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  FOURTH INVESTIGATION

Date: Sat 23rd Feb 2008 

Location: Wharram Percy , North Yorkshire, UK

Investigators on location:Rob.T/Rich/Paul/Rob.J/Craig

Guests on location: None

Number of investigations carried out:  Two  

Please scroll below this write up for future visit investigations.

A Medieval Deserted village surviving the devastation caused by William the Conqueror's 'Harrying of the North' & the Black Death, Becoming deserted soon after the 1500's.

Not that Wharram Percy is unique in being abandoned. Approximately 3000 medieval villages across England were deserted between the 11th and 18th centuries, including Purley Parva in Berkshire, Gainsthorpe in Lincolnshire and High Worsall in Yorkshire (which was excavated on British television in 1998). Wharram Percy is unique, however, in the amount of archaeological excavation it has undergone, work which began in 1952 and is still going on today.

At first it was thought that Wharram Percy might have been abandoned as a result of the Viking raids that had already laid waste to a third of the villages in Yorkshire, as recorded in the Doomsday book of 1086. But then archaeologists realised that the site had been in use long after this.

Maybe it was destroyed during William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North? But again, it was proved by physical and documentary evidence that the village escaped the Harrying unharmed.

A village nearby had been raided by the Scottish, did that fate befall Wharram Percy? No, there's no evidence of it.

Perhaps it was the Black Death, then? Although the plague did kill several inhabitants of the village, including the priest and lord of the manor, the majority of the population survived.

So why was this village at the bottom of a valley deserted? Famine? Flooding? No. The reason was sheep. As Sir Thomas More wrote in Utopia, "Your sheep which are usually so tame and so cheaply fed, begin now, according to report, to be so greedy and wild that they devour human beings themselves and devastate and depopulate fields, houses, and towns."

Not that sheep were really eating humans, but you can see More's point. By the 15th century, sheep farming had become far more profitable than arable farming, so the lord of the manor turned more of his land into pasture land, leaving less for the farming of crops. This in turn led to less work and less food for the villagers of Wharram Percy, so that they were forced to leave the village to find work and food elsewhere. In the end, documentary evidence shows that there were just four homes left occupied when the landowner, Baron Hilton, evicted the few remaining villagers around 1517. Archaeologists think that the last inhabitant of Wharram Percy was either a vagrant or an inhabitant who refused to move out, who was killed when a dilapidated house collapsed on him whilst he slept.

As you walk down the side of the Wold -- that's the name for these high-sided hills -- you will see the ruins of the village church, St Martin's, in front of you, as well as the mill pond & a reconstructed house. Despite the depopulation of the village in the early 16th century, the church was still in use until 1870, when a new church was built in the nearby village of Thixendale. The church still had a roof and was in a good state of repair until 1949 when a robber stole the lead from the roof. In 1959 part of the tower collapsed in a storm and the church became a ruin -- albeit a ruin with a very fine door.

St Martin's offered archaeologists a rare opportunity to excavate a church, and they found that it had grown & shrunk in concert with the population of the village. If you enter the church today, you can see the foundations of the earlier churches on the floor. The church was originally surrounded by glebe land -- land to be farmed by the parson.

The village had two water mills at the height of its occupancy, when it is thought to have had a population of around 150 to 180 people. The mill pond survived after the village was depopulated because it was stocked with fish for the lord of the manor.

The reconstructed Norman manor house that is visible from the Wold was built in the 20th century. Excavations suggest that there were two Norman manor houses in the village. On one wall of the house is a sign saying "Wharram," which was taken from the nearby railway station in the 1940s, when all road & station signs across Britain were removed to confuse a possible German invasion force.

In the village itself you can see the outlines of 30 medieval peasants' houses. Each house had a toft and a croft, a toft being a small garden area for growing food & a croft being a larger parcel of land attached to each house for farming. The people lived in one half of the house & their animals in the other half. The houses were rebuilt on average every 50 years, sometimes larger or in a different orientation.

Wharram Percy is well worth a visit & the good news is that it doesn't cost a penny to get onsite, spend or day viewing this magnificent place & by night why not join us on a free investigation or ghost walk around this atmospheric place....contact us now for info & to book your free place, all we ask is you can make your own way to & from location.

INVESTIGATION - Write up by Rob Taylor

We arrived at location at around 11pm & started the 3/4 mile walk down to the village.This investigation was our first use of the new night vision camera.

After arriving at the village we explored around the outskirts of this house before moving on towards the remains of the church. We decided to go in through the main wooden door.

I apologize to the team for slamming the door & scaring them all..  It was an opportunity not to miss!!...We decided to stop here to carry out a EVP recording.

Rob j & Craig stopped in the church while doing the recording & myself,Rich & Paul went to explore the lake & woods.

After the walk, we went back to meet up with the other two investigators. Here we called out..... At this point the team thought they could hear voices & we also saw flashes of light from near the house. We decided to walk round towards the graveyard.. when we saw something dash between the gravestones, quite freaky !!

