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Are there ghosts in Preston Manor? Rachel Pegg donned a proton pack and 80s boiler suit and headed in.

It is nearly midnight and I am sitting on the floor in Preston Manor, in the pitch dark, talking to a ghost. And the ghost is talking back.

I’m not the world’s biggest sceptic, but I’m not exactly in the habit of trying to communicate with the dead. So when I was asked to take part in a paranormal investigation, I thought it would just be a bit of a laugh.

Four generations of the Stanford family: do they haunt the house today? Image © The Royal Pavillion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Ever since being conned by Sarah Greene and Michael Parkinson on Ghostwatch in the early 90s I haven’t really paid much – or any – attention to shows such as Most Haunted. But the idea of having a private tour of Preston Manor in a small group and going into rooms not normally visited by the public sounded appealing, even if I didn’t get into the paranormal stuff.

“People have been locked in rooms. Doors slam shut. You can hear voices shout at you”

Hours later, I am wandering around with a Ghostbusters-style electro magnetic frequency monitor, pointing it into every shadowy corner and desperately willing it to start flashing to indicate an other-wordly presence. I might not have believed in ghosts before the lights were turned off, but things are different now. Egged on by the hype of the evening (medium Sue keeps telling me a dead woman is standing behind her), I am desperate to catch sight of something supernatural.

Ghost tour guest Terry Ward took this picture of a strange light in a left hand window of the manor. Rebecca later saw a woman standing there.

The night I attended was organised by The Spirit Parlour, a company run by bubbly and normal-seeming husband and wife Scott and Rebecca Simpson. Guests get an exclusive tour and the chance to use specialist equipment to track some of the characters who have inhabited the manor over the last 1,000 years.

There are a wealth of lost souls to choose from. The dozens of ghost stories surrounding Preston Manor include a lady in white who used to haunt the Stanford family, the last private owners of the house. The legend says that ‘Mad Jack’ – the son of the manor’s last owner Ellen Stanford – discovered that the ghost was the soul of a nun who was buried in the grounds. He found her skeleton in the garden, had it interred in consecrated ground, and the troublesome hauntings stopped, at least for a while.

Scott Simpson checks his electro magnetic frequency monitor.

Today the white lady is one of a number of ghosts whose presence is sometimes felt. Penny Balchin, our tour guide and a Brighton and Hove museum teacher, said she and other staff are plagued by eerie happenings. She said: “People have been locked in rooms. Doors slam shut. You can hear voices shout at you. They talk in your ear, but someone else won’t hear it. They really hurt your ear sometimes.” Before working at Preston Manor, Penny had never seen or heard a ghost. Now she can’t stop.

Okay, coming from a tour guide, this is a sales pitch. But that doesn’t stop me peering into closed-off corridors and rooms as we walk through the grand house in the hope of spotting a mysterious figure. Scott, a jovial and approachable man who believes his home is haunted by his dead dog, claims he has been able to see ghosts in a Sixth Sense way since childhood, when his ‘imaginary’ friend was the spirit of a 17th century farmer. Scott is keen to stamp out any preconceptions people might have about what it’s like to communicate with the deceased. “There is a trend in the media to hype it up,” he explains, in the weary tone of one who has to repair the work of a lesser craftsman: “We don’t talk about Yvette Fielding. We are much more concerned with the spiritual aspect of it.”

Penny Balchin, Sue Smith and Rebecca Simpson try to contact the dead using pendulums.

Our journey into the land of the dead involves mother and son mediums Sue and Leigh Smith ‘contacting’ relatives of our tour group who have passed on to the ‘other side’. Characteristically, none of mine push themselves forward in time for me to communicate with them, but others seem happy with the messages they receive.

We are taught that, while on investigations, it is common to be unable to hear or see ghosts at the time, but to find evidence of them later, on photographs and voice recordings – no Photoshop allowed. Even in the days of digital cameras, it is still impressive to pour over The Spirit Parlour’s pictures of unexplained light effects and auras which they claim represent the departed.

A recording of a child’s voice whispering in the manor’s nursery is pretty spooky to hear minutes before being led around the house in the dark. On the tape, the child answers questions shouted out imploringly by the investigators, who can’t hear her and who sound faintly ridiculous.

But when I later hold a pendulum between my thumb and forefinger and ask a ghost to talk to me by moving it, I find the urge to attempt to ‘converse’ strangely compelling.

When others used the pendulum and got wild, swinging circles for ‘yes’ and frantic forwards and backwards motions for ‘no’, I have to say I thought they were secretly moving their fingers. But I kept my hand almost completely motionless and the pendulum still responded, changing direction appropriately and with remarkable speed, tracing out patterns that suggest I am talking to Ellen Stanford.

I’m not saying that’s irrefutable proof of an afterlife, but it certainly did make me think.

The Spirit Parlour will be at Preston Manor during Brighton Festival Fringe on Saturday 10 and 17 May. For tickets at £55 each visit www.thespiritparlour.com or call 01273 834480.

Preston Manor is open between 1 April and 30 September, Tues-Sat 10am-5pm and Sun 2-5pm. Admission is £4.10/£3.40/2.40 with family tickets available.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.