Abbeydale Picture House 19th March 2005

We arrived at Abbeydale at 8pm. After doing an interview with the press and a media student from Sheffield Uni we made sure everyone was there and decided on a plan of action. Carl (the representative from Friends of Abbeydale) took us for a walk around the building and told us some of its history.

We then congregated in the main auditorium where Brenda gave a short talk. We then took another walk around the building to see what Brenda and Mike could pick up on.

After a quick look in the dressing room area we walked through to the balcony, both Brenda and Mike got the sense of a woman following them and trying to push past them to see what was going on, John experienced back pain and Daniel's torch bulb blew. We carried on walking round the building and recongregated in the main auditorium. We split into two groups and Brenda and Micks group went to the cellar.Brenda wandered into the area where she was afterwards told they stored the films, she picked up on a man with bronchitis who spent a lot of time down there. She said there had been shelves around the room with round boxes stored on them (film cans?). There was a skeleton prop in this area that caused some amusement.

We went back up to the dressing room toilet area. This area felt a bit 'odd' (apparently an actress had committed suicide in this area) Mike and Brenda felt a woman here and said this was the same woman that they had felt on the balcony. She was about 5ft, in her 20's, dressed in 1930's style clothing. Jean picked up on a child in the backstage area, a girl. Dave also picked up on something. Mike picked up on a boy aged about 11 or 12 (young boys ere used to fix the counterweight for the back cloth). Brenda had felt that a child, a boy, had fallen but was not sure where from.Mike and Dave picked up on a man with a leather apron, white shirt and short hair coming up behind them.

In one of the upper rooms (where the water tank is) Brenda and Mike smelt charcoal burning, this was also experienced by other members of the group.

We moved to the balcony area where Brenda thought she saw a woman stood at the end of the corridor. It felt exceptionally cold but the thermometer only read 8.5%. The upper auditorium was the next place we went into, we all sat down on the steps to see if we could capture anything on camera or pick anything up. A few orbs were visible on the video but with people moving about these could probably be attributed to dust particles. Brenda picked up on a woman and just as she was starting to go into trance a man appeared and said his name was 'Jack from Abbeydale picture house' he then disappeared down the steps towards the lower auditorium. Everyone stared at each other thinking that they had just seen their first full manifestation of spirit.Carl went to investigate and returned to tell us that it was actually a living person who was to do with the Abbeydale group. (D**n! that's the James Randi million dollars down the pan again). The woman that Brenda was picking up on had a bad scar on her face. Mike also picked up on a similar thing and thought that it was probably burn scars. Brenda felt that the girl was not an actress but probably a dresser to one of the actresses. She had wanted to be an actress but this was not possible because of her scars. The camcorder went out of focus. Mike got the name of Lionel who was about 10 or 11 years old, he was very excited as he had been brought to the picture house as a birthday treat. He had a round face, brown hair and grey long shorts. Mike felt that he had fallen on the steps on the balcony and hit his head and neck on the balcony edge ( there was no metal rail there at this time). Although this did not kill him, he died later as a result of his injuries (a blood clot).

Brenda picked up a woman with high, pronounced cheek bones who may have had a 'hare lip'. Light brown hair, 1930's she was with someone who performed there.

We moved along to the other side of the balcony. On the opposite side of the balcony there were two round windows, a few of us thought they saw something between them. On the video tape there is a misty shape between the windows.

Whilst in the cellar Brenda picked up on a man in a leather apron who would have used some kind of acid (to do with the film).

We held a further vigil in the lower auditorium but nothing was picked up on.

All in all a very interesting building.

PLEASE VISIT THIER WEB SITE AT http://www.abbeydalepicturehouse.com/