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St.Marys Church, Eastwell, Kent

9th October 2010
 

St. Mary's Church at Eastwell has the classic 'Haunted Ruin' appearance of Gothic legend.

Steeped in history the church dates from the 14th Century and now only consists of the western walls and tower, along with the old south porch and fragments of the east and south walls.

In 1555 the burial register records the burial of Richard Plantagenet, reputed to be the surviving son of Richard III who escaped the carnage of Bosworth Field to live his life as a recluse on the Eastwell Estate.

The same century saw the opening of a vault under the south chancel that would lead to the internment of members of the Finch family. Members of the Royal Courts their splendid memorial is now removed from its plinth to the Victoria and Albert Museum along with the later 'White Lady' memorial of Emily Georgiana Countess of Winchelsea who passed in her life of tragedy as a Kleptomaniac ending early.

The church was not, as popularly recorded, destroyed by a bomb in the war, but undoubtedly weakened by the army tank maneouvers in the park combined with water soaked up by the churches chalk structure since the 40 acre lake was built next to it in the 1840's it crumbled in 1951 with what is described as a terrible roar by a witness who saw the collapse.

 

 

  The Investigation
  Aim:

To investigate reports of paranormal activity at St. Mary's Church.

Background:

Ghost Connections previous visits were of interest and prompted a return visit.

Various accounts exist of this location which are verified as actual witnesses and not the usual folk tale that exists at other locations.

Lake House is reported to be the haunted location of a monk and the lane past the church has seen a horse and carriage driven by a male in a polka dot bow tie.

Would any of the above make themselves known or would the nature of the place in itself lead the imagination wild?

Would the previously heard horrific noise or unsettled wildfowl be evident again?

Apparatus:

Video camera-
Sony DCR HC-62E with night vision and Sony HVL-IRM IR light
Sony DCR-DVD110E with night vision and Sony HVL- IRM IR light

Digital Camera-
Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-38
Fuji Finepix S1600

Voice recorder -
Olympus DM20
Olympus VH-2100PC

Team:

Kim
Ian
Dave

Method:

Using visual and scientific methods combined with spiritual information investigate the background to alleged paranormal phenomena at this venue.

Investigation:

As per the previous investigation the team first placed themselves in the area where the nave would have stood. We sat so as to have a view all around us and recorded all events. It was a bright and starry night.

Results

 

 

 

Aside from naturally occurring noises including the occasional squawk of the waterfowl and the resident pigeons in the sealed off tower there was very little that caught our attention.

Upon arrival, though, Ian took a number of photographs, as did we all. One solitary photograph was of interest to us. Ian took a photograph looking up at the tower from below.

         
Conclusions

 

 

 

A study of the photograph has to be done in the knowledge that there were only three of us present and none of us were in front of Ian when he took this. It was not cold enough for our breath to be seen and none of us were smoking.

The tower of the church has crenelations at the top (battlements). These can be seen in the image as can the arch below.

An artificially coloured version of the image highlights the anomaly.

There appears to be two curved anomalies rising from a point where the apex of the roof would have been and extending beyond the crenelations at the top. In fact this may not be true. It is often thought that anomalous and unaccounted for images are 'in front' or 'on top' of a certain item when they appear in photographs. In fact the anomaly could be anywhere between the lens of the camera and the focused object. In this case, then, there is no certainty of where the anomaly was at the time the image was taken.

What we can say is that it appears to be more reflective of the flash than some of the tower or may just be lighter in colour.

When the image is analysed by a program that measures the luminosity of each part a three dimensional graph is produced.

 

This shows that the anomaly as the black areas of which only one can be seen clearly curving towards the '0.0' co-ordinate. The night sky appears as a hashed area having no value at all. The arch can be seen above the word 3000 and the rest of the tower is considerably raised in the view. The graph reveals that the anomaly was actually there and was capable of reflecting light back to the camera. Its identity however remains a mystery.

During our stay a certain amount of other information was forthcoming to the team of a clairvoyant nature. As Ghost Connections conducts scientifically based investigations we do not publish such observations, however, this information is held on a separate database and may prove interesting when compared to other peoples experiences. Should you wish to discuss this information please email us.

Still photographs and voice recorders were later examined and nothing of note was found other than the sound described previously. Recordings of this may appear on our seperate pages later.

Not the most noteworthy night but it allowed us to investigate what could be a light anomaly responsible for similar sightings at other venues if security are similarly equipped near other sites.

Note
Ghost Connections are keen to stress that whilst not practicing Christians we have respect for everyone's religion and conduct any investigation on consecrated ground with respect for the surroundings as we do any other site. We treat all our venues with care and respect.
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