Bowes Railway Museum - The Blacksmiths

A room attached to the end of the Exhibition Room which served as a blacksmiths.

Various metal-working equipment - including a small forge - could be found in this location and in the far corner of the room was a small bathroom area.

The three locations in this section (Exhibition Room, Loco Shed and Blacksmiths) where possibly all open plan in the past, but wall separators have been installed although the roof area is still open meaning sound could travel between the three locations.

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

Although Eddie said that this location had a nice feeling about it, he quickly added that there was something mischievous and disruptive standing back.

One of the guests stated that she felt dizzy on entering the room and Eddie suggested it could be due to the energy that the ?multiple? spirits in this location alone were creating.

Eddie ended the walk-a-round tour with the possibility that a vortex was in the centre of this room and out of all of the locations we?d visited; this one was likely to be the most active

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 Blacksmiths is the location with the reputation within Bowes Railway and Jay specifically was looking forward to getting back in there after an incident during the previous NGI investigation at Bowes.

Sadly, the time spent here this time around was quiet. Other than a few strange flashes of light that seemed to get us excited at one point - which, after a while, we figured were camera flashes from another group although they were in appearing in one particular place upon the roof of the blacksmiths, there wasn't much more to report.

Claire and Heidi picked up on a different change of atmosphere within the small attached office although this could have been psychological as it was pitched black within.

There was only one slight moment that was reminiscent of previous visits. At one point, the atmosphere within the Blacksmiths changed dramatically. Jay had mentioned that when the spirit associated with Blacksmiths shows up, people tend to know about it, and during a slight lull in the calling out, a few people noted that the atmosphere had got heavier. Jay commented that he got the heebie-jeebies - which is how he describes when something has just turned up - all the hairs stand on hand, heart starts to beat faster, breathing rate increases etc. Although not sensitive to things as a medium - this sensation to Jay usually heralds the arrival of a spirit in a location. Despite attempting to communicate with whatever had showed up, there was nothing in a way of response and so whatever had paid us a visit had quickly moved on.

Group 2

NGIers - Carl, Sharon

Guests - Pauline, Bekki, Paul, Lee, Jonny

For the last location for the evening we were joined by Eddie, our team medium for the night.

We were close to the room where we communicated with Michael earlier so tried to talk to him again. Sharon got her pendulum out and asked Michael if he was with us again, he was, Eddie said he enjoyed being with us as he had made a connection with us, the pendulum started moving when asked. After a few minutes it started spinning quite fast and it seemed to react to questions and Sharon managed to get it to actually stop completely.

We saw a few orbs and flashing lights which we initially thought were flashes from the cameras of the group in the other room, but figured out that some were and some were unexplainable for now.

Bowes was the most active location for Carl and Sharon, all the guests enjoyed themselves and became involved in all the activities to communicate with the paranormal. This was the first time Sharon had used a pendulum while running a group of guests and got a good reaction.

Group 3

NGIers - Lee, Wayne

Guests - Viv, Paula, Vicky, Leigh

The loco shed was interesting in that it had trains from various mines that had witnessed death. One of the trains is believed to have killed a man as it coursed down the track.

Eddie and Greig joined Wayne, the group and myself on this occasion. Wayne began by calling out to any spirits who may have taken the time to be here on what was a cold and windy night.

Wayne said he had the name, Patrick, in his mind. Eddie followed with the name, Colin. Wayne added that he felt pins and needles in his legs.

We wandered about in the dark, to look at the trains and take photos. Paula said that she felt drawn to a small room that housed a model railway ? but we did not have access to this room.

Eddie said that he had the feeling of a weight pressing down on his shoulders. Earlier in the evening Eddie made a point of saying that spirits tend to reflect their emotions and feelings on to people in order to reveal how they feel or how they died. This information proved useful for Wayne as he sensed pain in the back of his head when he sat in the driver?s seat on one of the trains. Wayne described it as a blow to the head as if the train itself caused this sensation ? was this the train that killed the minor? Eddie suggested that this man sensed his impending death but had not been aware of the train that ran into him. Wayne added that this man was called, Colin and that he now had pain in his chest.

Wayne then used his pendulum to try and communicate with 'Colin'. Apparently Colin had unfinished business and was frustrated his time was cut short before he could complete it. When Wayne tried to determine what this was there was difficulty in finalizing an answer. Eddie felt it was sport related.

What did the loco shed give us?

Wayne got the name Patrick, had pins and needles and chest pain. He also felt pain in the back of his head. Eddie got the name Colin. Paula was drawn to the model train room. I got colder and more frustrated. That was location number two done. I felt that so far nothing had happened that could be considered paranormal other that what other group members experienced for themselves.

We headed back to the base to discuss our next event.

Group 4

NGIers - Kris, Sue

Guests - Kirk, Teresa, Jennifer, Stuart

Boy did it all kick off in here! We walked into the room, again tried to let the place settle and sit quietly, no chance of that, with in minutes of being in the room we all heard what sounded like a stone being thrown, we looked about in torch light for the stone, Kris picked it up and said ?feel that its warm?, we did and it was very warm.

Kris then picked up a few other stones that were around and all these were freezing cold : 'how was that possible'? we all thought as the whole building was freezing cold, we checked the roof for any holes etc (even if it had fell it wouldn't have been hot). We thought it very strange.

So we then started to call out to spirit asking if that was them, throw another stone please to confirm it, they didn?t just throw one more but about 8 more, every time we asked we got a stone!! We decided then that this spirit wanted to play the game so we tried using the Ouija board for communication, but no luck with that. Sue felt like this spirit was trying to chase us out of there and did not want to communicate with us at all, it was his personal space and he wanted us out?