CHRISTINE MILLER takes a look back at Most Haunted: Moresby Hall
Episode Title: Moresby Hall
Location: Whitehaven, Cumbria
Series: 3 Episode Number: 30
Originally broadcast: 2003
Main Medium: Derek Acorah
Parapsychologists: Dr Matthew Smith, Dr Ciaran O’Keeffe
Moresby Hall: Most Haunted REVIEW
For this episode of Most Haunted, Yvette Fielding brings her team to Whitehaven, and more specifically, Moresby Hall for a 24-hour investigation.
Tales of bodies found in the chimney and under the floor, a man who starved to death, and a wandering cavalier are all connected to this foreboding medieval manor house.
Moresby Hall has been a home to various families since the 12th century, but the most famous family to occupy the hall was the Fletchers. Many of them are buried in the nearby graveyard, but various unknown skeletons have been gruesomely uncovered within the hall itself, and since then, a shadowy figure has been reported sitting in the corner of the hall on occasion. Local historians believe that the house may have been built on part of a Roman burial ground.
The ghost of a cavalier has been regularly seen walking up and down the stairs, and the cries of children have been heard in the middle of the night. The present owner has witnessed him sitting on the sofa, but rather surprisingly she says she didn’t feel afraid.
When medium Derek Acorah arrives, he immediately is drawn to the floor area, and says he has a sense of wanting to remove the floorboards, and elaborating he claims that three bodies have, at once stage, been buried there. Yvette brings bones to him which were indeed excavated from the floor behind them, and which are still kept in the house. Derek says he psychically senses a mixture of animal and human, after a quick (physical) handle of the bones themselves.
With the lights off, the team begin their all-night vigil. Moving around the spooky building, they discuss the history of the hall. Derek claims that many of the spirits that haunt the hall are not making themselves known in order to frighten, but they come and go periodically because they find it difficult to let go of the place they were so fond of when alive.
The crew then decide to split into groups to cover more of the hall and its surrounding land.
Derek, Yvette and Karl decide to take the area outside where Derek is convinced there is a secret tunnel leading from one of the outhouses. Derek’s earlier predictions were correct, as they do indeed discover an ominous passageway, where Yvette feels something brushing her leg. Derek confirms that there is definitely a spiritual energy with them in the tunnel. Yvette begins to become somewhat hysterical but calms down just long enough to state, “I think I might wee myself”.
Karl is heavily reluctant to move any further down the passageway as he believes there is something further down that does not wish to receive them, however onward they tread down the narrow, foreboding tunnel. Derek is next to feel unnerved as he states something “whacked” the back of his calf. After hearing another noise, Derek instructs Yvette And Karl to leave the area with him, but Karl is now eager to further explore. Instead however, what happens is Karl begins to feel as if he is being prevented from moving forward by an unseen force, and this is the final straw – the trio leave the tunnel once and for all.
Whenwhile, Cath and Victoria have a very difficult time not becoming completely spooked in the eerie nearby graveyard. Cath immediately feels as if someone is standing behind her and then believing she hears a whisper from the grass, Victoria begins to shriek.
Another group in the hall are accompanied by the resident dog, who begins barking and what seemed to be nothing. Could the canine be seeing things that the humans can not?
Phil Whyman and Rick are both rather unceremoniously sent to finish off the investigation in the tunnel where Karl, Yvette and Derek refused to progress any further. Having not been informed of the earlier calamities, they also do not last long in the dark here, as they hear an unexplained noise and decide that their work for the evening is done.
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