The Royal Oak - Investigation Report

How we Heard About The Royal Oak

We were going into the Royal Oak totally blind to the location itself with very very little paranormal history concerning the pub (nothing documented anyway) and the Landlord and Landlady had only recently moved into the pub so couldn't really tell us many tales, other than of a few strange feelings around the place.

The Royal Oak - Baseline Report

Before every investigation we conduct a thorough examination of the location site to highlight anything within the environment which may interfere or influence with any later investigation through the night. For instance, if there is a railway line nearby which, with the passing of trains throught the night, could cause virbrations in within the location - we'll make sure it's noted down

We also take readings throughout the investigation site (see actual locations) so as to set a baseline which all further readings can be compared againt. At present, we currenly take readings concerning the Temperature, Humidity and of the local Electro-Magnetic Field.

Information Regarding The Royal Oak Investigation

What follows is some general information regarding the investigation at The Royal Oak.

Possible Environmental Influences At The Royal Oak

The Royal Oak - Ground Floor

This image is merely a representation of the location and not to be taken as an exact

The ground floor of the Royal Oak was seperated out into a few distinct areas: The main bar, a back room, a small auxillery room, female toilets and then out the back a courtyard which housed the male toilets.

Baseline Report

Environment Readings

You will find in the table below the baseline readings that were taken at the beginning of the night for The Ground Floor.

Next, you will find a series of graphs showing subsequent readings (including baseline) that were taken through the night.

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 - Mark, Claire, Carol, Jay, Michelle,

ark - Back Bar
Claire - Small Room/Beer Garden
Carol - Small Room/Back Bar
Michele - Back Bar
Jay - Beer Garden/Small room
Back Bar: Mark (later Joined by Carol and Michele)

Notes: One high window open. Middle
Lots of noisy bar equipment around.

Readings throughout the vigil:

EMF Readings: A full EMF sweep indicated readings of 4 - 6MG across the surface of the bar where all the pumps are located. A reading of 10+MG was detected across the length of the bottom of the bar where the cooling system is located. The lights in the room gave off 2MG respectively when meter was held 1ft away from them. 5 Lights in total around the room. No anomalous EMF detected throughout the night.
ark is sat in the Back bar area sitting in silence and taking baseline readings. He is soon joined be Carol and Michele and the three begin to chat. At 12.57am Mark gets slight headache followed by Michele stating that she has started to get Michele back/left kidney pain at 12.58 am. By 1.11 am Marks headache had gone.
Small Side Room: Claire and Carol (Later joined by Jay)

Carol and Claire decided to sit in the small room to the right of the bars. On walking into this room Claire felt like she was back in her old nanas house at Stoke, which she'd not been in for nearly 20 years. This may have been attributed to the smell the room had to it added to a fireplace that reminded her of Stoke, but for a few seconds she felt disorientated as she felt that she was back at her nanas at Stoke.11.50 Claire felt the urge to move the tables out of the way and draw a 'magic' circle on the floor in salt (wall to wall). She refrained from this (an impractical thing to do on the invo) and instead found a salt cellar and drew a cross on the table with it. Not content with this she drew a circle round it with the salt as a trigger object. She wanted to do the same with a pentagram which Jay later helped her with. These were photographed and left as trigger objects for the night. Nothing to note was recorded before, during or after the investigation.

Sitting at the table, Claire had the image in her head of a man with a wide brimmed black hat and long straggly hair, dark but not black.
Beer Garden/Courtyard - Jay

Jay decided to find a little quiet place in the he courtyard at the back of the pub to begin with, as the landlord was busily at work in the cellar to begin with which was causing a little noise.

Sitting quietly by himself and being mindful of some of the NGI members which could be observed through the window of the still-lit secondary bar room at the rear of the bar, Jay quickly began to get the sense that something didn't seem right.

To the right of where he was sat were the pubs male toilets - basically a shed, with no door, with a urinal screwed to a wall. These were the original toilets of the pub. From this area Jay kept getting the sense that somebody kept leaning out of the toilets and peering around the wall towards where he was sat.

Upon investigation of the area, there was nothing noted which could have contributed to this. No marks on the wall or anything which could have been seen out of the corner of the eye which added to the sense. Just as he was sat there - Jays attention kept getting drawn to the area with the sense that "someone" kept peering around the corner at him.

As a little more time passed, Jay then noticed a few shadows that were crossing the wall against which he was leaning.

Yes, the light in the back room was still on at this point and a couple of NGIers were still present within. But there was no correlation with peoples movement in that room and the shadows against the wall. There probably was some crazy light and shadow dynamics going on but nothing that could be discerned.

