The first Fryston woods investigation report

A second hunt team doesn't now seem likely.  There is a lot going on right now and the weather is against us.  So I have decided to just release the post about what happened in the woods that night.




Fryston woods has a huge amount of history.  I couldn't even begin to try and recall it all.  The grand Fryston Hall once stood on the land and has left behind what is now known as the white wall, a section of wall which now only runs along the ground.  It was also an area used by the Romans and a whole chariot was excavated there, only one of two in the country that was found complete.  There are also links to the Druids and going way back in time, used to be a beach along the coast line.

I was very excited to get out there, even though I have lived around this area my whole life I do not recall ever going to the woods.  I have heard ghost stories and people talking about the white wall for as long as I can remember.  I think this area and the Mary Pannell woods get mixed up in these stories.  I was always told that the white wall was Mary Pannell's house.  The story I always heard was that she was said to be a witch that was burned alive at her home in the woods by the locals.  The truth is that she wasn't really anything to do with the white wall, that is a different area to where she lived.  She has got a slight link to the hall that stood here, but it was not her home.  The basics of her story can be found in the links below.

On entering the woods in the dark it did feel quite strange.  I wasn't sure if anything would happen, but I had my fingers crossed.  When we first set up and settled in to the spot near the wall it did feel a little like we were being watched.  Like someone was around us, looking at us through the trees.  When the K2 meter was turned on it instantly started to flash brighter than my Christmas tree.  It was going crazy and wild.  We made sure all phones were off but it just kept on going.  For the K2 to register any electro-magnetic impulse from a device, it has to be almost on top of it, but it was reading it like mad just sat on a table in the middle of us with nothing anywhere close to it.  As well as this, Steve who runs events in the woods saw a man stood not too far from us.  He said it is only the second time anything has happened to him that has sent the shivers down his spine.  He said at first he thought it was someone out walking a dog, however they seemed to have no torch and there was now sign or sound of a dog.  The figure just appeared and then vanished with no sound of foot steps.

The K2 kept starting and stopping all night and when it went it really went.  The lights were dancing like crazy and were likened to a graphic equalizer, like someone speaking.  It kept lighting up all the way in to the red light at the top end and staying there sustaining a strong reading.

Steve was worried about using a Ouija board, so we used the small table we had with just a glass and we asked yes no questions.  Angie had her dowsing rods too.  Through the rods and the K2 we were told that spirits were there and we should cross the wall to speak to them.  We went over and as soon as we tried with the glass on the table we had instant very strong movement.  Angie and Shez both had the name Mary in mind and the glass and rods confirmed it.  Angie also got that she was 34.  We knew it would not be Mary Pannell and Steve looked on Google to try and find who it might have been.  I wouldn't recommend doing that while still investigating but he wanted to look.  He found a Mary Constance and said a few things about her, her husbands name, Rev Benjamin Hemsworth.  The spirit we were speaking with said she was called Mary but didn't have a last name and was without a child and unmarried.  When the information came from Google, this changed and she agreed that this was her.  I find this very unreliable but do not rule out the idea that we may still have been conversing with a spirit for real.

Something that I did notice though, was how I had felt a little apprehensive before, but once we started talking with Mary I felt very calm.  I felt relaxed and almost welcome like I had been invited for a chat.  I also feel as though I have been invited back.

Mary told us that she had never had anyone contacting her in this way before and that she was enjoying talking to us.  This does beg the question though: with the reputation the woods and the wall have, has no one ever done this before?  I think someone must have been down there with a Ouija board or something at some point.  Maybe they have but just didn't get through to Mary.  Who knows.

The movements came and went but tended to be very strong and definite.  Shez and Angie both had the glass moving when they were the only one touching it, but it wouldn't happen for me.  We tried back at the other side of the wall where we had set up before, but didn't really get anything so we went back to where the reactions had been good.  Unfortunately nothing much was happening now and we started to ask if anyone else was there instead.  Steve and Chris got on the glass and started to ask for Benjamin.  It took a few moments but they did get some reactions.  He would not agree on yes and no positions and kept pushing the glass off the table.  The K2 was also going like crazy while this was happening.  Steve felt very freaked out as he said he could feel the glass pushing against him when he could see that Chris was hardly touching it.  This is also when I saw something I can't explain.

As I was watching them, I saw that their hands were still, their fingers did not move at all but the glass moved.  I watching it slide across the table under both of them.  I could see no place where any force could have come from, it really did just move beneath them.  Angie said she saw it too, and then just as I was trying to process what I had just seen, I saw it again.  I can think of no way that this was possible other than it being the influence of something unseen.

Things were starting to wind down after this so we took the hint and decided to pack up for the night.

Research

After the investigation I did take to the net to search. I did find Mary Constance, but Constance is her middle name.  We had asked if that was her surname and she said yes, but it had been Duke and became Hemsworth.  She came from Wiltshire.  We had thought she had moved in to Fryston Hall with Benjamin and we saw her as a grand woman.  She was a grand woman and a very artistic woman, however it was not Fryston Hall she lived in, it was Monk Fryston Hall.  This is a different place and is still standing and in use.  Also, Angie had placed her at 34 years old.  I can't see a birth date, but her wedding date is 1894 and her death date is 1940, with 46 years between her wedding and her death we can see she was clearly much older than 34.

Conclusion

It could have been a mix of our imaginations and subconscious actions causing the results we saw, but I still have no explanation for the movement of the glass I saw twice with my own eyes.  The K2 had no reason to keep going as mental as it did either.  Although the information from Google may have thrown off the investigation with suggestion, there is still every possibility that we were speaking with someone else by the name of Mary.  It is a very common name and if it is true that it was her first time making contact with the living, she may have been over excited and maybe a little confused.

Further investigation of the area is needed to try and confirm our results.  I have suggested a separate PP group go and see what they find and then we can compare results to see what happens.  That is why this report has been posted so long after the investigation we did, so our results are not seen by the second group to go in.

I can't wait to see what they come up with and to get back in there with different equipment.  I get the feeling we would do very well down there with a little EVP.

Some links

About Fryston Hall

Monk Fryston Hall History

Fryston Memories website

Mary Pannell