The Falstaff Experience is also known as The Shrieves House
Initial Base Readings:
Table 1
Location
Time
Temperature °C
EMF
Shop
22:30
17.6
1 mG
Bottom of Entrance Stairs
22:34
16.6
1 mG
Top of Entrance Stairs
22:39
20
1 mG
Farm Labourers Cottage
22:18
19.5
1 mG
Tudor Entertainment
22:44
19.2
1 mG
Tudor Chemist
22:47
19.3
1 mG
Tudor Explorer
22:50
19
1 mG
Tudor Executioner
22:52
16.7
1 mG
Tudor Queen
22:54
16.7
1 mG
Tudor Dramatist
22:58
17
1 mG
Penny Arcade
23:00
17
1 mG
About the location:
Tudor World also known as the Falstaff Experience is a museum dedicated to the celebration of King Henry VIII's accession to the throne in 1509. Henry VIII bequeathed this building to a long bowman called William Shrieve for his services.
In the 16th century the property was a tavern and the tavern keeper, William Rogers, is said to have been some of the inspiration for Shakespeare's famous comic character Falstaff who appears in two of his plays.
There is also documented evidence that his family had strong connections with Shakespeare, as Shakespeare's daughter Susannah was close friends with Elizabeth, the daughter of the Rogers; Shakespeare also left their nephew, William Walker, 20 shillings in his will. At this time the property would have consisted of not only the house but outhouses, a stable and a blacksmiths.
The property has also born witness to the plague in 1564 and again almost 100 years later.
Tudor World recreates the atmosphere, sights and sounds of sixteen century England, along with hundreds of fascinating facts. It is the only museum devoted solely to the Tudors and is the largest museum in Stratford upon Avon.
The Falstaff Experience, named after the famous Shakespeare character John Falstaff, is said to still have some of these historic characters haunting the building.
The Falstaff Experience has been cited as "the most haunted building in England" by author Terry Deary. Hundreds of investigations have taken place there, including Living TV's Most Haunted.
Derek Acorah described it as "one of the most frightened I have ever encountered". Ian Lawman from Living with the Dead called it a "scary place" and Phillip Soloman, psychic to the Presley family said it was "one of the most haunted he had ever visited". There are said to be more than 40 spirits residing within the building, with visitors reporting experiences to the owners on a daily basis.
There are said to be a number of 'dominant' spirits active in the property: An archer from the time of Henry VIII; a serial murderer from the 18th century (some people call the Stratford Ripper'; a little girl who was a pickpocket in the tavern; a Catholic gentleman from the time of the reformation and a justice of the peace who used his power to run an extortion ring with threats, violence and trumped up charges.
There are also sightings of the parliamentary soldiers (although it is more common to experience their injuries); the victims of the serial murderer; children and animals. During certain times of year a dark hooded figure with red glowing eyes, who is said to be a very ancient spirit, stands back and watches.
The Most Haunted team, filming for Living TV, investigated the property in 2004, during which Derek Acorah became possessed while within the building.
Watch the clip from Most Haunted on You Tube:
Investigation Set-Up
We arrived in Stratford upon Avon excited about the prospect of investigating such a historic location. The 500 year old building had a lot to offer our team in terms of reported paranormal activity and potential evidence.
Our aims of the evening were to determine if the Shrieves House was indeed haunted and also record our efforts for the Paranormal Channel, who have commissioned us to produce an hour long special video investigation.
The building is deceptively large. From the outside it seems quite small, but once inside we were faced with two levels and a maze of rooms and corridors. The museum was still operating and we set up base camp in the Farm labourers’ cottage at the very back of the building. This separate area was perfect to establish a safe area and a location to store our equipment for the evening. The public ghost tour was being conducted in and around the building until 10.30 p.m. and we had arrived in good time to relax, discuss, and plan our investigation more thoroughly.
The building acts as a museum and each area has been allocated a particular theme. We were aware that having a large team in the building would cause problems with noise, interference, and possible contamination of any evidence gathered. Ian and I decided to divide the team into small groups of two and three and stagger the vigils accordingly to control the evening and account for the whereabouts of the team and guests.
Ian and I briefed the group and discussed the objectives, technical set up and procedures to all trainees and investigators. Once the group understood what was expected of them, we set out to establish our DVR monitoring base and positioning the 8 Infra-red cameras throughout the building.
Technically this location turned out to be the most difficult for us to set up, and was fraught with problems. The power supplies that ran lights, sockets and displays were on several circuits which meant that when we turned out the lights on one floor, we also deactivated the plug sockets and rendered our IR lights useless.
It took almost 2 hours to set up our cameras and lights and also establish the live web stream which was to be broadcast on the ghostfinder website to all our viewers.
