Paranormal YouTubers Prove That The Black Monk House Still Goes Bump In The Night

Since 1966, the unassuming, typical three-bedroom, semi-detached house at 30 East Drive in Pontefract has become known as one of the most haunted houses in the UK. Reports of poltergeist activity in the house appeared in the national newspaper after the family living in the house, the Pritchards, claimed they were experiencing supernatural goings on.

After several unsuccessful full exorcisms, No. 30's haunted reputation remains more than five decades later. However in recent years the house has found itself back in the limelight after it was visited as part of several ghost hunting television shows, including 'Paranormal Lockdown' who gave the house the nickname "the Black Monk House".

As a result of this revived interest, the house has been inundated with paranormal investigation teams and public events. As these investigations fail to result in the same kind of dramatic and violent paranormal activity that it seen on television, it's lead some to speculate that the house is no longer haunted or that its energy has been run dry as a result of the constant investigations.

Last week a paranormal investigation duo spent five days in the house to test those claims and documented the whole experience on their YouTube channel. The two-man team visit locations said to be haunted by demons, poltergeists and spirits, armed with their night vision cameras in search of proof of the paranormal. So, 30 East Drive seemed like a perfection location for the duo.

It's not the team's first time at the infamous house, which is said to be haunted by a sinister black monk. In fact they've visited several times and experienced little to no activity at all. It wasn't until they'd visited several times that they finally witnessed something unusual, which is why they returned this week looking for more proof of the paranormal.

They streamed their investigation live on YouTube for five nights, including lone vigils, static cameras and discussion. The duo were joined by Ste and Griff, fellow paranormal investigators from the YouTube channel, the Ouija Brothers.

The team's mission for the five nights was to present an honest view of the house. They said "there are a lot of inaccuracies about this place, a lot of wild stories and it's been really hyped a lot."

He added, "we come in with cameras and audio equipment to see if we can record anything and cut out a lot of the drama, a lot of the hype around the place to see realistically what this place is like."

Ste from the Ouija Brothers said "this place, it's different every single time you come here. Every time it's always different, sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you get little things and sometimes you get the world."

Over their five-day-long investigation they experienced a lot of what paranormal investigators call "audible phenomenon," which includes knocks and bangs.

Some of the knocks they heard were loud and clear, like the four loud thumping noises from within the room that they heard right at the end of the investigation on night three.

Then after calling it a night and hitting the sack, they heard another odd sound. They said, "literally within three minutes of being in bed there was a loud noise or movement. To me it sounded like a marble being thrown."

These bangs were witnessed both during the nighttime vigils and in the day before the cameras were rolling. At the end of the final night one of the team said, "we've had things every single day for five days".

They experienced so much activity that they are convinced about the house's reputation. He added, "the amount of activity we have had has cemented our opinion that this place is haunted and there is something paranormal going on."

As well as the knocks and bangs, during their time in the house they heard whistling, the sound of jangling keys and even the laughter of a child coming from the empty hallway downstairs.

On day four the team left a camera rolling in the house while they went out for dinner. The camera captured two loud bangs heard while the house was empty and When they returned they found several things had moved around including an old wooden hairbrush which was on the floor when it hadn't been before. They said the sounds were probably not natural creeks or external noises, "it was sharper, louder and the property was locked up, all the windows were closed, the boiler was off." They also found a drawer had been opened in the master bedroom.

It wasn't just noises, however. On day two one of the team witnessed a door handle move down on its own and an object fell during one of the team's lone vigil in the room which was once the bedroom of Dianne Pritchard, although the investigators were quick to say they weren't ruling out the fact that the object, a slip-on shoe, could have just fallen naturally.

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the investigation was on the final night when a pen was thrown from an empty room. At the time one of the team members was stood next to the front door facing into the kitchen and the pen was seemingly thrown from the corridor behind him. Speaking after the incident, he said, "I had a view of everyone and everyone had a view of me, it was thrown by something other than us."

On the final night of the investigation, the team were joined by parapsychologist Ciarán O'Keeffe, who is known for his skeptical approach to ghost hunting, yet we witnessed something knocking loudly on the kitchen door.

Across the week the team were joined by various guests including Ian Varrow from Residential Hauntings, Jamie Senior who previously joined the team on the Hell House investigation and subscribers of the channel Kelsey Wako and Louise Perry.

So, the team are convinced and it seems that, despite the constant claims that the house has lost its paranormal edge, the wider ghost hunting community are convinced too. In a recent poll, 70% of those surveyed said that they believed that the house is indeed haunted, although almost half of those believers said that they felt the case has been over hyped.