Our event at the celebrated Busby Stoop Inn in Thirsk - often hailed as one of York’s most haunted buildings - started off in true Friday 13th style when the owners informed us that the haunted bedrooms we had booked for the event had been flooded out due to heavy overnight rain which had seeped through the roof. Nevertheless we decided that there were enough accessible haunted areas to investigate the notorious drinking den and just had to go ahead.

We started with a combined group vigil in the main bar and called out continuously hoping to make contact with some of its resident spirits including the child thought to be the girl who was drowned in the nearby river in the 1970’s after her mother checked into the old former coaching inn and the ghostly maid regularly spotted in both the gents and ladies toilets which now sit in a space once occupied by the original kitchen. Try as we might however these and the other ghostly inhabitants refused to communicate with us for the whole night and apart from some odd spikes on the EMF metres absolutely nothing unexplained occurred. Two of our game lady ghost hunters even sat in the area said to be frequented by the territorial spirit of Jack supposedly known to have a strong dislike for women but absolutely nothing occurred.

As one group sat in the restaurant area of the bar they heard an interesting heavy noise down the bottom end but could not totally rule out the cause as being from the group investigating the toilet areas. Notwithstanding the lack of paranormal or unexplained phenomena our fantastic ghost hunters remained bright and cheerful and full of good humour. One laughingly commented, “At least we know you don’t make stuff up!” The team who particularly felt for a group of first time ghost hunters appreciated the sentiment and it was true as the lack of activity proved to any doubters that as we always stress we NEVER stage things on any event and would rather have a quiet night than deceive ourselves and/or the public that ghostly activity has occurred when it has not. That said we have never experienced such a quiet night as the Friday 13th spent in the Busby Stoop and even on other less buzzing ghost hunts usually have a little something of an evidential nature to think about. Not to worry it’s the nature of the beast as they say and the team at least have the fabulous Lincoln Gaol coming up. Will we go back to the Busby Stoop for another try at contacting its shy and diffident ghosts? Maybe but just not for a while.