I spent a night ghost-hunting in a haunted old church with paranormal investigators

I spent the night in a haunted old church with a team of paranormal investigators, and saw one of the team ‘taken over’ by a ‘nasty spirit man who beat children’.

Have you ever watched Most Haunted on TV, as they investigate spooky castles and historic buildings, calling out to spirits and creatures in the dark awaiting a response? And even if you’re a complete sceptic, have you still wondered what it would be like to go on a night and see what it’s all about? 

Watching the familiar face of Yvette Fielding on the telly absolutely scared out of her wits as she stares into dark rooms like bottomless pits, eyes wide open with mascara clotted lashes, it does make you wonder if we are alone in the dark.

Let’s face it, believers or not, we all love a good scare and perhaps – if anything – we’re just curious to see if we can be proven wrong.

In this spirit, one dark evening I met with a team of paranormal investigators from Greater Manchester and the North West called Dragonfly Paranormal. They’re a warm and welcoming bunch — exactly who you need when you’re sat in a pitch-black, draughty cellar as you try to make contact with a potential ghost.

It was a Saturday night and we met up at TS Warspite in Earlestown, St Helens – home of Newton Sea Cadets – at around 8.30pm.

Built on the site originally was the Wesleyan Methodist Church — formed by a few staunch Wesleyans from Salford, who had been transferred from the Ordsall Lane Wagon Works to the Viaduct in 1853.

They began work to build a chapel in 1866, opening its doors for Sunday service after its completion in 1867. 

The building was also used as a Sunday school and then a day school that had accommodation for worshippers, with a new chapel built next door which opened in 1880.

This chapel was later demolished and another new chapel was built on the neighbouring Chapel Street.

This strange patchwork-like building, comprised of layers from different eras sewn together, is now shared between the United Reformed Church and the Newton Methodist Church.

As I stepped through the modern-fronted entrance into its historic belly, from lasting summer daylight into dimness, I was greeted by a group wearing matching black t-shirts and hoodies as they prepared their investigative equipment.

I was welcomed by organisers and husband and wife duo, Lauren and Steven Holmes, who have been running Dragonfly Paranormal for eight years. They hold both public and private paranormal investigations, and Lauren also does readings.

Other members of the team of spirit hunting enthusiasts included Kevin Drake-Owen, Freda Done and her daughter Chelsea, Lisa Harrison, and Karen and Mark Jones — who handed me a torch. 

We were also joined by members Paul and Lee who are from a different paranormal team, and another inexperienced, nervous and excited ghost hunter, much like myself.

We all chatted amongst ourselves as we got to know each other over a quick brew and then Lauren summoned us to form a circle in the centre of the main hall as we closed our eyes, and had to ‘root’ ourselves into the building’s memories, opening ourselves up to whatever might reach out to us from the other side. 

After we opened our eyes we were ready to begin the quest. We picked up the different equipment and as the lights went down we headed for a room based in the cellar — it was showtime.

When we reached the bottom, Karen jumped and immediately alerted us all to a chair that had been placed on a table top that she was convinced wasn’t there before. “Look!” she gasped. “It wasn’t there, it wasn’t there!” 

Inside the room it was cold, dark and eerie as we took a seat around a table and set up different kinds of radio frequency recorders, temperature change detectors, ghost-hunting apps and cat balls — which light up when they sense movement and can be used by spirits to make a response.

The ghost-hunting apps record forward sound and then play it backwards to detect any words. As the room grew silent and still, Lauren tried to speak with spirits. Chelsea, Freda and Karen joined in, asking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions to begin with.

 A catball lit up as well as the EMF detectors, which pick up electromagnetic fields, and it seemed the spirit was playful. “Are you a young…” Lauren began as she was cut short with more activity. We heard a bang outside the room. Karen jumped and asked: “What was that?!” 

The group asked again: “Are you a young boy or a girl?” Nothing came, but then everything lit up in synchronisation and it seemed the spirit, or whatever it may have been, was playing games with us.

We’d all set our mobiles to airplane mode or turned them off so as not to interfere with the equipment — which kept continuously going off in answer to questions asked. The air grew cold and I could feel a draft on my legs. 

After a light show on the sensors, the group decided to get out a spirit board and see if they could talk to anyone or anything that may try to reach out from the other side. Not everyone partook in this as some didn’t feel comfortable, but the group talked me through what they usually do.

