The Ostrich 24.02.07

Duration: 22.00-05.30

Weather: Cool and damp

Members: 11

Guests: Paul, Sean & Phil

After nearly a year from our last visit we welcomed the opportunity with open arms to return to this establishment once again, Many thanks to Lee at the ostrich for having us back. Before hand we had been told that the pub had undergone a major facelift, and would be unrecognisable, lovely for modernisation....however a haunted building does not like to be changed, and we'd soon find this out. For this investigation the group decided to try out the SPRG mini bus, and rather successful it was, looking more like we were heading for a camping trip rather than a ghost hunt good old Neil steadied the ship and we were away. We arrived at the pub at 7pm, this gave us time to have a walk round and check out the changes, and maybe squeeze in a coke and some pub chips, of are very nice by the way. The general impressions of the refurbishments were a positive one, contemporary design but still not loosing the historic charm of the building. Lee was very welcoming and pleased to see us back again, and even mentioned she might join us for a vigil at some stage in the night. She told us that since the refurbishment all sorts of things had been going wrong and malfunctioning, with no explanation what so ever, on a lighter note be sure to check out the pubs webpage here, ghost hunting aside a visit to this pub is highly recommended. With a few hours till the pub went quiet this gave us time to explore the new areas and set up camp upstairs, Usually we setup in the delight of the Elizabethan room, this however is now The Music Room, and that has been knocked through to the The Parlour, formally the Jacobean room. So now we had one big room to setup. On the way upstairs Clint D and Angie felt a little uneasy on the stairs, this was then felt again in The Parlour, as if we were being followed.

Hayley went downstairs to the ladies toilets which on our last visit used to be the pantry, this is where the bodies were stored after the terrible murders hundreds of years ago, she wasn't there for long and rushed back up with a headache, felt nauseas and was visibly shaken. One for later then we thinks! Craig, Clint D & Neil setup our equipment, one wireless camera pointing down the stairs, one locked off in Jarman's room (where the murders happened) and the other in the corner of The Music room, pointing across into The Parlour. Durng setup many orbs were caught by a number of digital cameras in The Parlour, where the odd feelings had been picked up.

Five orbs are seen here during setup looking into The Parlour.  

With our gear primed and ready to roll, it was time for opening prayer and we were ready to start by 10pm. Clint D, April, Angie and guests, Sean & Paul would take "Jarmans room" first. Garry, Hayley and Franco took the "cupboard" area which seemed to go down into the stairs and had odd feelings to it. Neal, Adel, Liz, Clint & Craig took the Parlour and Music room. Neil, guest Phil and Craig were on monitor duty whilst in there. The group in Jarmans room noticed a very oppressive and uncomfortable feel to the room, different to last  previous two visits. Craig radioed through to say that he noticed two large orbs zoom past our guest Paul's head, not what a first timer wants to hear! Repeated knocks were heard in the room, with light anomalies and shadow movements noticed with the naked eye, at this stage no activity was heard in the cupboard area or in the main room. It all seemed to be kicking of in Jarmans room though! Angie then jumped as she seemed to think that there were a pair of eyes that were looking at her from an open hatch above us. Perhaps this is where Jarman spied on him victims to see if they were asleep? Its a thought.

This picture of the hatch was taken by Clint D after strange occurrences in the room, no fingers were obstructing the lens, this dark blur certainly provoked interest.

 Angie then picked up on a man named John Drayton who passed through Colnbrook whilst on his way to London, sadly for our friend this was to be his last stop. It wasn't long after that that a very loud bang seemed to come from overhead and shake the entire room, by this stage the room became very icy and some of our longer serving members weren't ashamed to admit they were a tad spooked. There were more orbs seen on monitor by Craig then April seemed to notice a shadow movement very close to Angie. For what seemed like all night the first vigil was done, and it came as a relief to be fair. With no action in the other rooms the setup of the séance began, the pub had kicked out downstairs, so the place was ours. Whilst setting up the séance, the landlady Lee decided that third time was on a charm on our third visit and decided to watch the séance from outside the circle, with a daring colleague. You got to admire their courage. This time we had a crystal on one end of the table, under Gary's "pipe work gateway" these are tools that if combined can open gateways for spirits to come through, however this is only recommended if there are sensitives present or somebody that can professionally deal with malevolent spirits. Clint S had also prepared laminated alphabet, yes and no signs, numbers and  a goodbye, to spread out around the table to see if it would react with our tumbler, no success yet with the glass, would this be the night?

