Reading time: 5 minutes
The Old Hall Hotel was so scary that Richard Felix admits he wouldn’t sleep there in this fifth episode of Most Haunted, writes JOANNA HAGUE
Episode title: The Old Hall Hotel
Place: Sandbach, Cheshire
Series: 5 Episode number: 2
Originally broadcast: September 21, 2004
Review of The Old Hall Hotel, Most Haunted
The Old Hall Hotel is one of the most haunted hotels in Britain, with fourteen apparitions and a violent poltergeist. The building dates back more than 350 years. It was a country house, a parsonage, a pub and now it is a hotel.
Richard Felix talks about the house originally built for John Radclyffe in 1656. In room 2 a man hanged himself, in room 11 a person died while sitting in his favorite chair. The current staff of the hotel talks about the sounds coming from the room and guests feeling pushed under water during the bath.
The old building was destroyed by a fire, students who were filming in the hotel fled in panic to the kitchen where the knives moved by themselves. The hotel’s chef tells about when he was cleaning out the kitchen and he was covered in ice when it fell from the sky. Some of the paneling of the new building was taken from Haslington Hall, while they were removing it a skeleton was found and it is believed that the ghost followed the beams.
Gabi Roslin is a guest on the investigation, Yvette asks if she is a believer, or a skeptic, and she says she is definitely a believer. She has had experiences in the past while staying with her grandparents. Gabi is looking forward to that night’s investigation.
The mediums for the research are Derek Acorah and David Wells. In the lounge/dining room Derek picks up a man, he says the energy is deep in thought and contemplation, he feels he is a priest. Derek found a door in the paneling of the wall, which he believes leads to a tunnel system beneath the hotel.
Derek then picks up the energy of a man active in the dining room, but this spirit does not interact with the monks. Derek talks about the energy of the man, a very authoritative figure and picks up the name John. Information appears on the screen that the Old Hall was built for Sir John Radclyffe in 1656.
As he goes upstairs, Derek instinctively closes one of the doors and says he doesn’t like the energy in that room. On his way to room 11, he notices someone coming in and wreaking havoc in the room. He then gives an example of the things the ghost would do in the room, including someone taking a bath and the water in the room draining or overflowing. Gabi starts asking if Derek knew anything about the room because she is skeptical.
While in the room earlier, David heard the sound of a cat meowing and asked if Gabi had heard the sound too. A clip will then appear that shows the moment earlier. David says the cat follows the lady’s energy. Her appearance can be seen in the chair, she has a good energy, but lost her life due to a possible heart attack.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Gabi feels uncomfortable in the room, but Yvette forces her to come in by saying that if she can do it, Gabi can do it too. Derek picks up individuals who burst into the building and have been slaughtered in battle. Outside in the courtyard, David has also noticed arguing and shouting. On September 3, 1651, Scottish soldiers were killed in the civil war.
Derek channels the energy of a very depressed person, saying that he has lost his spark and that the way he died was not natural. He starts grabbing at this throat and tries to ask Sam, his spirit guide, to take it off. As he regains his composure, Derek informs the group that the man has hanged himself, that he has been pushed to the limit. He was an overly sensitive person, others ridiculed him, he calls the ghost Matthew Tennant, 1659-1660. There are no records of this man, but other media outlets picked him up during previous investigations.
In the attic, Derek feels the residual energy of heavy footsteps and thuds. David also picked up these sounds earlier. Derek identifies the man as angry and violent; he was a well-known man, possibly a gentleman who would take advantage of young maids. He feels that the energy of the young women will be stronger in the basement.
Derek ventures to the basement, takes the crew to a wall and tells them that if they knock down the wall, they will discover a skeleton of the young woman. Above them there is a lot of knocking and banging, while Yvette comes on the radio there is no one above them. Derek says the powers above knew what was happening to the girls, but they looked the other way.
David Wells is in room 11 and is immediately drawn to the bathroom. He gets into the tub and begins to feel a restriction in his throat, causing his voice to change. Cath takes a bath after David. She says she feels fine, but her voice starts to crack as she talks. Cath is then convinced that she is sliding off the bath, but she does not move. At this point, David hears a man’s voice telling him not to mess with him.
Down in the basement, Stuart is there by himself and said he was all set to come down alone if he was with everyone, but now that he’s there he feels different. He starts shouting, but it seems like this is making him irritated. As he pans the camera around, Stuart thinks he has seen something, but there is nothing on the camera.
In room 11, Karl, Yvette, Derek and Ray are in the room calling for the woman’s ghost, when Derek shouts that he can see something near the wardrobe, but nothing is visible on the camera. Derek can see a swarm of bees around a woman, Karl and Derek get closer to the wardrobe and an orb flies through the middle of them.
At the end of the evening, Richard Felix returns to his room, where he finds two books stacked on the windowsill. He’s the only one with a key to the room and he swears he didn’t do it. Yvette tried to recreate the balance books and it takes her about 10 minutes to balance them. Richard is convinced it’s poltergeist activity and ends the episode by saying, “I’m not fucking sleeping in here”.
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