Yew Tree Inn - South Wingfield

Investigation 25-09-04 & 02-10-04

25 September 2004

On The night of the 25^th of September at the Yew Tree Inn Derwent Paranormal Investigators carried out the first of a two night paranormal investigation in what had been said to be one of the most haunted pubs in Derbyshire. First impressions were that the pub itself had a nice feel to it and it looked very old in some parts however we felt that the only spirits that hang upside down in bottles behind the bar. Boy oh boy we soon found out that we were wrong about that.

Present at the investigation were DPI members Chris & Eleanor Thompson, Paul & Sue Wilkinson, Mark Hibbert, Karl Ellis and as guests ESSIVE members Greg and Vicky Greaves

Extensive base-line readings were conducted in the form of ion, EMF & temperature to rule out any anomalies that may occur on the premises. The meters are calibrated at each location to give an accurate account of any readings, which may differ from the norm. Base-line readings are, as we would expect with one anomaly on ion & EMF, which was proven to be coming from some spotlights above the bar. Unusually high readings of EMF were noted coming from all electrical appliances but this has been taken into account, temperature settled out at 24 degrees.

Cameras and trigger objects were set up, a pendulum experiment set up in cellar, temperature measure in part of the bar, supervision cam covering the area in front of the kitchen and the kitchen was locked off with cam running.

After all base line tests were taken Greg, Sue and Vicky were given a box and asked to choose their Crystals for a dowsing session. While the dowsers were confirming their crystals movements for yes and no, Chris, Eleanor, Karl, Mark and Paul went out of sight and earshot to determine what questions to ask. When they all returned we began with Sue dowsing and Eleanor taking her answers Greg dowsing with Paul taking the answers and Vicky dowsing while Mark noted her answers. Ten questions were asked in each of two sessions conducted during the night, the questions and answers for both dowsing sessions are shown below. The second dowsing session seem very strange to Vicky, her crystal was not answering as well as normal, although it was answering the questions. Once the results were checked it seemed that some of her answers were direct opposite to the other two so she asked are you telling me the truth to which it answered no, then asked are you teasing, to which it answered yes. She then said if your not telling the truth and you are teasing does that mean that you are telling the truth and your not teasing me to which her pendulum shook and then stopped abruptly and would not answer any more questions (so if Vicky’s answers from the second session were reversed would the result be more accurate?)

Dowsing session 1

Séance 1

The first séance was carried out at the far end of the room next to the kitchen while in progress there were slight changes in EMF lots of bangs on the door to the stairs which seemed to be in answer to the questions being asked two strange orbs one on Paul & one on Sue, Paul felt the temp was dropping behind him and a strange kind of pressure building up around the back of his neck it felt just like a big right hand was squeezing his neck harder and harder until he found it very hard to talk and it was getting very painful. The other members of the group began to tell the spirit to stop hurting Paul and to his surprise the symptoms stopped as quickly as they had begun. The kitchen door was seen to move and noises were heard from the cellar. On closing down the circle somehow the energy got switched round causing Eleanor some considerable distress.

Séance 2

Séance 2 was held at the other end of the room where lots of activity was detected during séance 1. As we prepared to begin there was a definite scent of coconut oil in the air around the table, Greg mentioned it first but both Eleanor and Vicky also smelt it. At one point Eleanor seemed to think that Chris had fallen to sleep but on checking he was awake to this she added that she had heard snoring. Vicky started to see a figure in the crystal ball and asked Eleanor if the Abbot had long shoulder length hair which she agreed with. The man in the ball had hair that looked like this and a long robe on although the picture was in black and white Vicky felt purple was the colour if the robe. The gent was leaning over two people sitting round a table at this point both Greg and Sue seemed to feel something blow on the arms in between them. Eleanor was fighting to stay in her seat and said that whoever it was snoring behind had been disturbed in his sleep and was attempting to remove the offending person by shoving them of the bench and who ever it was almost succeeded on a couple of occasions. There were some drops in temperature & slight changes in EMF but not as much activity as we had hoped for although lots of presences were felt there seemed to be little communication.

Just before we arrived that night there had been a picture in the dinning room fall off the wall. A witness report says that a picture in the dining room went up the wall and then fell forward, we are not experts in Newton’s law but things should not go up first should they? A camera was set up to cover the picture however nothing happened which was not unexpected as nothing ever does when you are looking.

Present at the investigation were DPI members Chris and Eleanor Thompson, Paul & Sue Wilkinson, Mark Hibbert, Karl Ellis, and as guests ESSIVE members Emma and Kev Isham.

On visiting the Yew tree for the second time the base line readings were re-taken in case anything had altered from the previous week this will also prove the readings we took on the first visit were themselves not paranormal. Two members of the team were also substituted Greg & Vicky stayed home while Kev & Emma joined the team for our second vigil.

All EMF & ion were as the previous week with the exception of slightly higher readings at the end of the bar (in the location where the monk is sighted)

Two new pieces of equipment were set up. A UV ‘backlight’ behind a white screen with a camera in front of it was set up in front of the fireplace. The idea behind it was that anything passing in front of the light would show as a shadow on the screen. Fixed dowsing pendulums hanging from metal frames were set up in the kitchen, with fine play-sand beneath them to detect any movement from the stones.

