‘Avoncliff’
‘The Crossguns’
The Old Man’ The Cross Guns, Avoncliff. ‘
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Are you experiencing something strange in your home from the sound of footsteps, knockings or some other unexplained phenomenon.
Have you seen a ghost in your home.
Are you experiencing Smells or oders in the home, that can not be explained, for example pipe tobacco smells, perfume or aftershave.
Do you ever get a feeling that you are not alone in the home.
Have you seen objects moving around by unseen hands in your home or work place.
Many of these experiences are never reported because people don’t want to feel weird and odd.
People are frightened to talk because of skepticism (it’s all in your head, it’s only your eye’s playing tricks, you’re hallucinating, its a misinterpretation of something natural or some other reply) and are talked out of what may of been a real paranormal experience.
So if you are witnessing events and need someone to talk too, please post your comment below or If you prefer that you and your experience to stay private from public eyes then thats not a problem.
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My grandfather (on mother’s side) was William Dell, and he owned the Old Court in Avoncliff throughout the 1950′s and early 1960′s. He bought it, renovated it and converted the building into flats for his large brood – many of whom by this period were married with their own families.
I only ever lived at the Old Court for a very short period, but used to visit every summer when my mother took my brother and I there when she visited the family.
One of the main rooms in the buiding was the ballroom, for that is what it had been when the Old Court had been a hotel between the wars. During my grandfather’s era it was used as a “club,” or communal room, for the whole family.
I always remember my mother telling me how one night, after a get-together in that room, her brother-in-law Jim decided to turn in early. (Jim is passed away, but he was married to my mother’s younger sister Gwen, who still lives in Trowbridge.
As Jim was walking through an empty room next to the ballroom to return to his flat on the top floor, he saw what he described as an old lady wearing 18th – 19th century clothing sitting at a spinning wheel. Perhaps I should say he saw an apparition. As I’m sure you are aware, the Old Court is believed to have started life as a group of cottagers for spinners/weavers in Avoncliff, before becoming the Bradford Union Workhouse.
I don’t believe anybody else in the family ever saw this apparition, but I do have another ghost story to tell regarding the Old Court.
Martin Heyes(Quote)
Thankyou very much Martin, for sharing this experience with everyone.
Also we would be very pleased to recieve any extra’s regarding the Old Court or with any others you’ve had in Wiltshire.
Ghostman
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Another Old Court ghost story concerns my aunt, my mother’s youngest sister, who now lives in south Wales. When she was a teenager she was going out with a young man who lived in nearby Bradford-on-Avon. One night she was a bit late arriving home by train to Avoncliff – teenage girls had to suffer a curfew in those days (!) – and apparently was hurrying home along the path in front of the Old Court.
Just before reaching the entrance, (bear in mind it would have been fairly dark at the time), she saw who she thought was her mother a short distance ahead. The person was wearing a long skirt and shawl.
Knowing she was late, and therefore possibly in a spot of bother, my aunt waited for her mother to go inside her ground floor flat before proceeding.
When she eventually arrived inside, my aunt saw her father in the living room. She said that she had just seen her mother go indoors, and asked him not to tell her mother that she had just arrived home.
Her father replied that her mum had gone to bed early that night as she hadn’t been feeling well – and hadn’t got out of bed all night.
Whoever my aunt saw that evening – it was NOT her mother.
A ghost?
Martin Heyes(Quote)
Hi Martin, From what I’ve read from the first case of the old lady sat at her spinning wheel, this can be classed as an haunting experience—also known as place memory.
The term ‘Place memory’ can be thought of as being an recording of emotions or some other human experience, that is recorded while we are alive, and not dead. As for an understanding into the process of this recording, no one knows, but it is believed thats the event may be recorded onto the environment or to the structure of the home.
Place memory when witnessed, are preceived as a replay of an event, just like listening to an scratched record or watching an TV repeat. It is thought that around 90% of all witnessed experiences are place memory.
If you are interested, here is an example of ‘Place Memory’ wrote by parapsychologist, Pamela Rae Heath.
Place Memory
As for your second account,
well this doesn’t seem to me to be an apparition of her mother, but it does sound as if it could of been an OBE.
OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCE. (OBE):
An experience, either spontaneous or induced, in which one’s centre of consciousness seems to be in a spatial location outside of one’s physical body.
Bilocation
The apparent simultanious presence of a person in two different locations by Paranormal means-generally thought to involve an astral double.
There has been hundreds if not thousands of accounts of OBE’s given to the ‘Society for Psychical Research’ since the 1880′s. Many of these experience have been documented cases of folks who have had very simular experiences to what you have above.
So far as the visual nature,
When we witness these things, there is nothing visual being experienced. An apparition may look solid as if we were to see a living person, but there is nothing visually there to be percieved by the eyes or anything to be witnessed with our five senses. To help explain this a little, lets say we had two people. If one of the two had a visual experience and heard nothing, while the other witnessed nothing visual, but had a audible experience, then this says that nothing is being physically seen or heard, but that something may be paranormal as both events were witnessed spontaneous of each other. If an apparition was physically seen or heard then it had to have a physical form, which is solid and able to reflect light for our eyes to precieve, or a voicebox, lips to vibratate the air molecules for our ears and eardrum to precieve and convert to audible sound.
So “she saw who she thought was her mother a short distance ahead” was either a ‘private’ telepathic experience that was sent to her from her mother, or it was her own expectation and worry of being seen and caught by her mother that she created her mothers apparition in her head, which can happen (sorry for this skepical explanation).
Its a shame that the ill mother wasn’t asked after she got back on her feet if she had the feeling of leaving her body or had dream’t of walking outside on the night in question.
I wish to thankyou Martin, for sharing this with us on this blog, its been a joy to read.
Mark.
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