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THE HISTORY OF THE LOCATION

Michelham Priory is set on a medieval moated island, surrounded by gardens and is a beautiful historic property nestling deep in the East Sussex countryside. The house dates back to 1229 when the Priory was founded and lived in by Augustinian canons until the Dissolution in 1537 when the church and most of the east cloister was pulled down for building materials. The founder was Gilbert De l'Aigle. Part of the original buildings survives in the present house. There was a cruciform church with a cloister to the north, a Chapter House on the east, the Kitchen and Refectory to the south and dormitories (over the cellars) to the west. Prior Leem was a close ally of John of Gaunt and acted as Receiver for the Duke of Lancaster in the county of Essex. During the late 14th century the French threat and general unrest Prior Leem (Prior from 1374 to 1417) surrounded the Priory and the immediate grounds with a moat (the longest water-filled medieval moat currently surviving in England) and gatehouse. Priors who followed Leem (1441-2 and 1478) became embroiled in scandals involving non-observance of rules such as rules of silence, canons visiting the local pubs and even one member having an affair with a local woman. The Priory has played host to such distinguished guests as the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1283, Edward the First in 1302 and it is rumoured Margaret of Anjou.

John Foote of Arlington purchased the Priory in 1556 (he had been in residence since 1542) and began transforming the south and west cloister ranges into a house. In 1587 Herbert Pelham, an iron founder and landowner acquired Michelham. He added a new wing but ran out of money and was forced to sell the property. Thomas Sackville (the Lord Treasurer), later 1st Earl of Dorset, purchased the property in 1601 and the Sackville family owned the freehold for the next 300 years. The Priory was let out to tenant farmers, when many barns and farm buildings were built around the house.

From 1791 to 1861, three generations of the Child Family were tenants. An inventory of 1821 shows beer and cider was consumed in considerable quantities by a large farming family with live-in domestic servants and farm labourers. The Child family concentrated on pure-breeding beef cattle and established a new standard for Sussex Reds. In 1845, when Frank Child was a boy of 13, he wrote and illustrated a fine history of the Priory, which can be found upstairs in the Victorian case near the Prior’s Room. In 1861 Thomas Brown, a new tenant, moved in. Unfortunately, as a general agricultural depression hit England, due partly to cheap food imports, he had to reduce his workforce from 20 to 12. By 1881 he was milling to increase his income. His sons continued farming until 1894. In 1896, James Gwynne bought the Priory from Lionel Sackville-West, and began a program of restoration. In 1925 Richard Beresford-Wright purchased the property and made many improvements, which are still in evidence today. During WWII it was requisitioned for the duration of the war. The Wright family returned until 1951.

The last private owner of the Priory was Mrs Stella Hotblack who purchased it 1959. In 1960 Mrs Hotblack gave the Priory to the Sussex Archaeological Society for its preservation
With all this in mind the Haunted Britain team were full of anticipation for the investigation!

THE INVESTIGATION

The building itself is very large but only a shadow of its former self but as a location it is a) well preserved architecturally and b) retains many artefacts from previous centuries including huge tapestries, a large collection of British Pewter from the 16th to 18th Centuries, furniture from 15th century to the current day, a fantastic collection of Second World War memorabilia and rooms set up as they would have been during various times in the buildings history. On top of that the Priory also contains several complete flats including the Living Quarters for the caretaker. Several other residents live in the building itself as well.

Outside it has a very large set of grounds, an impressive moat and an even more impressive gatehouse that would have guarded the bridge to the Priory but
nowadays serves the purpose of ticket office.

However before we even got to the priory crossing over the bridge to the gatehouse, Carol felt the presence of a very sad woman trying to reclaim something from the moat; she believed that it could be a loved one who had drowned.

The team were welcomed by the very friendly Chris who is resident caretaker of the building and whilst we were setting up in the undercroft (which has now been converted to the main entrance and a small display area which covers the history of the building from Medieval times). He led the team about the building showing where we could and couldn’t go into as well as where the kitchen was which was very useful because Bryan cant possibly last more than 2 hours without coffee!

Peter and Bryan took Chris aside to discuss what paranormal activity had taken place in the Priory, while Gemma and Carol went outside to avoid overhearing any discussion and to see what could be felt outside. A monk was felt standing in one of the doorways, photographs were taken, but nothing appeared. Gemma could feel the presence of many spirits in the walled off area which use to be the church. She said that it was a very scary feeling, but did not know why. It is believed that the protective monks did not like visitors. Carol could hear the sound of a fast approaching horse and rider, but a number of horses are stabled nearby. This, however, does not account for a rider going at top speed and this hour of the night. Gemma and Carol joined the other members and Chris inside to begin their investigation.

After the walkabout the investigation was going to start in earnest except one of the resident spirits had other ideas and decided for a minor possession of Carol! As we were walking near to the main staircase on the ground floor Carols eyes glazed over and she became very hunched over and her hands were contracting into what can only be described as claw shaped. Peter pointed out that he no longer thought Carol was with us at this moment. She climbed the stairs very slowly and headed straight for the bedrooms but stopped short of entering them and began to sob. Despite his instincts to instantly question the spirit Bryan ordered the spirit to desist actions in Carols body and leave her in peace – it was obvious that distress was occurring to the spirit and to Carol. After a minute or so of ordering the spirit to leave it did so and Carol was left looking a little shocked and more than a little embarrassed – She isn’t normally possessed in fact its only ever happened once before. As a note a photograph taken shortly before Carols possession a face appears to have been caught in a swirl type shape going toward the staircase. It appears to have the face of a woman in it. Is this a spirit or just a trick of the light? We don’t know so you can decide for yourself. After 30 minutes calming down and making sure Carol was ok the team began their vigil.

