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My Ghost Survey

DrPaulLee

DrPaulLee

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Aug 7, 2002
Messages
2,019
As some of you may know, I've been working on a big ghost survey since 2000, trying to ascertain just how haunted the UK is. My results are at www.paullee.com/ghosts/survey.php

Coupled with this is another smaller survey on which I determined how much venues charge for access. So if you're thinking of going on a commercial ghost hunt and are wondering just how much of a mark-up they make, look here first www.paullee.com/ghosts/venues.php

I'll make no further comment. The amount of abuse I got, especially on twitter, when interim results were announced in March sickened me so much I nearly turned my back on the whole paranormal malarkey.
So, if you're thinking of unleashing an onslaught of opprobrium, save your effort!
 
A lot of hard work.

Doesn't surprise me that so many did not reply or gave a generic reply.

I have written en-spec to public institutions on non-Fortean matters.

Out of over 80 Five Star Hotels in London, I had one reply.

And neither does it surprise me just how hard it is to contact some places...no doubt at all they deliberately make it hard to be contacted...for reasons unknown.

What we can ascertain from the survey is that there have been noted instances of ghosts, but at a very small number of places.
This makes me wonder just how many of the places advertising themselves as haunted have invented stories to attract tourists and wish to avoid investigation?
 
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DrPaulLee said:
As some of you may know, I've been working on a big ghost survey since 2000, trying to ascertain just how haunted the UK is. My results are at www.paullee.com/ghosts/survey.php

Coupled with this is another smaller survey on which I determined how much venues charge for access. So if you're thinking of going on a commercial ghost hunt and are wondering just how much of a mark-up they make, look here first www.paullee.com/ghosts/venues.php

I'll make no further comment. The amount of abuse I got, especially on twitter, when interim results were announced in March sickened me so much I nearly turned my back on the whole paranormal malarkey.
So, if you're thinking of unleashing an onslaught of opprobrium, save your effort!
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Nice job, I enjoyed the survey. :hoff:

It might be worth persisting with follow ups and try to time them (if email) by aiming them to arrive am/pm - different folk on different shifts might well respond differently. One might get a 'Swifty' and another might get Skeptic McSkepticface. :)
 
Good idea! I plan to wait a few months and then try again for some venues.
 
Brilliant job. I’m going to spend hours there.

A couple of thoughts on responses or lack of.

Council venues may require a corporate answer. We had a Ministry of Information Communications Unit who had to have any query likely to be press referred to them. If Senior Councillors didn’t want to be associated with anything with a whiff of the supernatural then any stories would be suppressed. We had a Jacobean Mansion (on your list) which did house Ghost hunts but it was normally done at Halloween in a semi serious way, at least in terms of publicity.

The other thought is managers’ views on how their staff may react. I only had one experience in a building at work which I later found out that other senior staff knew about but kept quiet because of a number of very nervous employees who worked at that location. This may be because there was another building whose basement was widely believed to be haunted and which some staff refused to enter on their own. I spent weeks in alone it working on our stock reserves and found it one of the most peaceful locations I’ve ever worked in!

Also.

Loved the pricing of the Commandery in Worcester £666 !!

I actually found out about Preston Manor in Brighton from a book on ghosts in Sussex. One member of staff told me about an area which “felt wrong” in the basement but seemed reluctant to talk when other people and staff appeared.

On a visit to Audley End I saw two room guides talking one of whom was holding what looked like a pendulum. They hastily put it away and looked embarrassed, I was about to ask them about it but as more people turned up I didn’t want to put them on the spot, but I did wonder whether they had experienced something but were discouraged from investigating or asking about it.
 
Tunn11 said:
On a visit to Audley End I saw two room guides talking one of whom was holding what looked like a pendulum. They hastily put it away and looked embarrassed, I was about to ask them about it but as more people turned up I didn’t want to put them on the spot, but I did wonder whether they had experienced something but were discouraged from investigating or asking about it.
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Audley End is a bit odd, because they keep the place almost in darkness (I asked about this and was told it was to stop things fading).
Such a 'twilight' environment can only promote strange events to occur.
 
DrPaulLee said:
The point of contact at Preston Manor wouldnt answer any questions about it's hauntedness and urged me to buy her book on the building.
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Which probably doesn't have anything in it about any hauntings!! I think the Covid lockdowns have had an impact on these placed and made them (even more) focussed on money.
 
I think it probably did have details on the hauntings. The problem was that it dealt with historic cases and my remit was current reports. It just proved impossible to get that from the lady author (who used to work for the museums department I recall), and I couldn't afford to buy the book on the off chance it had something in it. A shame because she hinted that security guards had experienced something at one of the Brighton premises (either this, the Pavilion or...?) and she just wouldn't say what exactly.
 