Jay then went to spend some time with others in the pub. First stop was Mark in that very back room where he was taking various readings every so often. Jay then went and spent some time with Claire in the small front room of the pub before going to explore the ladies toilets which were near to the door leading to the courtyard he'd earlier been in.
Beer Garden/Courtyard - Jay, Claire

Jay mentioned his experiences in the beer garden to Claire, so they both returned to the location.

Seated in the beer garden Claire one again picked up on the image of the same man that she had done in the small room, as well as black 'symbols' like pentagrams daubed on the walls/building in some kind of plack powder/dust, not wet and smeared like paint. She felt these were the exterior walls, maybe inside but it was outside walls that she was 'seeing'. She thought this was very unlikely that anyone would have been mad enough to do that in those days. The image of the man in her mind became very clear and sharp, he turned and came a lot nearer and the images of the daubed symbols also became a lot clearer. Claire was also to 'see' brief images of this man whilst walking upstairs. walking upstairs.

Claire and Jay went into the toilets off the courtyard at one point. Although the toilets where small, Jay lost all sense of spatial awareness while within. Nothing seemed right. It was dark inside but even though his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he couldn't make out the layout of the toilets at all. He was sure that after a short walk into the toilets, the room turned (ie, was a L-Shape) and got a real strong uncomfortable sense from "around the corner" (He'll openly admit - this sense was 1 step away from fear) as though he "knew" somebody was around the corner.

As he pushed further into the toilets and suddenly around that there was no corner - no L-Shaped layout to the toilet existed. It was just a simple and small rectangular room. Claire felt as though she was swaying but put that down to the place itself. Upon leaving the toilets though another thing struck him - in this area of the pub (a short corridor leading to the ladies toilets and the courtyard) - he was as jumpy as a Kangaroo on a pogo stick. Every ordinary shape caught in the corner of his eye caused a sharp intake of breath, a rising shock and a quick spin of his head in that direction. Jay is NOT normally like this even in the worst places he's been in - so to experience it in a "busy" downstairs pub where most of the lights were still on is a little strange indeed.

Claire then picked up on the name Robert Burns, but this wasn't the scots poet as this was definitely an Englishman. Jay said that the place was probably used by a poetry group at some time, but Claire was having none of it as that was just looking for loose random connections which had nothing to do with anything she had been picking up on.
Small Room - Claire

At 12.50 Claire went back inside and sat back in the small room. She saw the image of this man very clearly in my minds eye. He was stood in the circle of salt and came right up towards me (Claire was stood outside it). He seemed to come 'up' from it as though from the ground, through the centre, then towards her, almost in her face. Claire had to make herself not flinch. His face had dark patches on it, bit it wasn't clear if it was scarring or dirt. He had dark stubble and had a generally weather worn face. He seemed to be in his late 30's/40's but Claire reckoned he looked older than he was. The smell sweaty socks/foist/old leather accompanied with this image. Claire felt that if there was a circle of people stood round the circle, holding hands or 'doing some such poncey thing', then he would appear in the centre very clearly.

Also to the left in front of the window, Claire saw in her minds eye, a very tall thin man wearing another wide brimmed black hat with a black cloak down to just above knee height, or about knee height. He was impatient and kept pacing backwards and forwards in front of the windows. The room was longer and ran across the whole front of the pub, not as it was now. Inside it was darker wood and the windows looked to be mullioned. Claire could sense strongly 'impatience' and he was pacing quickly backwards and forwards, up and down and looking out of the windows. She noticed his black cloak because as he turned it was so sharp his cloak 'snapped/swished' each time he was down this end of the room (presumed it did the same when he turned at the far end).

Claire also kept getting images from a later date when an older man would be sat in the room more like it is now but with lighter walls. He was sat writing letters/accounts and she saw a creamy grey/white pot ink pot on the table. It was felt he lived here now but hadnt always been here and that he was a retired seaman/admiral/sailor, quite well respected and 'higher up' than just an average sailor. He was stocky/portly and shorter than the other men. Not fat, just more 'filled out' with age etc. Although Claire saw all this in my minds eye in, she felt that the man with the symbols in the circle who came close was 'there', but the others were more residual things from the past. Claire also felt as though there was an 'interaction' between the main bloke and me and only 'saw' the others,although I sensed things from them.

