as well as using the EMFS. The results are listed below:
Cellar
TEMP: 8 degrees
EMFS: 4 to 6
Function Room
TEMP: 22 degrees
EMFS: 0
Guest room 12
TEMP: 21.5 degrees
EMFS: 0
After all the readings had been completed, Sue setup a "Lock Off" night camera (this is a camera that continuously films without assistance) in the cellar as we were hoping to catch some good activity in this location.
We all made our way to the first location of the evening, which was to be room 12. This room has had reports of a lady being seen walking through, and we thought this would be an ideal location to start. At first we found the room very quiet with no signs of activity and decided to sit in various locations for a little while, but after the first 30 minutes Sandra felt something blowing into her face. Alison said that she also felt that the lady was sitting next to Sandra on the bed. With this information, we decided to check the temperature again and found that it had dropped to 17.5 degrees.
Pete, who had been standing just inside the door, mentioned that he thought he heard something behind him in the hallway. Sandra took a photo of the area that Pete had mentioned, and we found that there was a bright orb on the wall.
Due to the increase in activity, we decided to sit there for a little while longer, but after half an hour we experienced nothing else, so we made our way to the second location.
In the function room Pete performed another check with the E.M.F. meter and found that he had a high reading in the middle of the room. We all stood in that location and most of us found that it was freezing and that it caused goose bumps, Pete's hair on his arms was even stood up! We checked the temperature again and found that it had dropped from 22 degrees down to 10 degrees. Gill however did not notice the difference in the temperature. This continued for only a few seconds more, and after performing another reading, found that it was back up to 23 degrees
We all sat down together and started to ask questions with the hope of getting some sort of response. Alison said that she felt something was touching her hair, and during this period, we were able to catch two bright lights on a tape, as well as a few orbs in one corner of the room. A peculiar thing we all noticed was that a red light above the door would always grow brighter when we asked questions to the room
After taking a short tea break, we ventured down to the cellar, and our final location for the evening. Gill had already said that she did not like it as it was dark cold and damp, and Marlene was a little apprehensive due to what had happened on a previous visit to the location (she had felt like she had been taken over by a 10 year old boy)
We all sat down silently and waited for some paranormal activity to begin. After roughly 20 minutes, Pete had the feeling that something was by his feet, and when the torch was shone at his trainers, he found that one of the laces had become undone. Alison said that this had been reported to have happened many times before in the cellar.
The temperature was still between 7-9 degrees, and the E.M.F. had not changed
After a while Pete had to leave the cellar as he started to feel claustrophobic, but the rest of the team decided to stay a little longer, that was until Alison jumped from her seat because she believed she had heard what sounded like a growl in her ear. This ended the vigil in the cellar for us and completed the investigation at the Black Swan at around 4am
Conclusion
Out of the 60 photographs that had been taken that evening, only 4 had any orbs or light anomies, and once we had reviewed the footage from the "Lock off" camera, we found that there had been nothing to report.
Although we found that 'shoe lace' incident very exciting, we had no real proof that it had not become undone before Pete went into the cellar.
The blowing sensation that Sandra experienced was very interesting and was more encouraging because of Alison sensing that there was a presence in room 12.
The red light in the function room was a good sign as another group of paranormal investigators had had this happen with them!!
***We would like to thank Alison for spending the time with us during the investigation, and Pam for letting us stay and perform the investigation at her lovely hotel***