Bowes Railway Museum - Main Workshop

This large L-Shaped room consisted of two main sections : The Fitting Shop and The Engineering Shop. As the two areas were open plan, we considered this location as one.

The location itself consisted of various machinery such as lathes and other machines used in the construction or repair work for the railway including the repair of locomotives and wheel turning.

One piece of machinary in this room did interfere with the EMF readings that were taken at the beginning of the night and the pollution levels (both outside noise and dust) were quite high.

Baseline Report

Environment Readings

No baseline readings were taken in this location

Pre-Investigation Walkaround

Before any investigation starts some members of Northern Ghost Investigations including our own resident medium (or guest mediums if present) like to have a walk around the investigation site and then record their own first impressions. What follows are details of the first impressions of those who did do a walk around.

Medium Walkaround With Guest Medium Eddie Nicol

Eddie entered the Main Workshop and picked up on two spirits.

One, according Eddie, was eager to tell his story and we may encounter activity from him during the night. Eddie added that this spirit, possibly called Harold was a proud and caring man who liked to share his stories with anyone prepared to listen.

But as we head back down the shop, Eddie sensed another spirit was not happy about something and may be trying to disorientate the other spirit. The name Peter came to Eddie?s mind, as did David though he could not give any more detail on these two names. There did seem to be a change of atmosphere to the room as we walked through it from calm and relaxed to 'chilly'.

Group Vigils

What follows are the group vigils that took place in this location.

Note : These vigils are presented purely in Group Order and in no way reflect the order
 in which each group visited the location during the night.

Group 1

NGIers - Jay, Claire

Guests - Joanne, Paul, Heidi, Steve, Carol

The main workshop was our first location of the night and given the size of the place, we all spread out and for five minutes or so, let the place settle.

One of the first things reported was by Jay who was walking up and down the length of the workshop. He said that it felt as though he was swaying from side to side as he walked. Before Jay mentioned this Paul, who was walking just a few steps in front at the time, seemed to lose his balance and needed a little fancy footwork to right himself. When Jay then mentioned the swaying - Paul confirmed that that was just what had happened. Eddie, who was with us at the time, tuned into the spirit of an old man who was shuffling backwards and forwards and who seemed to be nudging people out of the way as he walked.

Joanne then mentioned with a start that something had just stroked her hair. There wasn't anybody nearby when this happened and nothing was hanging from the roof - Eddie attempted to encourage Joanne to reach out with her own mind to attempt to make contact with any spirits and met with mixed results.

Jay began to call out and although there was no direct response to any requests made, there were a couple of interests of note. Firstly, whilst stood near to a small boat that looked to be being worked upon within the workshop there was a loudish bang on its side. Although a few people were stood by only a few of them heard the bang and all claimed they were not responsible. While investigating the boat, Jay said that he thought he heard a rasping breath which again, was confirmed by a couple of others who were near to the boat. Eddie had earlier mentioned in regards to the old shuffling man that he was riddled with lung disease, possible cancer.

Secondly, while all of the group was standing around quietly chatting, a voice was heard near to the entrance of the workshop. Jay asked out loud if anyone was there but got no response. The voice could have been the voice from another group in the Joinery, but Jay went to investigate regardless. Upon turning the corner to the main entrance, Jay claimed he could see a shimmering near the doorway.

Claire and Pual stood by his side and the three began to look more closely. Paul commented that he could see something but nothing concrete. It was at this point Paul showed a reddish light he'd caught on his video recorder that seemingly appeared and disappeared in an area of the workshop were no lights were present.

Steve and Heidi had spent their time in the workshop at the upper end sitting quietly and trying to tune into any spirits.

Heidi picked up on an elderly man wearing a flat cap, who was also involved with very tall horses (same guy as Eddie?). She felt he was struggling to work due to ill-health. She felt back pain from this man who she felt was stooped over a lot pushing a cart.