At about 1.15 am we began a dowsing session in the dining area with three teams of two, one dowsing, one recording answers. Kev dowsed, while Eleanor recorded his answers, Mark was partnered with Sue, while Emma was recorded by Paul. Kev had previously achieved good (and surprising) results with a citrine stone and selected the same one again. The results from his attempts at the Leopard had been good, but nothing like these. We achieved results close to 94% in consistency, with all three of dowsers answering the same to 7 out of 10 questions and two agreeing on a further two questions. Only on one question did the dowsers get different answers. Afterwards, while the answers were compared, the three dowsers carried on alone. Emma reported contact with a ‘lady in white’ and Mark claims to have contacted a man between 45-50. Whoever Kev was talking to, however, had obviously decided to show off, because his stone started swinging wildly. Thankfully, we caught this on tape, because we wouldn’t have believed it possible otherwise.

Séance 1

Taken at the top end of the bar where the white lady is seen, 5 participants were used as after discussion it was decided that is the most effective number of people. We were only a few minutes into the séance when Eleanor commented that someone was tickling her and Kev had the feeling of muscle cramps in his right shoulder, like he had been playing tennis for a while. He also began to feel warm down his right side and began to sweat. Emma complained of heat down the left side of her body. (Emma’s left hand was touching Kev’s right one) Karl commented that the temperature between Emma and Kev had risen considerably. A videotape of this séance has been watched and it’s quite noticeable that Emma is sweating and uncomfortable. Kev has said that he was roasting and VERY uncomfortable and began to ‘feel’ the presence of a woman dressed in white. Kev ‘saw’ it as a dress, but Eleanor thought it was nightgown of some sort. Both of them also ‘saw’ a coat over her white clothing. Kev began to feel extremely hot and very sweaty and appeared to have difficulty drawing breath and started coughing. Karl commented that the temperature had dropped everywhere except between Emma and Kev. Kev seemed to ‘sense’ the name ‘Sarah’ but can’t be sure, he felt in pain and overwhelmingly hot and asked Eleanor to close the séance down because he felt weak and couldn’t breathe properly. Almost as soon as it was over he began to feel cooler and could breathe again. Karl states that at its’ peak, the temperature had risen to 25 degrees around Emma and Kev but dropped back to 19 as soon as the circle had been closed down. Temperature was a constant 19 degrees all round the table EMF readings were as expected normal. During the séance the temp dropped 2-3 degrees all round the table with a 6 deg rise in between Emma & Kev. All temperatures returned to 19-20 degrees almost immediately after the circle was closed down, EMF only fluctuated slightly all throughout the séance.

Cellar Vigil

A short sitting in the cellar with automatic writing didn't produce much. Karl and Emma went down into the cellar to try a vigil, while the rest of us took photos and video, after about a half-hour, Paul and Kev took a turn down the cellar. They took two camcorders, one with night-vision and one for audio and one of Chris’ new toys, a child’s magnetic writing-board to try automatic writing down there. Although it was very noisy, they set themselves up and the lights went out. They attempted to make contact and this involved Kev clambering into the darkest corner to see what he could pick up by touching the cellar walls. Paul caught a couple of nice orbs on his camera and Kev caught an orb on his camera although it was pitch-black down there and the camcorder was as blind as a bat. Sitting in the corner, Kev got the impression of a long, dark tunnel lit by torches or candles, leading to a large house. He thought at the time it was an Abbey or Friary and felt terrified, as if whoever was going down the tunnel didn’t really want to go. The temperature dropped rapidly, which is strange because with the heat from the cooler-units it should’ve been warm, it also got very heavy and oppressive Almost as quickly, the atmosphere lifted and they began to warm up. The ‘vision’ of the tunnel faded. Paul said that at one stage there had been a kind of ‘shadow’ over Kev’s shoulder. The attempt at automatic writing was disappointing; a squiggle across the pad that seems meaningless. After about 30 minutes we came back up. Paul complained that his camera kept going out of focus, but he was overjoyed with his orbs.

Séance 2

At the ‘monk’s’ end of the bar EMF ok temp around 20 degrees at the start. We started with 6 sitters and for a while nothing was happening, Eleanor took the lead and stepped out of the séance leaving just five as before and almost straight away things started to happen. The temperature during the séance dropped 4 degrees and the presence of the Abbot was felt by everyone. Sue started to feel very upset and even started to cry and sob she could not say why but it was getting worse so Eleanor stepped back in to help. Emma had a great deal of pain in her leg & had to leave the table reducing the number back to 5. Mark felt several cold spots around him and connection with a spirit of a man of god, as Eleanor tried to find out why he was there she said he was a traitor and the room went very cold. He had turned his back on his queen and his faith in the end the guilt was so bad in himself he felt the only way out was death so he killed himself with blessed wine, and poison. As Eleanor was saying theses things Karl could taste something foul in his mouth & felt sick with stomach-ache, a Dictaphone was running all the time and when it was played back we found that at the same time as all this was happening we could here another sitter so to speak we could hear him say “help me”/”let me out “/”blessed wine “ grunts and growls and a lot of heavy breathing. E.V.P is at around 500mhz which when you look at the others in the group there voices are no where near to that not even close Paul has tried to hit 500mhz and he just ended up with a sore throat and a head ache. We also made contact with a female, (the white lady) we were informed that she died in the night trying to make a drink, her nightgown got caught on the fire and she burned to death.

When the séance was closed & the team retired for a drink at the other end of the room Chris & Karl took further temperature readings post-séance to find that all temperature readings had returned to normal. How the temp can fluctuate by dropping 4-5 degrees & then return to normal is unexplainable the same with séance 1 where the temp rose by 6 degrees & then returned to normal within minutes of the séance ending.

There are a lot of things still to find out there and we still have many questions about the place but do feel we have gone a long way to answer a lot of the question that people have. We have found out some more about the paranormal as well and really enjoyed this investigation and learnt that it doesn’t matter what the place looks like until you just sit and listen to the place and what it has to tell you, don’t ever make a judgement (a box is a box but what is in side)