St BRIAVELS CASTLE - March 10

Investigation Site

St Briavels Castle
Church Street
Glousester

History of the Site

St Briavels Castle is a moated Norman style castle that it believed to have been built some time before 1128 and was probably built on behalf of William Fitz Baderon (the lord of nearby Monmouth). Upon Williams death, the castle was seized by King Henry 1st and garrisoned it for the crown.

In 1141 his daughter (the Empress Matilda) gave the castle along with the Forest of Dean, to Miles de Gloucester 1st who was the Earl of Hereford. The son of Miles, Roger Fitzmiles the 2nd Earl of Hereford, lost the castle to King Henry 2nd in 1155. By this stage the castle appears to have consisted of a square keep and also curtain walls.

It appears that the following kings only spent minimal money on the castles upkeep. Between 1209 and 1211, John had much of the internal buildings of the castle reconstructed, and some of these are still in use today as a youth hostel.

Investigating Team

The members of the team present for this investigation:
Marlene
Sandra
GIll
Danny
Mary
Barry

Paranormal Activity Eyewitness Reports

There have been many reports through the years of many different unexplained happenings including the sounds of what is believed to a child crying, a person walking the grounds in a full suite of armour. There has also been sightings of a monk throughout the buildings.

Investigation Report

The castle has a team called Phantomfeast who are responsible for organising evenings within the castle for those who are curious about ghosts. The team arrived at around 7pm and joined a team of approximately 30 people, some where paranormal groups like SGPIT, whilst others just wanted the opportunity to spend a night in a haunted castle. Once everyone had been given a briefing (where they were told that they would only have around 30 minutes in each room) everyone was sepparated into groups and given a notepad for recording the nights activities.

The first location that the team went to was the Prison. They found that there was no EMF readings but some members started to feel really hot. The team started to hear a clicking noise coming from the corners. Gill dropped her camera, and at the same time there was a screaming noise coming from the room below, so something must have =frightened them. Barry found that at the same time his camera started to not respond correctly. He found that the screen would not display correctly. Marlene caught a blue moving orb on the camera and heard lots of tapping. Marry whistled out into the room and found that they got a whistle back, but this could have been from another group, although it did sound like it was within the room. The final strange thing the team noticed in this location was the walkie talkie that had been placed on the top of the case when they had entered had moved without anyone touching it.

The team then made their way to the Hanging room for their next part of the investigation. Again, the team where surprised to see the they could not get any readings from the EMF device. Danny was still feeling very hot and uneasy, with a tickling on his nose. Mary had the name of Mary come into her head so she started to call out into the room but did not get any response. Barry had a sudden rush of cold air go by him so the team used a laser temperature gauge in the same area and found that it had dropped considerably. There was also a tapping on the window, but the team could not find what was causing the noise.

The next room was the Oubiette Room which had a pit in it. This was used by the guards by throwing the prisoners down head first to kill the outright. Marlene and Mary both started to hear a baby cry followed by a noise like a cooing. Mary then saw red sparkling lights around Marlene, which was followed by a white light coming from one of the corners.

They made their way to the Chapel where they found a Ouija board in the room. The team sat around the table and the team started to ask questions. Marlene, Barry and Danny took it in turns, but found that the glass did not move. There was a loud bang from underneath the table. Marry then asked out whilst holding the dowsing rods and found that they did cross. Gill and Mary decided to start singing out into the room whilst Marlene held out her crystal. They all noticed that this started to go mad, but this could have been caused by the singing!!

The Porters Lodge was the next location that was visited by the team but they found that during their time in this room there was very little going on.

The team made their final observations in the King John's Lounge. Mary again decided to use the dowsing rods and found that they crossed over whilst walking around the room. Marlene decided to try the crystal again and found too that this was getting a reaction in the room. Sandra, Barry and Danny decided to perform a seance whilst in the room, and Sandra experienced a slight electric shock from the glass that they were using. The team doing the seance noticed that there was also a tapping coming from the table that could not be explained.

The nights activities ended around 4am, with the team all sleeping in one of the haunted rooms. Some the team decided to stay up and see if they could make any contact with the spirits but where unsuccessful. In the morning whilst making their way to breakfast, Sandra thought she heard someone rushing down the stairs behind her, but when she moved over to let them pass she found that she was actually alone on the stairs, but then heard the noise of a sigh coming from the same area.

Conclusion

The team where really excited to be performing the investigation at as part of an organised event and found the whole night really interesting.

They found that the many different rooms had so much to offer and would have liked to spent more time with their investigations, especially the Hanging Room and Chapel. The team found that the activities they experienced during the night where very interesting, with Barry's camera acting strange and the lights that Mary saw around Marlene.

The team are aiming to review all of the photo and video footage they captured to see if they are able to spot other unexplained happenings as well as see if there are any answers to the other activities.

***We would like to thank Phantomfeast for the great night that they organised, and hope to partake again very soon for another investigation at the Castle.***

© Copyright - South Gloucestershire Paranormal Investigation Team