Group 2

NGIers - Bekki, Dell

Guests - Sharon, Steve,

roup 2 Report : Bekki, Dell, Sharon, John, Steve

Sharon picked up on a lady in this area, while John felt the presence of an elderly man without teeth.??Bekki was not feeling too well so was trying to shut everything out. Bekki described herself as feeling dirty, itchy and aggitated. Bekki did however note the disrepair of the building and the fact that there could be electrical issues with the building (the landlord did have an issue with blown bulbs). This could be down to the fact that there were extention leads running everywhere, and when it was noted that when the landlord pulled the bandit forward to turn it off, the socket fell away from the wall.
Small Room - Mark, Jay, Claire, Michele

We returned to the small room at the end of the night and attempted a glass divination the group. The glass did start to move after a fair bit of coaxing, but It was felt that this was still down to our own subconscious movements as nothing really happened to indicate any real intelligence was at play. At one point Claire had the urge to throw the glass at the wall so it would smash, but this was more likely to do with her own frustration than anything else.

The Royal Oak - Upstairs Function Room

This image is merely a representation of the location and not to be taken as an exact

The Upstairs Function room sat at the front of the Royal Oak and, although its name makes it sound like a grand affair, was quite small.

The only furniture in the room consisted of a few randomly placed chairs, a couple of tables and a pile of other tables and chairs stacked up against a back wall.

Baseline Report

Environment Readings

You will find in the table below the baseline readings that were taken at the beginning of the night for The Upstairs Function Room.

Next, you will find a series of graphs showing subsequent readings (including baseline) that were taken through the night.

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 - Mark, Claire, Carol, Jay, Michelle,

Both groups then switched locations as Mark, Jay, Claire, Carol and Michele trotted upstairs the the function room. Moonlight coming in through the windows that were causing a light patch on the wall opposite. Mark saw big shadow go across this light patch as if a figure had walked past the window (but it was on the 1st floor).

At 1.50am Claire mentioned she was experiencing a 'tightness' across her chest. Mark had been feeling the same thing prior to her saying anything and Jay also complained of a 'tightness' too.

Claire stated to pick up on things once more. She felt as though she was getting dragged by her hair, through a street with grey cobbles (although she was a man in her vision). She then 'saw' grass and an empty gallows, but she felt that people would have gathered here to watch the hangings, although not in the hundreds but smaller crowd. This was felt by Claire to have taken place to the right of Gilly Gate which was a short distance away. She didn't however 'see' any city wall and got no sense of the gate itself. It was instead on a slight incline (maybe landscaped), very grassy though. The incline had been levelled for the gallows, so maybe landscaped for this.Claire was keen to point out that she was pretty sure that these images were her imagination and were not anything like the 'vivid' images that she had experienced downstairs.

Various other images ranging from 'pyramids with enochian writing round them' to 'brightly coloured snakes' were offered by up by certain NGI members having just popped into their heads.

At one point Claire began to feel absolutely furious. She was sat there thinking ''why the fuck am I doing this, what the fuck is the point of this, why am I wasting my time here etc''. She wanted to get up and walk out. Claire expressed her frustrations vocally which made Carol laugh as she said that was exactly how she was feeling too. Claire felt as if she had somehow tuned into Carols emotions which in turn caused her to react so suddenly and strongly. Claire described this as 'black' anger.

Later on, Claire was struggling to keep her eyes open. She knew she was picking up on someone cos she often experiences a similar thing when working with clients who are going deep or are falling asleep when having a treatment. She asked who it was but everyone said they were ok. Mark said Carol hadn't answered and the group called out to her she didnt answer. Later she said she had fallen asleep at one point.

By 2.50 the group returned downstairs to discuss the vigil with the others.
Function Room - 1.30am - Mark, Jay

Jay and Mark then went back upstairs to the function room after 10mins to try a bit of glass divination. Although the glass did move ever so slightly and the table did seem to vibrate there was nothing even remotely conclusive that occurred. We relocated to the downstairs small side room to try again.

Group 2

NGIers - Bekki, Dell

Guests - Sharon, Steve,

Group 2 Report : Bekki, Dell, Sharon, John, Steve

The group was sat in the larger part of the room. As theysat, the group became aware of movement. Sharon said she could see what looked like something pop its head around the corner by the door, as if it was popping in and out of focus. Bekki was looking at this from a different angle, but did detect movement too.??Bekki became aware of the beams of light coming from the crack in the broken doorway, there were two of these, one where the hinge didn't meet which was projected onto the wall and another going across the floor. Bekki became aware that every now and again the beam of light would move as if someone was moving the door, whcih shouldn't move easily considering it was off its hinges. The beam on the floor became narrower as the beam on the wall became wider, indication the door had been moved.

The investigation concluded at 4.40pm