Horton Court Investigation
Horton Court Investigation - 12th October 2012
The team arrived at the location in two separate groups. The first led by the team leader arrived at approximately 19:30 and was greeted by two guests representing the National Trust. This first group did a pre investigation walk of the location and then proceeded to begin setting up the equipment. The second group arrived a little later at approximately 20:30 and from there the investigation began. The team split into two groups of four. Team one (consisting of members and guests) moved to the attic and upper floors and Team two taking the ground floor. Team two decided to begin by walking around the ground floor as many of the reported occurrences had happened to people who were just going about their business while walking through the entrance hall and adjoining corridors. While doing this team two encountered some activity in the hall/main stairway area, and all members heard a female sighing as well as the occasional female sounding moan.
Entrance hall and stairs where team 2 heard a female sigh and moan.
At approximately 21:30hrs Team two split into two groups of two and covered the library and adjoining room. Calling out, the two members in the library reported no activity, but the two in the adjoining room were hearing a lot of activity in the corridor outside the room including loud footsteps and shuffling. Upon checking via radio the location of Team one who were at that time two floors above in the attic, Matt entered the corridor to investigate at which point the noises stopped and no apparent cause for them could be found. After an hour in this area, Team two decided to move locations to the morning room, but experienced very little.
The attic
Meanwhile Team one who were covering the upstairs, did some calling out in the attic and one of the bedrooms. They experienced very little and found it to be very quiet. They decided to move onto the room above the Drawing Room where there was a marked drop in temperature (confirmed with the thermometer) and the atmosphere seemed to change. Shortly after this, one of the members reported seeing a light/orb outside the doorway. On investigation and inviting whoever may be outside to come into the room, Damien felt a cold breeze sweep past him. The groups converged for a break at approximately 23:00hrs then swapped floors. Team two started in the attic. Initially all found it to be very oppressive but within about 15 minutes this atmosphere lifted and it all felt normal. Two members did report hearing some sort of scream from outside of the building. On the bedroom level, the team again split into two groups of two. One group took the bedroom and called out for approximately 30minutes. One member saw a ground level orb moving in the "style of a cat" but this was all that was experienced on this floor. Meanwhile Team one were one the ground floor in the Morning Room calling out. After a while one of the members described a white mist swirling in front of his eyes. At this point one of the guests became startled and said that she was feeling strange also confirmed that she too had seen what the team member had.
The morning room.
The whole atmosphere changed and felt very oppressive to the entire group. They also smelt a strong smell of pipe tobacco which seemed to come and go when the team moved and began calling out in the Norman Hall. Shortly after this, one of the guest members of Team one said she had the name 'George' in her head. There is a 'Sir George Alfred Wills' who is linked with Horton and whose daughter left Horton Court to the National Trust in her will. But whether this is coincidence or something else we can obviously never be sure. At 01:00hrs the groups merged and swapped around but this time deciding to stick to the bottom floors, as this was where all the evenings activity had been concentrated. This time team 1 took the library, and 2 took the morning room. Team 1The team in the library caught some interesting orb activity on a night vision camera, and one member felt suddenly very threatened/vulnerable sat where he was sat. All the individuals were chatting about the property when a very bright flash lit up across them all. This could not be explained as no camera flash had happened and the location of the property away from roads meant it could not be headlights. It was certainly an odd experience.
The Library
For the last hour the whole team and guests investigated as one large group, starting in the morning room. Whilst setting up in here one team member heard clear footsteps and someone banging around in the entrance hall. Assuming it was another member who was setting up in the hallway he was started when the team member he thought it was walked into the corridor from a different location also alarmed by the same sounds. Upon investigation they found no obvious cause and all other team members were located together in a different area of the ground floor. We then finished the investigation at approximately 02:30hrs with a glass divination session in the main entrance. Unfortunately no more activity presented itself on the night The investigation ended at 03:00hrs. We would like to say a very big thank you to the manager of Horton Court and the National Trust for this fantastic opportunity.