Most Haunted At Beaumanor Hall, Part One - Series 22, Episode 4 Review

Yvette Fielding takes her ghost hunting team to a Grade II listed country house in Leicestershire on the hunt for the ghost of a coachman who stalks the house's guests. The enormous Victorian manor on the edge of the Charnwood Forest, near the town of Loughborough, is so big that this investigation has been split in two parts.

In this, the first part, the team tackle the paranormal activity in the building's two-level attic, one of the largest attics Most Haunted have ever investigated.

The history of the house can be traced back to around the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, but the building as it stands today was built in the 1840s by the architect William Railton under contract of the Herrick family who had owned the estate since 1595. The house stayed in the family until the War Department requisitioned it in the run up to World War II.

The house was put to use as a top secret military intelligence listening station. Some time after the war the house fell into the hands of Leicestershire County Council and is now used as a training centre, conference centre, and residential facility for young people.

Beaumanor Hall's attic, which was originally where the home's servants resided, is said to be home to plenty of strange phenomenon, ranging from feeling like you are being watched, through to banging doors, footsteps, and even full apparitions.

Those who have been alone in the attic in the dead of night have reported hearing the sound of crying, and loud knocking noises from walls and floors. Witnesses have said they've heard disembodied voice throughout this space, could these be the voices of the former residents? Or perhaps that staff who were conscripted to work here during the war?

The stairs which join the two floors of the attic are said to be very active. There are stories of a tall dark shadow of a man being spotted here. Some say he his dressed as a coachman and has been described as angry and unfriendly. He's said to be very protective of the house and follows those which come here.

The show's resident skeptic, Glen Hunt, is sure there will be plenty of knocks and bangs throughout their investigation, but isn't so sure they'll be paranormal. During Yvette and Glen's initial walk around the property with the lights on, Glen commented on the lose and wobbly floor boards which could easily make a noise in the dark, "we don't want to mistake it for anything that's paranormal." But he hasn't completely written off Beaumanor Hall's spooky reputation, he said "if there isn't a ghost story attached to this place I'll be bitterly disappointed."

The pair were speaking in a room known as the "prop room," a fairly small room which is full of what Glen called "brick-a-brack," but is in fact lots of period items, including some wartime artefacts which have been brought into the house. Yvette raised the question of whether something could have come into the house which is attached to these items.

As Yvette and Glen finished their conversation, they left the room with the cameras still rolling and witnessed a crash. They came back into the room to find that a toy car had been thrown or shot across the floor, hitting the wall. Gregg Smith who was manning one of the cameras said, "I was getting some shots of the hoovers, and then I heard a noise in the corner, came over and the car was on the floor." Karl Beattie who was behind another camera also said he was accounted for, while sound guy Darren Hutchinson said he looked toward where the sound came from and "I saw it moving a little bit on the floor on its own."

With the lights out it was time to start the investigation and the team split up. Glen went to the back stairs with demonologist Fred Batt, who immediately started calling out to the spirits, "is there anybody here?" Glen joined in asking the spirit to copy him as he knocked on a wooden surface, but little happened for the them in this part of the attic.

Meanwhile, Darren and Gregg were back in the prop room which is located on the lower of the two attic floors. Darren wondered like Yvette if the items around them, many with a great deal of history, could be clinging on to some sort of emotional attachment to the past, "I wonder if together they could have some sort of joint memory."

Gregg started calling out to the spirits, something I think he's really good at. Of all the team, Gregg speaks the most clearly, confidently, and calmly, and is the most respectful. In response to his questions to the spirits they heard a few knocks. So Gregg asked any spirits present if they are associated with one of the items in the room, if so he asked that they tap to indicate which. Straight away Darren and Gregg heard three taps coming from a table of old books.

Throughout all of this, husband and wife team Karl and Yvette were on the top floor of the attic. Within seconds of their arrivals they heard something moving around them. They ran across the length of the attic to try to find the source of the sound, which revealed how big this attic space really is.

This initial scare prompted Yvette to warn Karl, "whatever you do, please don't leave me. If you run off, I'll divorce you." As the pair walked along the main corridor through the attic Karl thought he saw something or someone in a room to his right, and the two went in to investigate. They both noticed that a filing cabinet in the corner of the room was vibrating, as if there was something inside it moving... although their own movement around the room could have been responsible for this.