After much technical disruption and hard work by several members of the team, we were ready to begin our paranormal investigation of the Falstaff Experience.
The Walkaround - A Psychic Perspective
We wanted to record Spiritualist Medium Bongo's impression of the building before beginning our scientific approach to investigate the location.
Bongo led Ian, Piers and myself throughout the museum, and gave us her psychic perspective of the tudor museum. Bongo had not been informed about the history, or reported paranormal occurrences at this property, and had remained at our base since we had arrived.
Her first impression was almost instant, and she recalled having seen the spirit of a little girl standing just outside our base camp area against the trees and bushes. She described her as being around 7 or 8 years old and very curious of what we were all doing. Bongo received an impression that she was called Elizabeth or Lizzy and she was part of the fabric of this place. She even gave her the nickname Lizzy Dripping that she felt was associated with the girl for always having a runny nose. Could this have been the little girl who was a pickpocket in the former tavern and met her untimely death through illness and an archaic medical system? Or was she the daughter of the former Tavern owner William Rogers?
As we entered the museum shop, Bongo was overcome by several periods of time. She became aware of different energies around her, from various ages throughout the buildings long history and began to tune herself in to any spirits that may have been present there.
Her first impression came at the foot of the first flight of wooden stairs. Bongo felt that although newly built, there used to be a steeper staircase at this very spot and she sensed the residual energy of a buxom maid wandering up and down them frequently followed by her disabled son. Her spirit guide showed her that the poor young boy had suffered with tumours on his neck which eventually left him unable to breathe and resulted in his tragic death. The maid and her son's energy were still very prevalent and Bongo described this in some detail before making her way up to the first floor exhibits.
At the top of the stairs, Bongo was drawn to the plague cart exhibit. The image of a grim reaper or hooded skeleton was fixed above and the whole feature seemed very eerie and somewhat disturbing. Bongo explained that although this exhibit was very powerful, an mist energy was present there and she felt that people would have either seen or heard something in this area. This energy was not of human form and would have made many people feel very uneasy at times.
The co-owner of the museum Janet Ford had also accompanied us on the walkaround and was able to shed some light on this information in further detail.
Bongo was very quickly drawn above us and focused in on the mannequin of a man and child. She turned to us all and said that she felt like somebody had taken their life by way of hanging up there, and this spirit may have been seen before. She recalled that he was a Dutch man that had been captured by soldiers in the civil war and tortured, before managing to end his suffering by hanging himself at this location.
Janet Ford quickly added some corroborating information and remarkably Bongo's feelings and senses had proved correct once again. A tortured man had either been hung by his captors or took his own life to escape further pain and anguish. His spirit has been seen by several members of the public during the Falstaff ghost walks.
As we walked through the exhibits and entered the middle of the first floor, Bongo picked up on a young man who spent his childhood in the area of the property. she said that he had suffered abuse at the hands of an older man in the room at the far end of the top floor. Apparently he had managed to escape when in his later teens and had lived a happy life since.
During this period, Ian and I were standing several feet away and alone in one of the rooms when the EMF detector began to record a high spike in the electromagnetic field. The Gauss master began to buzz wildly and we quickly isolated the field to being in the centre of the room between where we were standing. As soon as we had identified its location and recorded this spike on camera, it was gone. Bongo felt sick and told us that the energy was on the move.
The following video shows several unexplained sighs that were captured by both cameras during this period. This clip is from the forthcoming hour long special.
This same spirit also came back to Bongo later on in the investigation and stayed very close to her causing her to trigger the tri-field meter every time she went near to it. It was only much later on when she had asked him to step away from her that the meter stop recording such a strong EMF field when she approached it.
As we moved down the first floor to the Ship Room, Bongo sensed another person upstairs in the building and she was shown the impression of huge hands that were extremely hot. She felt that this spirit had calluses and burns on his hands. She was not given a name for him, but the feeling seemed strong and quite dominant.
There was one other energy that affected Bongo in this area. It was a very powerful and menacing presence. She recalled having had a sharp and consistent pain in her lower abdomen similar to menstrual cramps, which peaked at times to a tearing and ripping feeling.
We soon walked down and left the building, having seen and heard enough. When we returned to the base camp everybody was concerned that Bongo looked very pale and unwell.
Bongo recalled that the feeling was most distressing, and Janet Ford said it was very common for women to experience this same feeling in that part of the building. Janet presumed it was caused by the presence of a serial killer called John Davis who apparently haunts the building and enjoys the power of making women; especially female mediums experience this agony. He is reputed to have torn out the wombs of his victims, and men are also reported to sometimes experience the feeling of being disembowelled.
