Brett Buckleys Review of Group with Mike Tottey.

We arrived at York Ghost House on a damp September evening and gathered in the "Base Room" on the ground floor.

We started by taking the opportunity to survey and photograph the various rooms. Although this looks like quite a small premises from the outer, York Ghost House actually has a surprisingly large interior and we identified five paricular rooms which we wanted to investigate during the course of the evening: "Mask Room", "Seance Room", "Dining Room", "Attic Room" and "Cellar". A sixth room "Mirror Room" seemed promising, but we later abandoned this in favour of spending more time in the Mask Room.

After initial preparations and at around 9:15pm, the crew, along with two Ghost House hosts, led the group of sixteen guests on a preliminary tour of the premises. In the Dining Room, Mike sensed the presence of a lady pacing backwards and forwards as if waiting for someone to return - he also sensed the sea and wondered if she waited for her husband to return. In the Seance Room, Mike sensed a Tom / John character who did not like our presence. After an hour or so, we returned to the base room for food and drinks. We then divided into two groups, one led by Richard Felix and the other by Mike Tottey.

At around 11:30pm, Mike's Group started by investigating the so called Mask Room, a medium-sized square room on the first floor, with dark wood panelling and around thirty or more carved African-styled masks decorating the walls. Attempts to communicate to any entities present using the Ouija board initially did not yield any results, although by adding a fifth person, we then started to experience answers to our questions. We apparently contacted a female who once worked in the house and she gave us the initials "RTR", followed by "BUB".

Leaving the Mask Room at 12pm, we moved upstairs to the Seance Room, a large room on the second floor of the house with a round table filling most of it. We used the technique of joining hands and calling out in the darkness. The floor did feel as though it vibrated on a number of occasions and this gave the impression of someone pacing around the room, behind the circle of chairs, accompanied by a slight draft. A Ouija board did not work well in this location due to the size of the table. Mike our Medium sensed the presense of a spirit called Tom and beleived that he did not like our presence.

From the Seance Room, we returned to the Base Room for a break, before resuming our investigation in the Dining Room at about 1:15am. Mike led the session by calling out and as he did this, one person using the hearing enhancers claimed to have heard footsteps. We commenced using a Quija board whilst one participant also used a scrying mirror. Interestingly a torch, used by one lady, actually started to flicker- seemingly in answer to the questions asked of it. We soon realised that the torch's flickering seemed to mostly coincide with the answers received on the Quija board and we therefore used a combination of both devices to obtain our answers.

Following our questions, the spirit confirmed itself as the same lady that Mike had previously sensed, whilst on our walkaround. She suggested that she lost her husband, a Captain, at sea and still waits for him to return. When asked to spell her name, she replied "JAM" and then confirmed "Jane" when asked. She went on to confirm that she belonged to the Knowles family. A series of questions asking of when she died and who had the throne at the time did not yield any immediate results, although she eventually answered "1910" when asked when she lived at the house; she also confirmed that in that time Edward had the throne. The lady suggested that her husband died on the "America run" during the Boer War. She confirmed that Mike had seen her earlier, whilst wearing her mourning suit and she went on to give "AND" as her husband's name, confirming as "Andrew" when asked, and "MAM" as the name of his ship.

Jane suggested that she had had nine children and that seven had survived; three boys and four girls. She gave the name of the eldest as "LOU" and then confirmed Louise. She went on to say that she herslef died in 1957 and said that she had descendents still living in York - one Ouija board participant at this point confirmed that he had links to the "Knowles" family. Jane told us that thirty other spirits haunted this location, nineteen of who she described as "bad". She gave the initials "WK" in relation to the sprit in the Attic Room who had performed sacrifices at the house and confirmed "William Knowles" when asked, along with admitting that eight spirits present belonged to children. Jane confirmed that William Knowles had murdered a number of children in the house, including at least one of her sons whom she named as "MA", confrimed as Matthew.

