Beaulieu Abbey was founded in 1204 by Cistercian monks on land given to them by King John.  Although much of the original Abbey was destroyed at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII, there is still much today.

Location One – Abbey Church Entrance

Myself and fellow GPRG member Chris Howley were given the task of investigating the entrance to the Abbey Church.  The site is now in ruins and the only parts of the structure still visible are parts of the surrounding wall and the archway entrance.  

 Various temperature readings were taken during our 40 minute investigation.  These readings did not fluctuate although it certainly felt colder inside the entrance than it did out on the road.

The only ‘strange’ event here was that the 35mm camera would only take one photo of the archway, after that the camera would not work all night although this could have been more due to the fact that as we were in almost entire darkness the camera had difficulty focusing.

Location Two – Monks Dormitory

 During this part of the investigation myself and Chris were joined by two more investigators and a medium.  Even though the medium claimed to pick up on certain events, such as a voice calling and a baby crying all I could record was feeling extremely warm and uncomfortable.

Location Three – Chapel Undercroft

 Myself and Chris were joined by Matt in the Undercroft and this was the location were the Ouija board had been positioned.

 I had never used a Ouija board before and was feeling slightly apprehensive, however did not really think anything would actually happen.

 Chris set up the camcorder on the floor next to the Ouija and the three of us placed one finger onto the maker.  Matt asked the questions and to begin with nothing happened, however Matt asked for the final time “Is there anyone here who would like to make contact?”.  Very slowly the pointer moved up to the Yes.  Matt then asked whether whoever wanted us to leave, the pointer remained on Yes.  Matt finally asked if whoever was coming through could give us the first initial of their name again very slowly the pointer moved down to ‘E’.  It was at this point that a very loud bang was heard in the same room although I can confirm that there was just the three of us in the room. An icy draft of wind was felt by all three of us at this same moment, bearing in mind we were inside this was also quite strange.

 It was at this point that Matt decided to end the Ouija board session and move onto another site.

 The other piece of phenomenon worth reporting is that as soon as Matt asked the first question, the camcorder died – which has never happened before.  As soon as we left the Undercroft Chris tried the camera again and found it to be working fine.

Location Four – Cloister Area

 Again, this part of the Abbey is in ruins with only parts of the four walls remaining.

We spent around 20 minutes in this location and temperature readings were taken which averaged around 21 degrees centigrade.

The only results from this location were that both myself and Chris heard footsteps coming from what seemed the same location.  This has been reported in this location before, however there were other investigators situated around the Abbey.  As the weather conditions were fine we could have been hearing footsteps from other parts of the Abbey, although it did sound as though the foot steps were particularly close.

Location Five – Séance in Dormitory

 The conclusion of the evening was a Séance hosted by Jason Karl in the Monk’s Dormitory although other than a few people in the circle feeling something there was nothing really noteworthy to report.

 Each member of the team gave their accounts of what happened during the evening and there were some definite unexplained happenings to most if not all members of the group

Conclusion

 For a first ghost hunt I am very pleased with the results we got.  

Although we did not actually ‘see’ anything, the events of the evening were very encouraging.  I was a little disappointed that we did not get to investigate some of the other areas such as the Infirmary, or the church alter however, this location will be worth revisiting in the future.