Arreton Barns Investigation

Its a very chilly February evening, the team is assembled and chomping at the bit for our first investigation of 2015. We are at Arreton Barns, which is located within the grounds of the lovely Jacobean ‘Arreton Manor’ here on the Isle of Wight.

The complex itself consists of the Dairyman’s Daughter Pub, and a collection of outbuildings that surround the area which now demonstrate local handmade crafts. It really is a charming place – and perhaps my most favorite location on the whole of the Island.

Everywhere you look they’ve tried to keep its history intact with collections of old signage and various nik naks from a bygone age.

Tonight’s investigation is going to see us start off at the Dovecote, a former building that was used by the Monk’s on the island. A small hole in the wall can still be found round the side of it, that was allegedly used in its time to pass out food supplies to the local lepers.

Marie is the first of the team to sense something, she can see the outline of a man – wearing a long robe, with a baggy hood over his head hiding his facial features. This energy feels to her as though its more of a replay of time, than an active spirit energy – he walks from the gatepost further down the lane to just outside the Dovecote before disappearing, and repeating the journey over and over again. As you can imagine, this type of personal experience is impossible to gather any form of evidence from. The team spent some time in the Dovecote, trying to zone into its history – but that evening it just wasn’t happening.

Over to the Shipwreck museum next, it must be said that they have had no reports of ghostly activity prior to our visit. Upon entering both Janis and Steve – who are sensitive to spirits, both remarked that the museum was absolutely pulsing with energy, It seems the collection of artifacts have quite a history – and want it to be known.

Steve picking up that one of the bronze diving helmet’s felt ‘warm’ to his touch. Janis, on the other side of the museum feeling drawn to a wooden ship’s figurehead. “I can’t feel much from it, but I can see a lot of material, perhaps sails”

We fired up the new SB11, with the device scanning AM frequencies every 50 milliseconds, an alarm sounded – it was the inbuilt temperature sensor, we reset it. Again it went off!? – It was at that point we decided to focus on what it could be. We started asking for responses – it seems whoever or whatever was over by the SB11 could quite intelligently effect the alarm on command. We asked for it to “go on”.. it did.. “go off”.. it did – this went on the next few minutes. We couldn’t seem to glean any other info from it – apart from the simple instruction for on or off!

Time to move to our next location now, the pond area. Janis is aware of a young girl in a pretty bustle dress that has materialized close to where I am standing. Over the course of the next 10 minutes we learned that ‘Sarah’ likes to sit and read near the pond. She loves being with people, and will walk with anyone that goes down to the pond either day or night. Jan tells us she used to work at the Manor, perhaps a companion for the lady of the Manor.

(On further inspection, after the investigation – we have since found a record of a Sarah, aged 19 years of age, who was a general cook and servant to the Manor House. Could this be our girl? )

Finally we move into the Dairyman’s Daughter Pub, we’ve known for many years about the spirit of the ‘old man’ that sits at the bottom end of the pub, next to the backdoor, perched in his old leather backed chair. Every-so-often the staff like to move it, and believe me.. it does not bode well when Jan visits. (On one occasion following her right through the building to the restroom, where he screamed his displeasure at her for it being moved! – thankfully, the staff are quick to move it back whenever possible)

A SB 7 session resulted in my name clearly being shouted out at me – but little else. There’s nothing like a ‘PAUL!’ to wake you up. Although we had some of the latest gadgets and gizmos to hand, it seemed this spirit was in no hurry to divulge any personal information about himself, other than the fact that he enjoys sitting there listening to the bands that regularly play.

Both Janis and Steve have a strong feeling that he suffered a great pain in his lower abdomen later in life, (perhaps a gunshot wound!?) – and there seemed to be some sort of a connection with him and animals – could he possibly have been a former Gamekeeper at the Manor!?

Steve made himself comfortable in the chair next to his with the Mel Meter, it took a while but he managed to gain the spirit’s trust – getting him to alter the temperature slightly with the Mel probe. With an ambient temperature of 21.2c, Steve was able to ask for different temperature readings on command – up to 21.6c and back down to 20.9c.

It may not be a substantial change, however after asking for a specific value and watching it struggle to reach it – is quite something to behold!

Apart from the long-forgotten energy of a woman dressed in white, stood by the old-style pinball machines that Marie could sense, and a ghostly swirling misty outline of a black cat that Janis could see around the fireplace, the atmosphere in the pub was starting to dampen. It was time for us to bring our investigation to an end.

Overall it had been a fascinating night, we had gleaned snippets of information from Arreton’s past from the spirits of Arreton. Let’s hope we get the invitation for a return visit in the summer, as I’m sure with the turning weather there are many more secrets to uncover!

Many thanks to the Management & Staff of Arreton Barns for their cooperation with our investigation. Special Thanks to Mr Lee Hext (Manager)

Make sure your stay on the Isle of Wight involves a visit to Arreton Barns – believe me, you won’t be disappointed. Arreton Barns website: www.arretonbarns.co.uk