Jane seemed quite happy with her situation and claimed to have moved towards the light when she died and met her husband and children once more. She did not however appreciate the changes to the house, particularly the new windows as her husband had made the previous (now removed) ones! When asked for her age at the time of death she gave 50 and confirmed birth in 1907. Her husband apparently died at the age of 60. Jane agreed to accompany us to the Attic Room, our next location.

We made out way to the Attitc Room and immediately made contact with a spirit using the Ouija board. Mike at this point claimed to have been scratched on his hand/wrist. The Quija board answers seemed a little more random this time, but went on to suggest that we had William in the house, that he did not like our presence and that he had located himself downstairs in the Mask Room. Rachel, our leader, had earlier placed a toy mouse in this room as a trigger object / target. The Ouija board revealed that we had a monk with the initials "WW" in the vicinity and that he felt happy with our presence. One of the hosts found his communications radio making unexpected beeping noises at this time. We then added a fourth person to the Ouija board. The results firstly did not make sense, but soon we got the initials "SQ" when asking if we had anyone else present. The entity confirmed it's identity as "the little girl" and went on to give the letter "V" for her initial, then confirming herself as Jane's daughter, Victoria. A series of questions concerning playing games, moving the mouse and so forth gave no results.

Once again we made contact with Jane who confirmed that we had upset Victoria. Mike had felt someone takling hold of his hand and Victoria said that she had done this. Jane confirmed that Victoria had died in the house and did not know that she had died. When asked about the monk, we obtained the name "Walter Turner". Moving back onto William Knowles, we confirmed that he had sacrified animals in the vicinity and that he did not like our presence. Jane claimed to protect us from him. Once again we asked Jane to spell the name of her husband's ship and she gave "W", when asked if she knew the name of the ship, she said "no". During this session, the gauss meter repeatedly crackled.

We received further Ouija board activity and apparently contacted William who wanted us to leave and meant us harm. Jane remained with him and protected us from him and William admitted that he did not like Jane. Willial admitted that he sacrificed Victoria and other children during an act of Satantic witchcraft as he needed blood. He claimed that Jane remain in the room and that he stopped her from speaking. When questions he suggested that he did not feel jealous of Jane, her husband or her family. He said that he had never married and he did not know that he had died. He admitted that he could not move the mouse and that he felt scared of us because of our numbers. He also suggested that he had sacrified a three year old boy.

With this we closed the session and left the Attic Room, making our way down two flights of stairs to the Cellar. Despite the spooky feeling and the darkened "cave" in the corner of the room which showed evidence of the old Roman Road, we received absolutely no activity in the cellar, other than a flickering torch. Mike sensed that a tunnel had once led from the cellar (or close by) and maybe led to York Minister.

We had originally set the final location for Mike's group as the Mirror Room, but this proved a little too small and so we moved back into the Mask Room immediately next door to it. We called out in the darkness but receivied no immediate responses, other than flickering torch. On the Ouija board, we added an additional person and made contact with a spirit who claimed that we had spoken to them earlier and identified themselves as Jane. She again confirmed that she had a husband called "Andrew". We decided to test the spirit and so one partificant asked it to spell out his mother's name. The Ouija spelled "JO" and the participant then revelaed his name as "Jospeh" - the spirit confirmed that it had tried to spell his name. When asked to spell the name of his elder sister, the spirit replied "SE" and when asked if it had tried to spell "Sebastian", the name of his younger bother. It aknowledged that it wanted to play games with us. Another participant asked it spell out his mother's name and it replied "JOUN". When asked if it meant "JUNE", it replied in the affirmative. When asked if it knew the name of the city, it replied "YORK". When asked to spell out the surname name of one of the participants, it spelled "BIS" - quite close to the real name of "BIJSTER". When asked for my surname (Buckley), it spelled out "WOTS" and then followed with a series of seeminly random letter, without a leading question: "AZTMPLNZA". The spirit claimed to want to play games and enjoyed participating. We thanked the spirit and closed the session.

We ended the evening by gathering back in the Base Room and thanking all guests before departing.