The Clifton Hall Investigations The Truth!

In September 2008 Mr Rashid and his family handed the keys to Clifton hall back to Yorkshire bank, He had not paid the mortgage for the £5 million mansion in some months and had decided he no longer wanted the property. He claimed this was due to spirits in the house tormenting his family, shadowy figures walking along the staircases, bloodspots found on his daughters head when there was no injury to the baby.

The story made international headlines, It only made the press due to it actually being the most expensive property ever to be repossessed; otherwise the story may never have been told that and the experiences I had at Clifton Hall leads me to believe there are spirits that still roam the Old Hall, here is my story of the investigations into Clifton Hall and then you can decide for yourself, was this the UK’s version of Amityville or was it a man that just could not afford to pay for the property anymore?

I was lucky enough to have been one of the team leaders for the team that Mr. Rashid called to try and banish these spirits and although during that time I was interviewed on TV and radio from not only Britain but Brazil, Australia, Indian, Chinese, German press I never really got to tell the story of my experiences at Clifton Hall.

It was in August 2007 when I was asked would we be interested in investigating Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire. As it was local to us and the size of the place I obviously said I’d love too. Cal Cooper our resident sceptic of the team had done some research there a few years earlier when the place was derelict and had wanted to go back to further his research.

We found out that the Rashid family had brought the place and had moved in; Mr. Rashid was a wealthy man that had initially bought the place to convert into a wedding venue where couples could get married and stay the night there with their family in the wonderful surroundings. This had sadly fallen through for Mr. Rashid and so he and his family we were led to believe were still living there.

Cal Cooper did all the initial ground work to get us access to the hall, in fact they were more than welcoming to us as the Personal assistant informed us that in fact the Rashid family had been having a few problems that were unexplainable to them. So much so that Mr. Rashid had called a Muslim high priest of some sort to perform a blessing on the house. This was evident as in every room nailed to the wall was a A4 piece of paper with strange symbols on, this I was told was to keep the evil spirits away.

We were told that we could have a full weekend there to conduct experiments and research. We were given a key to the front door and left to it. We were told that no one would be there as none of the family members wish to stay the night!

For the first night we decided that we would have a limited number of investigators there to do base line tests on the property and just have a feel for the place, no mediums were present on this first night. One of the strangest things that happened at Clifton hall occurred on that night, 4 investigators were present on that night and at one point all four were up in what we called the nursery room which is situated at the highest point of Clifton hall, and in fact used to be the nursery. A voice came over the radio, a female voice saying “we know you are alone in there”. Was this coincidence and had we picked up on a random conversation through the air waves via a taxi company or baby monitor? We asked around at the new houses that were situated on the site and quite possibly the only houses that could have affected us via a baby monitor, most were empty as they were new built and those that were occupied did not have a baby or a baby monitor. As for the taxi theory, we were quite a fair way away from the main road and had not come across this before, but why was it so clear and saying “we know you are alone in there”. Another theory was kids messing around on the grounds which we can never rule out, but the fact we had an 8 channel radio and they had to get the right frequency and know we were in there in some going. This wouldn’t be the last we heard of this voice...

On the second night the whole team was present, we had 3 mediums in attendance and lots of equipment to set up. We spent most of the day there preparing for the night fall to begin our experiments. However the spirits didn’t want to wait and throughout the day we had strange activity such as doors slamming, footsteps and shadows out the corner of your eye. I put most of this down to the excitement of the team and minds over working, but I had to admit out of all the places I had been to this gave me the goose bumps. It was like something was watching you all the time, waiting for you to wonder off on your own. Even when I was out on the grounds on my own I was nervous and didn’t go up close to look through the window as I was scared of what I may see.

The night eventually came and the team were now very familiar with the surroundings of the Hall. I decided as it was such a big place that we were to split into 3 teams to cover more ground. This however didn’t last long; the mediums were not happy after around 45 minutes in and demanded that we come together as a whole team. This was unlike the mediums we had there as usually they love to split into smaller teams. Throughout the night we experienced several strange occurrences, first one being that at 12.55am the gates to the hall opened and then closed again on their own, electrical fault or a resetting device I thought straight away. I was told that this had also occurred on the first night. On speaking to the family after the investigation they told us that there is no resetting device and this did happen from time to time but they had no reason for it.

The second was a strange whistling sound that was flowing through the hall, it was as if a human was in the next room whistling out to us, but the more we chased the whistle the more it moved away from us. This was never explained and even the family had no idea what this could have been.
Towards the end of the evening we tried some mirror scrying which is an old method of contact where you sit and stare into a mirror and a spirit or ghost would show themselves through you. Paul, my brother in law and fellow team leader had a go at this as he was always up for anything, although after around 15 minutes of staring into the mirror he turned and seemed to panic, Tracy one of our mediums looked very worried and we tried to calm him down to find out what had happened, it wasn’t until a few days later he actually said anything at all about the event and when he did he didn’t say much. What I do know is that it was something to do with a friend that had passed a few years earlier.

Night one finished and other than a few scares, bumps, bangs and orbs on camera nothing concrete evidence wise. We stayed a third night but nothing much happened on that evening. The place was amazing and there was defiantly something I just couldn’t put my finger on about the place. I am never scared of locations but this one had me going and I just didn’t know why.