Chelsea and Lauren explained to me that they do it all correctly and make sure to ‘release the spirit’ and do a ‘cleanse’ after it. I felt reassured and confident enough to have a go. I’d never done one before and just hearing the name of it made me nervous.

Hearing ‘spirit board’ – or what many know it as, Ouija board – sends shivers up your spine and mental images hurling through your mind from all the scariest horror tales ever imagined.

Kevin and a few others sat it out. He told me he promised his husband that he wouldn’t ever do one. Just myself, Lisa, Lauren, Chelsea and Freda participated. I was starting to freak myself out, but before I could change my mind, it began…

After asking a few questions, the planchette began to move. I was only lightly touching it and looked around at other’s hands to see any signs of pressure, but I could see any. 

It seemed we were talking to a ‘wicked man’, a priest or reverend, who wanted us to leave and didn’t say much else. The planchette mainly moved to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or landed on, or close to, a letter on the board.

Unlike the movies, it didn’t move in a fast and unnatural way while spelling out whole words or sentences. The planchette didn’t go flying off the board at the end either, as if the demon or spirit had taken control and released themselves into our world — much to my relief.

After it stopped talking to us, we ended the board and went to investigate a different room. We sat in a circle in the dark and I wore a headset linked to a microphone that picked up even the lowest of muffled and low sounds.

Thankfully, there was no demon reciting Latin transcripts in an aggressive, throaty, non-human voice while spitting and cursing at us. While I was doing that, a few women in the group began experiencing the feeling of what they describe as being ‘taken over’.  

Chelsea and Freda felt their heart rates go up and seemed a little ‘out of it’, but when they came round, Karen, who seemed to be in a sleep, was taken over by a ‘nasty spirit man’ who ‘beat children’ and ‘enjoyed the power he got from frightening and hurting them’.

When she came round, I asked her what being ‘taken over’ was like. “It’s really hard to describe because I sometimes don’t remember it and it’s only when I hear it back on the tape that I think, ‘oh, right’, ” she said.

Adding: “It’s just a question of blanking your mind of everything and just saying what you are feeling.”

I asked her what got her into ghost hunting, and like others in the room she told me she’d experienced a dead relative visiting her, saying: “I’ve always been interested in the paranormal ever since I was little. My dead nana came to visit me after I had my first child and that was my first experience of the paranormal.

“Since then we have lived in houses that, let’s just say, are a bit uncanny.”

Several group members showed me photographs on their phones of weird shadow or ghost-like figures that they couldn’t explain, with Karen mentioning one of a ‘shadow man’ [pictured in the main header image] the ClubZero Ghost Group captured while at Hack Green Nuclear Bunker, which was used during the Cold War.

“We got a photograph of a huge ‘shadow man’ that we couldn’t explain at all,” she said, describing it as ‘the best experience’ she’d had in her four years with Dragonfly.

About why she goes on paranormal investigations, Karen explained: “Don’t expect anything and then whatever you get is great. This evening, we’ve had balls going off, lights going off, we’ve had voices on the recording.

“A lot of things could be coincidental and I’m not saying that everything is paranormal or that we get everything spot on all the time, but you can put a lot of what we find together and find a story of what has happened.

“For me personally, I’d love verification that there is something else and how that comes, I don’t know. I believe that this can’t be all there is.

“I believe there is another plane, plateau, heaven, hell, there’s got to be, I can’t believe that this is all there is.”

After a great evening with a lovely bunch of people, I felt exhausted from all the excitement and nerves – but also huge relief that no one got possessed and there was no need to call for an exorcist.

The group played back sound from the recordings to listen for noises and voices, everything could be explained apart from one ‘shout’. None of us recall it happening at the time and it definitely wasn’t any of our voices either.

We formed another circle at the end of the investigation and were guided by Lauren to release any energy from the evening and ‘uproot’ ourselves from the building. 

Driving home I hoped not to find a ghost figure waiting in the middle of a dark misty road and wondered if I would sleep — which I did, but only out of sheer exhaustion. I’d definitely do it again, even just for the excitement of a spook. But, I’d say I’m still what they call a ‘sceptic’ for now.

If you fancy going on a ghost hunt with Dragonfly Paranormal, you can find them on Facebook or Instagram @dragonflyparanormal.