Steve took a seat at the end of the workshop and opened himself up to whatever was present. After about 5 minutes or so, the temperature around him began to drop and he sensed movement to his right. He was then made aware of quite a slim rough man old in years suffering with breathing problems, it was at that point Eddie came and sat next to him and confirmed that this gentleman was indeed moving around to his right.

Steve picked up on the name Walter and had only told Heidi the name when Eddie himself came up the name also in regards of this man - it would seem that 3 different people had picked up on the same spirit and all seperately.

Group 2

NGIers - Carl, Sharon

Guests - Pauline, Bekki, Paul, Lee, Jonny

We proceeded to the back of the room first and started to call out, one of the guests felt his back get really warm even though the temperature had dropped to 9 degrees and the humidity had risen to 69%.

We spent about 15 minutes in that area as we weren't really getting anything and were seeing lights further down so moved. Carl set up the light stick in front of the video camera and asked any spirits present to move it and left it unattended while we concentrated on a different part of the room.

We saw lights and some movement in this area and two of the guests got some impressive orb photos on their cameras. We also got an orb on Carl?s jacket.

We took more photos around where the activity was, but was unable to catch any more paranormal activity and it was time to move to the next location.

Between locations, while we were in the Base Room, Carl commented on pain he had in his right knee.

Group 3

NGIers - Lee, Wayne

Guests - Viv, Paula, Vicky, Leigh

By now our group felt a little disappointed. This was exaggerated when another group said they?d experienced loads of activity in the Blacksmiths such as stone throwing and noises. But I suppose that is the luck of the draw. Vicky had left for home so now there was five of us.

I hoped something would occur in the workshop. Earlier in the night I had sensed a change in the atmosphere. After Eddie said that the spirit in here was eager to tell his story I did hope something would happen.

Wayne and I duly called out for a response or reaction. I asked the guests if they?d like to try the pendulums. Wayne and the three guests tried to get the pendulums to work. I explained about how pendulums need to be programmed by the user and all three guests tried this approach. Wayne had minor (no pun intended) success with his though nothing beneficial came through. The guests got nothing from their attempts.

Time crawled slowly on. We took photos and wandered about the room in anticipation of anything happening for us but we all felt the room was empty. We persevered the cold and listened to the wind for half an hour then decided to call an end to this location. A cup of tea was more appealing than waiting another 15 minutes. With this in mind, they headed back to base.

I hung back to be alone in the large workshop. It was not too dark and I could see practically the whole length of the room. I willed and wished for something to happen. I took photos and video footage in the hope of any activity occurring. But it was a wasted five minutes so I joined my group back at base.

Group 4

NGIers - Kris, Sue

Guests - Kirk, Teresa, Jennifer, Stuart

This was the last of our locations, our group walked into the location and walked from one end of the building to another. While walking through Kris sensed that there were male spirits watching them. He said that it felt a very male orientated room and that females weren't welcome. The guests agreed with this too. With this we decided to leave the women with Sue at one end of the building while the men walked round.

We were hoping that something might happen to the women but sadly we didn?t here them scream or anything. The women then decided to walk round the building and the men stayed where they were, once again we sadly didn?t hear the women scream.

After a bit of calling out we decided to call it a night as nothing was happening, we were still buzzing from the blacksmiths where we had the stones thrown at us.

On the way back to the door we called out and said if there was anyone there to let us know, not long after a stone was thrown!!!! Here we go again we all thought, we picked up the stone and checked it, once again it was a lot warmer than all the other stones around the ground.

We called out again and asked for it to happen again but nothing did, so we decided to carry on to the door, then all of a sudden another stone was thrown, this was a spirit who wanted to play or try to make us run out of the building. Well we didn't run out of the building we stood our ground and asked for it to happen again, once again nothing so we walked again and one after another 2 stones were thrown. After a few more calls asking for it to happen again and a lot of searching round to see if any human was trying to have a laugh we came to the conclusion that the spirits here didn't want to show themselves to us but wanted to play with us by throwing stones??