Later, back out in the corridor, Yvette and Karl could once again hear noises coming from all around them. Yvette called out, "can you run towards us?" She then said she could hear a "boom," but nothing was audible on camera. The sound prompted Yvette to say, "the corridor seems to be active."

Then we were treated to Yvette's best scream of the series so far, followed by "f**king hell!" It seemed a picture had fallen off of a side board and smashed in one of the rooms. Yvette was quick to apologies to any spirits present, "I'm sorry for screaming." As they started to clean up the broken glass, they again started to hearing knocking sounds coming from the walls, as well as a whistle from out in the corridor.

After all of this activity, Yvette had had enough and she and Karl headed off to meet the others. As they walked back along the dark corridor through the attic, Yvette refused to walk past the open doors, instead opting to walk on the side of the corridor against the wall. She said, "I don't want something to come out and eat my face off."

There was one last scream from Yvette in the attic when she heard what she described as footsteps behind her. By the time they got to the stairs, Darren and Gregg were there too, they'd come to investigate a sound that Yvette and Karl had also heard.

They split up again, this time Karl bravely returned alone to the upper level of the attic. He heard a few sounds like metallic scrapes which he thought might have been the step ladders which had been left in the corridor. He didn't have long to investigate as he then heard a bang behind him.

He then heard what sounded like footsteps coming towards him, followed by another crash behind him and then what sounded like a door slamming in the distance.

While Karl was getting spooked upstairs, Yvette and the rest of the team were on the lower level where Glen was the first to report something odd. He said he felt a cold breeze on his arm.

Then Yvette pulled out a ghost hunting gadget. Something that unlike other ghost hunting shows is rarely seen on Most Haunted. It was a KII EMF meter which is uses to detect spikes in the electromagnetic field. Yvette placed the device in the middle of a corridor... but we didn't hear anymore about it, but that wasn't the last we'd seen of KIIs this episode.

Then oddly, Fred reported a temperature drop. He told the rest of the group that the temperature had dropped from 27 degrees, which is very hot for a big old building at night, to just 11 degrees which is fairly cold. That can't be right, that is quite some drop in temperature.

The team then made their way into the housekeeper's bedroom, Yvette called out "is the housekeep here? Is the lady of the house here?" But all seemed quiet, so Yvette suggested splitting up. She sent a reluctant Darren off with Fred to do some incantations at the other end of the lower floor, while Yvette, Glen and Gregg stayed in the housekeeper's room with door closed.

After a while, Yvette said, "I just heard what sounded like a woman's whimpering come from outside in the corridor." A witty Gregg was quick to say, "that's just Darren," and he may have been right.

Darren hates being alone with Fred, especially when Fred is chanting and calling forth demons, and that's exactly what he was doing. As Fred was about to get stuck into his incantations, Darren said "just do one of the nice ones that bring in pixies or elves."

Fred then began, "come forward, come and see us, come and touch Darren," the demonologist added "Darren is dying to meet you." Darren looked directly into the camera, clearly not impressed and said, "no, I'm not."

Fred then called out, "put your arms around him and take him away," at this point Darren had had enough. "No, no seriously," Darren said, "don't do that. I don't want your arms around me. I don't want you taking me away." Just then Yvette walked in, Darren said to her, "you can go with him, he wants Lucifer to give us a hug."

Karl was still upstairs alone and was conducting an interesting experiment with KII meters. He had three laid out on the floor in the corridor in a row, the idea being that if a spirit walked along the corridor it would trigger the devices in sequence. And it did seem to work. As Karl watched the devices on the floor the furtherest away started to flash first, followed by the middle one and then the one closest to him.

After this the devices seemed very responsive to Karl has he called out, "if you're here make the lights flash" ...and they did. Karl then asked for the spirits to flash the lights twice and again they seemed to oblige. He followed this up with a request for them to flash the lights three times, again the experiment worked.

What was interesting is that the devices only reacted when Karl asked for them too. A very pleased Karl said, "remarkable, I've never been much of a fan of these things."

But his experiment came to an end when he heard a big bang and left the attic feeling like he was being followed. This also signalled the end of the episode, but I'm sure there's still plenty more paranormal activity to uncover at Beaumanor Hall. In next week's episode, part two of the investigation the team head down to the building's cellars.