We undertook an investigation of this old pub on Osmaston Road, Derby along with the Derwent Paranormal Investigators. DPI has yet to receive confirmation, but the Old Barley Mow was built around the 1850's, possibly was two houses on the end of two strips of terraces. Again further research should confirm if the building was indeed a Shoemakers, later being converted to the Barley Mow Hotel. DPI had been contacted after the landlords and locals of the pub had witnessed various incidents. On regular intervals a shadow had been seen walking from the pool room to towards the back of the pub towards the cellar.  One of the landlords is a truck driver who prepares for work at about 3:00am and goes in to the bar to have a smoke. Often he claims to have heard a whispering from the poolroom so inaudible that he could not work out if it was male or female. Another regular occurrence is the moving of the barrels in the cellar but I am sure that you understand that there have been many explanations and theories about barrels moving.
Our first investigation which was a preliminary visit to interview the witnesses and work out positions for our equipment on the next visit, we did, however stay the whole night and recorded various anomalies.  A Dictaphone left in the Pool Room recorded a strange whining noise when the tape is played back at a higher speed.  We have checked our previous recordings and this noise does not appear, only when at the Barley Mow.  We are not saying that this is evidence of ghostly activity or spirits and are currently trying to replicate the conditions to see if we can discredit the tape. Our current theory is that it could be picking up outside traffic or the electrical fan in the cellar. At about 4:15am, I took a number of shots of the bar in a slower shutter speed (partly by accident) and on one of them there appears to be an arm moving behind the landlady.  It shows a bare arm with a light blue t-shirt, which is strange since no one wore a t-shirt at that time since it was so cold! (Look at everybody huddling round the fire.) Due to the slower shutter speed and not being able to 100% confirm that someone wasn't stood in that position, we have to discredit the photo. On our return visit, last week (19th October 2002) we tried to undertake a controlled investigation but there was further contamination of our investigation areas.
As usual we placed our "ghost-hunting" equipment in the controlled areas and set about recording the evidence through the night.  Here is our record of the night.

Temperatures

We placed two remote thermometers in the poolroom and cellar.  The Pool Room thermometer recorded a constant temperature of 19.8 all through the night, dropping slightly when the back door to the pub was opened. The cellar thermometer recorded quite strange results. We had experienced interference with the thermometers earlier in the night during an investigation of Derby Goal and we began to experience the same difficulties again.  Our thermometers are reasonably new, the batteries are always fully charged and tested and the thermometers send results to our "station" through even the thickest walls and yet on numerous occasions through the night the signal dropped. Once the temperature in the cellar had reached its level of 10.7 degrees it maintained this average most of the night until at 2:24am when the thermometer raised to 14.6 degrees for over ten
minutes before dropping again to 11.0.  The temperature rose within less of two minutes, which is highly unusual.  There was nothing in the cellar between 1:40am and 2:49am to cause this fluctuation.

Motion Detection Camera

Our motion detection camera ran for most of the night picking up over 400 frames of movement on the backyard of the pub.  We were able to discredit 396 frames again caused by contamination when people visited the toilet, casting a shadow over the camera.  Strangely at 2:47am, when everyone in the building was watching the video of an earlier investigation the below frames were captured by the motion capture.  They purport to capture a ball of light manifesting in the left hand side on the picture, and then it moves lower before disappearing. We cannot completely rule out that this may have a more down to earth explanation, with the possibility that it is the reflection of light from someone's belt or even a torch being switched on.  This is why our vigils are always scientifically controlled so that no contamination of the area can happen.

Night shot Camera

Although Nightspot on digital cameras is a highly unreliable method of capturing anomalies; we ran a 38-minute recording of the cellar.  As usual we picked up the usual dust anomalies (an article about the problems with night shot and digital cameras will appear soon) but we also recorded a number of unusual sounds.  Before recording the landlord ensured that all the barrels and gas bottles were switched off and any surplus gas had been released. The sounds we have recorded seem to be more mechanical in nature rather than paranormal. 

 Mediums

Neil Fellowes and his team of investigators (Jules, Mel and Mark) were also present at the investigation and felt like they had picked up a number of spirits (non-alcoholic type) in the pub. Although the poolroom spirit seemed to be similar in personality to the late owner of the pub, his physical appearance was more like one of our member's fathers.  Which raises the old question whether mediumship is either contacting the dead or reading other's minds?
In the cellar while trying to contact a female spirit, we experience large fluctuations on the thermometer, with the temperature rising and decreasing at various times.  The spirit claimed to be a woman who was hiding from some people who she owed money to. Mark of PD also believed that she had been murdered down there. Without confirmation historically it's almost impossible to prove (or even disprove) what Neil and Mark claimed to have occurred in the cellar and that is the problem with clairvoyance.

Conclusion

We were disappointed that our second investigation was once again contaminated by various people through the night.  Due to this we have to practically discount the motion detection images on the 396 other images reflections of fellow investigators and the owners can be clearly seen. The light could easily have been caused by a reflection from any piece of shiny metal, torch etc. The sounds in the cellar, interesting as they may be again have to be discounted since there were at least 12 people in the room above the cellar, and on regular occurrences visit the toilet, bang the cellar door and walk around.
To obtain true evidence at a location and to be able to totally rule out a human or mechanical source the location has to be secured and free from contamination from other sources, otherwise, your "evidence" is useless and open to criticism.

Many thanks to Martin and Louise Jeffery for the above report, check out there awesome site at www.mysterymag.com