Just before the vigils began Bryan attempted access to the notorious Priest Hole. This was, without doubt, an unmitigated disaster; for a start he was to tall to fit in the space and once in his torch then unsettled about 100 bats which were flying all over the place after that. He decided to withdraw primarily because he did not wish to damage any of the bats, as they are a protected species.

The vigils themselves were fairly easy arrangements to set due to the size of the rooms and it was decided that we would spend 45 minutes in each room

The first room visited was the dining room – an amazing room complete with Jacobean wood panelling, tapestries and an immaculately laid out dinner table complete with ancient Pewter candlesticks, tankards, platters and salt and pepper pots. It also had a portrait in the corner of person unknown and a small history of Thomas Sackville. A chimney was located to the left hand side of the door complete with a large fireplace set i.e. pokers, coal tongs and so on. The team set up cameras and a Dictaphone and left Peter in charge to take Baseline readings every 15 minutes.

All was quiet or so we thought – when footage was later viewed 2 large orbs were seen on film that flew past Carol just as she was talking about Margaret of Anjou. Other than that the whole room was very quiet.

The second room seemed like a Parlour and again had Jacobean panelling but furniture wise had an exceptional Harpsichord, several very old chairs some more portraits and tapestries. Again all was quiet but after a small amount of calling out to any spirits to come and join us a quite heavy footstep was heard in front of the team behind the roped off area and this was closely followed by the sound of someone sitting into leather bound chair and strangely enough the only chair matching that description was directly behind the area where the team thought the footstep had come from! Other than these unusual phenomena several large orbs were photographed in the same area whilst contact was attempted with Margaret of Anjou. Strangely enough none were photographed before then. Was this the second attempt by Margaret of Anjou attempting communication?

At this point Bryan was conducting secondary EMF baselines when his EMF meter began to click erratically and as he adjusted it to ascertain why and where the disruption was coming from it became louder literally above his head. Rationally he and the team deduced power lines in the ceiling until the signal suddenly ceased and became prevalent to his left where no cables were present and where just a few moments earlier nothing was recorded! We are still unsure what caused these readings but the equipment used by the team was functioning correctly and within acceptable parameters. The signal on the EMF reader eventually faded away and we were left none the wiser as to what caused it. We left the room wondering what it was that caused it – could it have been a ghost?

he third room investigated was the old kitchen and this led off to the Second World War room as well. The kitchen is a flagstoned room with a large fireplace in the middle of the room. A large table and a very high backed wooden shelf system was also in the room as well as ubiquitous arrangements of kitchen utensils and pottery / crockery. All was very quiet (again!) when Carol basically told a female cook to clear off in no uncertain terms who was attempting some possession. Carol is not caught napping twice on the same day and that’s a fact! Other than that very little did not happen here or in the adjacent room, which full of WW II, memorabilia.

It was decided (after some coffee naturally) that we would concentrate the remaining time of the investigation on several rooms upstairs namely the Nursery, the large room at the end of the corridor (to be called the Lounge from here on) and finally the Priors room. We decided to ignore the history gallery / museum which was directly at the top of the stairs primarily because of the amount of written material there (which may have caused an undue suggestion effect upon the team but especially upon Carol) and the fact that Bryan was taking far too much time reading every single label for every single artefact through out the building anyway! That and his comments and explanations were also just taking too much time up and a museum would be too tempting for him!

The team ascended the staircase and Carol pointed out that she could do so quite easily which was in complete contrast to her earlier attempt whilst under possession.

The first room to be investigated on this floor was the Lounge, a large room at the end of a small corridor with many different types of furniture and a particularly impressive model of a Warship from Henry VIII’s reign. Despite waiting, calling out and regular monitoring of the environment nothing happened of note in this room and so the Nursery was then investigated.

The Nursery was a small room with a single small bed, a cot, several small chests of drawers and other paraphernalia to do with birthing or new mothers. Also there were several embroideries on the wall that are Victorian in date. Carol and Gemma both sensed residual “mothering” energies, which wasn’t really surprising given the nature of the room. However as per the Lounge very little happened here as well.

Our expectations were raised however as the last part of the investigation was to take place in the Priors Room and considerable amounts of phenomena has been reported here as well as phenomena shown on Television shows.

The room itself is very large and, as per the other rooms, has a majority of it roped of to protect the display. The display itself consists of a replica of the Prior himself sat in a very elaborate chair, a large table and a Lectern in the shape of an Eagle. All of this was set in front of a huge fireplace with 14th /15th century arched windows from the original priory. On top of this was the amazing wooden carving of the Madonna and child. It was interesting to note that this image was not all a happy and light image and if one looks closely at the portrayal of Jesus it is to be noted that he is carrying a dead dove of peace by the neck!

The group managed to arrange themselves along the back wall giving a good view of the whole room and began to call out for any spirits to join us. Several photographs were taken as well and one showed quite a solid looking ball of light floating in the air at one point. Other than this the whole room seemed quite quiet and serene.

After an hour in the room it was decided to conclude the investigation and most of the equipment was packed up. The only thing left running was the camcorder that is always turned off when the team are about to leave the building… just in case. And on this occasion we were not to be disappointed – as we were leaving the top floor and where approaching the stair well Peter and Bryan were talking and a further male voice is added to the conversation and says just one word: “Michael”. This is strange as the conversation itself would not have led to anyone saying a name but the name is clearly audible and is certainly not the voice of either Peter or Bryan. Was this a parting gift to the team or a stray radio wave?

Overall the investigation was a fun one with plenty to see! On the paranormal front however we didn’t capture a huge amount but certainly things happened!

Michelham Priory is a fantastic location and other teams should visit the place – certainly the Haunted Britain team are considering when we can get there again! Or at least Bryan is anyway!

eggs

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