We were walking round to see if we could see what it was when I heard a gate squeak,We headed back towards the house to see if we could pick anything up on the cameras.

We finished the investigation by heading up the hill to overlook the deserted village.We had a good night at a great location.

There is some questions to be answered!!..... Will we ever find out what the noises where in the graveyard or the thing we saw dash along,..

How did that gate squeak...Was there something there ??                                We will be back at this location in the future!!

Update May 08 - We have being told by our Medium that what we witnessed were known as "Shadow people".

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TENTH INVESTIGATION

Date: Fri 15th Aug 2008

Location: Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, UK

Investigators on location: Rob.T/Rich/Kayleigh/ Paul/ Rob.J/ Craig/ Corrine/ Anna/ Steve

Guests on location: None

Number of investigations carried out:  Two

INVESTIGATION- Write up by Rob Taylor

Welcome to our tenth investigation which I can only say was an amazing Investigation.

Our location was a revisit to the Medieval Deserted village surviving the devastation caused by William the Conqueror's 'Harrying of the North' & the Black Death, Becoming deserted soon after the 1500's.

We arrived at location at around 11pm & started the 3/4 mile walk down to the village.This investigation was our new Medium's, along with our two new investigators, Anna & Steve's, first investigation.

On arrival at the village we all sighted an unidentified flying object. One small bright light in the sky,there was no noise & it moved extremely slow. After a few minutes it formed into 2 bright lights & vanished. (see the video below)

After this we experienced a lot of paranormal activity, with our medium picking up a lot so we moved straight into a small vigil using the crystal pendulum & our new Dowsing rods.

Alot of the team straight away started feeling uneasy & experiencing strange noises. We walked to a point just in front of the church & the graveyard & formed a large circle ready to start a seance. We carried out a protection prayer before starting the vigil.

During this vigil, our medium picked up on a few spirits so we again got out the pendulum & investigated the area also using the dowsing rods. They were continuously moving reacting with whatever was around us.

We were all very excited at this point so decided to head into the church, We let the new members of the investigation group go in first. Once inside we called out & set the camera rolling to see if we could catch anything on film.

Half way through the vigil we all moved to one end of the church & started calling out, We were getting half of the team feeling like something was messing with them & could see shadows moving at the opposite end of the church.

Our medium picked up on  that what the team were seeing was actually a Monk menacing around. It wouldn't strictly do as we asked, it was as if it was playing a game of peek-a-boo with us.

It got us a bit angry & I got bit stern with it to try to get it to bang or whistle, just to do anything to show a sign of its presence instead of hiding. After a short while, we decided to have a 5min break & let some other members of the team to test out the dowsing rods.

During a test, Rich shouted to us saying "quick grab a camera" - Now what a shock we heard from Rich,He had seen along with Paul, a full apparition of a figure which our medium states was the Monk running out into the open area towards the Lake.

I was very adventurous & wanted to go after the spirit to see if we could communicate with it, our medium felt it had gone into the woods so a few of us ventured out towards the wooded area & left the others near the church. As we were passing along the edge of the lake I heard a loud bang from near the edge of the lake. How scared I was to hear this!!

We decided to get the rest of the team to do another vigil after thinking git may be the Monk hiding from us again. Once we were formed into a group, Rich started calling out. Rich asked questions with answers for 1 bang for yes & 2 bangs for no. We were getting some good responses in relation to the questions asked but then it started to continuously bang & we felt our presence was bit over welcome.

We decided to back off, then after a little while our medium, corrine along with myself & Craig walked across the bridge not far from the edge of the lake. While stopping on the bridge we were still hearing the bangs from the point of where we were. We headed to the woods to hunt for the monk which we believed was near the lake but after further discussion with our medium, it came out that the spirit near the lake wasn't the monk.

We entered the woods but Rich felt uneasy in here so we quickly moved away from the woods & met up with the rest of the group.We then,as a group decided to head off back towards the cemetery near the church, here we split into two groups.

Myself, Corrine & Craig went into the church while the rest of the group stayed outside. Both groups started their vigils... after a short time, the group outside moved inside the church to join the other team's vigil. We called out for a short time before Craig started feeling unwell.

Myself & Paul had traveled towards the other end of the church towards where Corrine felt there was a presence of a Monk. While we were calling out, we were shouted back by the rest of the group because Craig's legs had locked up & he couldn't move.

We moved him out as a safety aspect & got the rest of the team out of the church, As a group we decided that we would call it a night & head back towards the car.

We had a good night at a great location. We had loads of action & we will be back at this location in the future for a third investigation.

All photos from the investigations are under "Photo gallery" section.

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 MAIN INVESTIGATION -

(Please click on picture below & open link in new window)

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PART FOOTAGE DIFFERENT FROM THE ABOVE VIDEO

UFO SIGHTING