We were almost an hour into the séance and not a lot to seemed to be happening, it started to rain which made for a good atmosphere, then a loud drag of a chair seemed to come from downstairs, with the only two remaining staff with us, well enough said. The crystal seemed to vibrate a lot on the table all of a sudden, however Craig stared shaking for some reason so this would explain why it was moving. Soon after the table began to move quite violently, it was time to experiment with the glass. Clint D, Liz, Garry and Adel took control, nothing seemed to happening at first as Clint D asked the questions there was slight movement, then the real results happened Angie believed that it was John Drayton who had come through earlier using the glass he pointed out the year 1468, we are not sure what significance this had, as the murders happened a short time after this date. Although he did point to yes and confirm that he died there, and soon after he faded away. Then  Angie believed Jarman had come through as the gals was zipping all over the table which made it very hard to keep on fingers on it. When asked if it was he, it speedily moved to "yes" after numerous questions he pointed out that there were 57 grounded spirits in the pub, he was 37 when he began killing and died at 58, thorough historical research would need to happen to validate this dates and figures. Liz asked if he was abused as a child, he replied "yes" he also confirmed ages of his parents when they died. We asked him, given the chance would he kill us if he could, answer "yes" this provoked excitement rather than horror for some reason, we then asked if he liked the staff currently in charge of his pub, he said "no" which put Lee and colleague on edge. We asked him to spell out something for us, al we got were the letters S N I V C, in that order. They don't seem to make much sense, perhaps if rearranged it may be Latin. But I'm not sure if anyone in the group understands Latin, if anyone does reading this, then drop us a line. Several times we tried to say goodbye but he wasn't having it and was changing his mind, in the end we had to break the energy and let it be. A success story in any case.

After excited discussion after the séance and with Lee and colleague, we split up to take the refurbished downstairs areas of the pub, Clint D, guest Sean and Paul, Adel, Liz, Angie and April took the customer toilet which on our last visit used to be the pantry, this is the area in which Jarman stored the barrels containing the bodies after murdering them. Clint S and Garry took monitor duty. Guest Phil, Craig, Hayley, Franco and Neal took the area that used to be the kitchen and is now the cellar. In the ladies toilet Angie picked up on odd, horrid vibes again. Clint D called out to Jarman to give a sign indicating that this is where he store the bodies, almost instantaneously the page button on Clint D's walkie talkie went off, everyone screamed and scrambled to the light switch, for that noise to happen the button on the walkie talkie device has to be physically pushed, there doesn't seem to be an explanation for this at all. Shortly after the lights went off and Angie sat on the toilet seat (seat down of course) and began to channel in. On camera loads of orbs seemed to be emanating from around Angie's head, Clint D went into the cubicle and began to film, what happened next seemed to spook everyone. Clint D's face seemed to change in the reflection of the mirror in the cubicle, it seemed to change to a reflection of what Angie was describing as an entity called "Robbie" who was also killed here, this mirror technique is known as scrying. This didn't last for long, and Clint D then came over very dizzy after being pulled out of the cubicle, and didn't seem to remember much about his time in there, minutes later Angie screamed and ran out of the cubicle, the lights went on and there was about an eight man pile up on the floor. she said that a very gruff voice had whispered in her ear. Prior to this Adel had walked out after complaining that she felt sick. We'd seen enough in here for now.

After a regrouping and story exchanging certain members decided to call it a night as time was pushing on, the few remaining re-visited or ventured to other areas of the pub that hadn't yet been looked at. The new kitchen area didn't seem to have any bad vibes, although when leaving, the automatic slide door on the kitchen seemed to open and close after our guest Sean was the last out, Angie believed that it could be you know who following us. A small number of the group went back into the toilet, didn't feel as bad in there this time round however the face changing escapades of Clint D seemed to happen again, by this time it was starting to get late, with the fire still roaring upstairs it was time to hit the sleeping bags, after what seemed to be a very exhausting experience, it wasn't until the morning the guest Sean described waking up at one point and being crippled with immense fear, so much s the comfort of an mp3 player was needed. This is definitely a building oozing with residual energy which would explain a number of happenings, After packing up in record time, and a closing prayer we left this quite little village and headed homeward bound with lots of stories to tell.

Once again we would like to say a HUGE thank you to Lee and her team at The Ostrich for letting us back and for your excellent hospitality you have no idea how grateful we are. we look forward to a return soon, also to Mr Jarman, you were a bad son of a gun when you were on this earth but you made our night a special one. Until next time SPRG.

Please note more photos from this investigation will be posted here soon.

SPRG 2007