#013 BLAYDES HOUSE.
Date: Sat 29th Nov 2008
Location: Blaydes House, Hull , East Yorkshire , UK
Investigators on location:Rob.T/Laura/Neil/Corrine/ Sue/ Louis/ Craig
Guests on location: Grant, Jo & Graham
From medieval times until the 19th century, High Street was the home of some of the most important merchant, ship-building & seafaring trade families in Hull.
The Blaydes were one of these families. They were engaged in shipbuilding & built the house as their family home & business headquarters in the 1730's.
Blaydes House is a grade II* listed Georgian house in High Street, Kingston Upon Hull, England. It is associated with the Blaydes ship-building family. The house is now the home of the University of Hull’s Maritime Historical Studies Centre.
Blaydes house was prominent among the High Street families in the seventeenth and eighteenth centries, they provided Hull with five Chamberlains, Five Sheriffs
and three Mayors. Blaydes family dates back to 1550 in Hull, which was William (Various last names of Blades and Blaides) William became a freeman of Hull in 1576.
Later william had a grandson called James Blaydes (died in 1657) Married Ann Marvell who was renowned and incorruptible 'Poet-Patriot', Andrew Marvell, was one of Hull's
Members of Parliment in the troubled years of the seventeenth century.
The Blaydes were and influetial merchant and shipbuilding family in Hull for 200 years. The north-end near Blaydes House is one of the oldest shipyards in Hull.
From the 17th century sailing ships, whalers and warships for the Napoleonic Wars were built there. In 1784 a ship called Benjamin Blaydes was made and passed to the
Royal Navy, it became known as the "Bounty" of the Mutiny on the Bounty fame.
Blaydes House passed out of ownership in the nineteenth century, trading under the name of Blaydes, Loft, Gee and Company, after it seems that the Blaydes family
left Hull, One son Benjamin moved to Cheltenham, while another called Hugh purchased Ranby Hall, where he resided as a 'gentleman'.
INVESTIGATION: (Write-Up by Rob Taylor)
We arrived at this fantastic location at 8pm. After a small brief & walk round of the premises, we headed upstairs to began the Investigation. Blaydes house has a vast amount of rooms spread throughout the building on different floors. Below are the different rooms we Investigated……
Our first vigil - The P&O Room
Situated on the southern side of the first floor, the P&O Room has more refined decoration. Any paneling there may have been removed around 1760 & replaced by the plaster modillion cornice, the marble chimney-piece of white & coloured marbles, & magnificently carved Corinthian door case. The walls would have been covered by stretched silk or one of the new painted wallpapers...
The investigation in this gorgeous room started with us just relaxing, sitting around the room. We began calling out & Corrine began to pick up that a spirit was with her near the front of the room.
We tried various techniques to try & get some reactions…. It was asked if the spirits could do anything possible to prove they were there with us, to make a knocking or tapping sound, to affect the group in some way, to open the door, or to turn on the lights but unfortunately we didn’t get any strong results.
We carried on a short while before moving onto the landing….
The Hall and Landing
Jo had mentioned that in previous investigations, a good technique to use was to call out for any spirits to make the chandelier swing in a circular movement.
We all gathered onto the stairs & I swung the chandelier slowly round in a clockwise direction. We then called out requesting for the chandelier to be made to swing in the opposite direction.
Immediately the chandelier slowed down to a stop & then slowly began to circle in an anticlockwise direction, so the spirits were thanked & asked to stop it again & spin it in back in a clockwise direction.
We carried on for a short while before Grant took Corrine down onto the ground floor to carry out a small training vigil.
While Corrine & Grant were having a discussion, I went with Jo to find a destination for our next vigil. We choose……
The Pilgrim Trust Room
The Pilgrim Trust Room is pine-paneled like many of the other rooms in the house. It is decorated in a conservative manner, but boasts a more complete dentil-cornice than the other rooms. It would probably have served as a family room - perhaps a bedroom or sitting-room. Today it is used primarily as a minor conference room, and as teaching room.
On entering this room we decided that a seance would be good to build up energy again. So the tables were moved to make more space for the team to sit around just one table. We all placed our hands on the table with finger tips touching, before beginning the seance.
Here we asked for a breeze to circle us & to make the temperature change. We all felt a cold breeze on top of our hands & then we felt it under the table aswell. Half way through this vigil, Corrine picked up on a spirit on the other side of the door, so we called out asking for anyone to enter & open the door.
Again unfortunately we didn’t see much evidence of activity so we decided to head back to the coffee break room.
After a short break we decided to send some investigators on lone vigils. We placed all investigator’s name’s into a hat & got Graham to pick two out….Louis & Jo were the two investigators picked to carry out lone vigils.
Louis headed for the library while Jo headed to the attic - We had Graham sit with Louis on his lone vigil & Grant joined Jo on her lone vigil…..this being to the individuals wishes.
During these vigils, A lot of activity was witnessed & various feelings circled the investigators, Both vigils ended within the hour to enable us to send different investigators on their lone vigils.
Graham again picked the next two investigators out of a hat, chosen next were Corrine & Craig. Corrine headed onto the main stairs on ground floor while Craig headed up to the attic, Sue joined Craig on his lone vigil.
After completing these lone vigils, Laura headed to one of the rooms opposite the library, while I headed into the attic. Unfortunately again no activity was witnessed. After completing the lone vigils, we had an idea of carrying out a mini investigation in the attic consisting of me, Sue, Laura & Neil.
Half way through the investigation, Laura mentioned she could hear a distinctive sound like a moan….On site we had passed it off as outside noise but after reviewing the footage, it is too clear & loud to be outside news.
After this, it was time to call it a night.
All photos from the investigations are under "Photo gallery" section.
UNFORTUNATELY THERE IS NO VIDEO AVAILABLE.