In a previous job I had a small amount of contact with The Langham Hotel, a 5 Star hotel in London opposite the BBC HQ, just to the north of Oxford Circus.

It is infamously haunted - some details here.

https://www.hauntedrooms.co.uk/product/the-langham-hotel-london

I was going to ask the staff about the hauntings and other paranormal occurrences, but was warned off by my boss is a condescending tone, that "They don't want you to ask, they don't talk about it because it might put people off from booking a room."

As if asking about it was morally wrong!
 
As for wanting to make money post-Covid. I don't have a problem with this as long as (a) they don't charge exorbitant rates and (b) anything ghostly is relatively recent. Unfortunately (a) becomes moot when the commercial ghost companies move in. There's a company that charges access to the Oliver Cromwell House in Ely, at £45 per head. But when you look at the charges for those hours, its probably no more than £15 per person. I've had one person try to say that the commercial company has overheads of their own, but a 300% increase??!! Really??
(There's a museum round here that is subject to an over 500% hike with commercialists!)
 
Victory said:
In a previous job I had a small amount of contact with The Langham Hotel, a 5 Star hotel in London opposite the BBC HQ, just to the north of Oxford Circus.

It is infamously haunted - some details here.

https://www.hauntedrooms.co.uk/product/the-langham-hotel-london

I was going to ask the staff about the hauntings and other paranormal occurrences, but was warned off by my boss is a condescending tone, that "They don't want you to ask, they don't talk about it because it might put people off from booking a room."

As if asking about it was morally wrong!
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Thank you, this is very interesting. I tried contacting the Langham and this is what they said, "Phoebe Sington, the Marketing Communications Executive informs me that, "Though we appreciate the outreach we will have to decline this opportunity as it is not a story we wish to progress."

One hotel said that they had no ghosts but they don't advertise its association with spooks because, being a wedding venue, this would have a detrimental effect on the business. So, I think that we can infer that they wouldn't say anything even if a troupe of laughing cavaliers, their heads tucked under the arms, were prancing through the lobby every night.

Then there was another location, where the proprietor said that he didn't believe in ghosts but had had some strange phenomena (which he recounted over the phone). He was quite happy to chat even though he intimated that having ghosts could be bad for business as no one wanted to experience bumps in the night. I told him that there were hundreds of people who would happily stay at his establishment based on its spooky reputation alone, and he seemed a bit placated by that. But of all the categories of locations, hotels were the worst to reply.
 
DrPaulLee said:
I think it probably did have details on the hauntings. The problem was that it dealt with historic cases and my remit was current reports. It just proved impossible to get that from the lady author (who used to work for the museums department I recall), and I couldn't afford to buy the book on the off chance it had something in it. A shame because she hinted that security guards had experienced something at one of the Brighton premises (either this, the Pavilion or...?) and she just wouldn't say what exactly.
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I'll dig out my haunted Sussex book and see what was in it but I suspect it was only historical sightings.
 
I think Haunted Sussex (or similar) was on my list of "to buy" purchases, but we basically ran out of money :(
 
There's a lot in "Sussex Haunted Heritage; historic properties open to the public". By Debra Munn SB Publications 2006 isbn 185770 318 9 Including a story concerning security guards from Nov 2003.

I'll PM you with more details in the next day or two if you are interested but I'm getting "The Look" from Mrs T now for being on the computer!!
 
I noticed that a few links weren't working (eg the Stamford cellar bar and the Berwick town hall) so I've corrected these.
 
Victory said:
Doesn't surprise me that so many did not reply or gave a generic reply.
And neither does it surprise me just how hard it is to contact some places...no doubt at all they deliberately make it hard to be contacted...for reasons unknown.
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There's many factors for a non-answer.
1) Corporate line - head office deem the subject too 'kooky' and want to appear more serious. A lack of seriousness can affect corporate value.
2) Fear of Mockery - "Oh, yeah - so your hotel is haunted, right? Nothing like publicity, eh?"
3) Fear of Exposure - Says on it's literature that it's haunted, the cachet to be used, but unable to actually back up the claim.
4) Fear of Popularity - A sudden influx of guests who are only there to 'investigate' or experience ghosts, who might 'put off' ordinary guests, changing the 'tone' of the premises.

I recall a ground-floor/basement wine bar in Croydon that was reputed to be very active in haunting - moving and breaking glasses, malfunctioning till, mysterious figures seen after closing etc. I visited it a couple of times, once to 'scope' it out, get the feel of the place. Nice but nondescript. Second time, nowt happened but reasonably busy. Had a chance to chat to the barman - he'd been there for years and hadn't experienced anything. Hadn't known of it's reputation as haunted. Put me in contact with the owner who said (I paraphrase) "When I first got the place years ago, I was told something along those lines but it didn't bother me. Since then? Reckon it's nonsense. Ghosts might exist ... but I've never seen anything about it." Contacting the present owner, I'm not sure they just wouldn't ignore it.
 