In August 2008 I decided to go and see Mr Rashid to see how he was getting on and if they had had anymore problems at the house. On my arrival I was met with a male who didn’t speak much English but he knew I wanted Mr. Rashid and so phoned him for me. Mr. Rashid informed me that he was in fact handing the keys back to the bank as he has had to move his family out of the property due to the activity and the male that was at the property was in fact a security guard and was looking after the place for him. It didn’t take much persuading to let him give me access to the hall again. That weekend I decided that I would take the team back to Clifton hall and take some friends with us to see if we can get the energy going.
The Friday night there was around 20 of us in attendance and as there were such a number of us I decided to split us up into teams of 10. Firstly I took the guests around the hall to familiarise them with the layout and the rest of the team set up some experiments (motion sensors, tables, trigger objects etc) After that I split us up evenly and Team 1 took the Second floor and Team 2 (which I was in) took the ground floor.

It was around 11 am and we had been working our way along the ground floor for about an hour and a half now, holding vigils and calling out. The place seemed really calm and I felt really at ease. My team had arrived at the room that Paul had his scrying incident nearly 1 year earlier. Suddenly I heard on my radio “Lee come upstairs we have an incident”. I left my team with another member of the staff and made my way up to the King Charles room where they said they was. The King Charles room is dead centre of Clifton Hall and is like a ballroom but slightly smaller, it has a grand fireplace and long windows with long draping curtains.

As I entered the room I could see that Team 1 was in a fluster, there wasn’t a controlled experiment going on but just people talking amongst themselves and obviously trying to make sense of what had happened. I immediately looked for Paul who was in charge of Team 1 and was told he was in the next room with one of our mediums and another staff member.

I was told by one of the team members that team 1 had sat down to hold a séance in the centre of the King Charles room, all were sat comfortably on chairs and were in the dark, only the moon light to give them a little light. As they began calling out apparently Paul who was facing the front of the house started crying uncontrollably. He was distraught over something and no-one could calm him down. Once he had gathered himself together he told us that he actually saw a figure of a small child (he described as a boy) peers out from behind one of the draping curtains. On doing this he felt sad and this sadness just overwhelmed him making him cry. He didn’t know why and to this day still doesn’t.

I asked Paul to gather himself together and go with a staff member downstairs. Also for Team 1 to also move downstairs where they could carry on if they wished with holding vigils.

I on the other hand had a plan, I knew that Team 2 had been holding a vigil while all this had been happening and had no idea what had happened other than what was said over the radio “there had been an incident”. My plan was to move Team 2 into the King Charles room and do the same experiment as team 1 had been doing when this had occurred. I told them nothing and made sure that they had no contact with any of team 1 whilst we were moving upstairs.

I sat them all down and explained we would be holding a vigil in the room, if anyone was uncomfortable with this to leave now. Nobody left and in fact everyone was excited to see what I was planning. I asked another member of the team to ask out as I didn’t want to call out and suggest anything; after all I knew what was just seen. I had my back to the curtain in question; to say I was anxious and nervous was an understatement. Then after around 5 minutes of calling out, Bingo, it happened, one of the members started to cry, sobbing at first and then uncontrollably, this was a guest and not one of the team members as before and so I was intrigued to find out what he had seen. After calming him down he said to me, he had seen a figure, a small figure come out from behind the curtain and straight away he felt sad and then couldn’t remember much more. Not only did he see a small figure as did Paul, and start crying and felt overwhelmed as did Paul, but something I didn’t know until after the event was he was sitting in the exact same chair Paul was when it happened to him!

Our hearts were thumping and the adrenaline pumping and I couldn’t stop there, was we on the verge of discovering something very special. I tried to keep the team together to hold a glass moving exercise. Obviously the young lad that had just been affected left with his girlfriend and team member to get some air. Leaving 7 of us in the room one of which was Paul’s mum (why I mention this will make sense in a moment) we all stood up while conducting the experiment, 5 were on the table and 2 of us were watching, I and one filming. The experiment was going as normal with a little moment of the glass, it then seemed to get stronger and stronger until eventually Paul’s mum suddenly collapsed on the floor. She went with quiet a thud and initially I though it maybe because she had been on her feet and it was getting late. I radioed down stairs to not only tell the team we had an incident but to make Paul aware he was needed upstairs, the response I got was unexpected to say the least. I was told that Paul was unavailable; he too had just collapsed while holding a vigil.

For the first and only time I have ever had to do this I turned all the lights on and called a STOP to the investigation. I had 2 people that had collapsed and had another still trying to come to terms with potentially seeing a ghost! I had to get a grip of the situation as for the first time I was not in control and I don’t know who was!

On looking back at the tapes, Paul and his mum fell at the exact same time to each other, something again that surely must be more than coincidence.

The guests decided to leave after a short break and even some of the team left too. I didn’t blame them as I was in two minds whether to call it off anyway. But the investigator in me wanted to know more, so with equipment at the ready the few that had stayed decided to venture into Clifton Hall for what would be our last time.

The panic had gone and the creepy atmosphere had gone too, it was as if whatever had just been playing with us had decided enough was enough. There was just one bit of evidence we did get that to this day still baffles me, as we entered the nursery room again toward the end of the night, we were all together as a team again, when all of a sudden over the radio was the voice from nearly a year ago “so you’ve come back then ”.

Article initially published in the HAUNTED magazine #3 June 2010

Lee Roberts