Those are very good points and its impossible in most cases to know which of the categories the venues fall into.

Ghost activity seems to wane and be rekindled over time sometimes; theres a pub in Weybridge that I visited with the local rag and the landlord talked of all kinds of bizarre things. But the new landlord, a year or so later, said there was nothing. Had the ghosts vanished or become dormant? Was the change of staff somehow inhibiting phenomena? I don't know - but the second landlord was quite a bit more sceptical and dismissive of the whole subject and I've often thought that he said "nope, nothing here" just to deter the spook chasers.
 
DrPaulLee said:
I'll make no further comment. The amount of abuse I got, especially on twitter, when interim results were announced in March sickened me so much I nearly turned my back on the whole paranormal malarkey.
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Don't pay attention to what nonsense people spew on Twitter. I've had to use it for my job in the past, and I think of it as a gigantic public urinal. At first the thread is nice and shiny and clean, but it soon gets stinky and repulsive. Actually, a public urinal is a practical thing, however smelly it may be, but Twitter threads usually devolve rapidly into time wasting inanities.

Thank you for all your hard work DrPaulLee!
 
I've just had chance to look at the survey and it is FASCINATING. I've put it aside to read when I've got time to really enjoy it.

@DrPaulLee - please take no notice of Twitter. I have to use it in a professional capacity and have received many threats on there, mostly via DM, and all I do is write very ordinary romantic novels. There are a lot of very strange people on there who live to try to upset and unsettle anyone they perceive as more successful than themselves. You do a valuable job, ignore the riff-raff!
 
catseye said:
I've just had chance to look at the survey and it is FASCINATING. I've put it aside to read when I've got time to really enjoy it.

@DrPaulLee - please take no notice of Twitter. I have to use it in a professional capacity and have received many threats on there, mostly via DM, and all I do is write very ordinary romantic novels. There are a lot of very strange people on there who live to try to upset and unsettle anyone they perceive as more successful than themselves. You do a valuable job, ignore the riff-raff!
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People make threats to you, based on stuff you have written?
There are some pretty sad people out there, it has to be said.
 
Mythopoeika said:
People make threats to you, based on stuff you have written?
There are some pretty sad people out there, it has to be said.
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Not based on things I've written, but based on Twitter posts I've made or other things peripheral to my writing. For example, I had a recent title change (entirely driven by my publlishers, nothing to do with me whatsoever) which changed an existing title to one to tie in with a local celebrity's TV series, and I got 'hate mail' from people telling me that I shouldn't be attaching myself to the local paragon in any way, I was not as good as her or as lovely or as pure...(you get the picture) and that they hoped I was prosecuted.

Because people are stupid, basically.
 
Twitter has a limited usefulness thanks to the 'enabling' of those who think their own opinion is so important that it gives them power. Look at all the stories of people being bullied on Twitter to an extreme. It's definitely now used by 'grown-ups' who understand that the flak they get from the idiots is actually powerless. It's not a communication platform, it's the school playground.
 
catseye said:
Not based on things I've written, but based on Twitter posts I've made or other things peripheral to my writing. For example, I had a recent title change (entirely driven by my publlishers, nothing to do with me whatsoever) which changed an existing title to one to tie in with a local celebrity's TV series, and I got 'hate mail' from people telling me that I shouldn't be attaching myself to the local paragon in any way, I was not as good as her or as lovely or as pure...(you get the picture) and that they hoped I was prosecuted.

Because people are stupid, basically.
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You send them to us. We'll sort 'em for you.
 
Stormkhan said:
There's many factors for a non-answer.
1) Corporate line - head office deem the subject too 'kooky' and want to appear more serious. A lack of seriousness can affect corporate value.
2) Fear of Mockery - "Oh, yeah - so your hotel is haunted, right? Nothing like publicity, eh?"
3) Fear of Exposure - Says on it's literature that it's haunted, the cachet to be used, but unable to actually back up the claim.
4) Fear of Popularity - A sudden influx of guests who are only there to 'investigate' or experience ghosts, who might 'put off' ordinary guests, changing the 'tone' of the premises.
Click to expand...


I was thinking about something similar today (mods please move if there’s a better place for this). I was looking at the website for Chambercombe Manor, nr Ilfracombe. From their website they are reknown for paranormal activities that have happen there, and that Most Haunted have featured the property. It’s now on the market, I think due to the cost of upkeep of what looks to be a genuinely beautiful and interesting property, which is very sad. The sales details though make no mention (as far as I can see) of any paranormal activity or connections. I’m curious whether you think it is morally / ethically / whatever-ly wrong to omit such information, or should any potential buyer be expected to research that kind of detail themselves and draw their own conclusions?
 
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