Thorne Former Workhouse (Doncaster), Saturday 30th October 2021

Saturday 30th October 2021
Thorne former workhouse
A Review – Kit Brewer, Team Member

After 2 long years away from all this thanks to the Covid pandemic, the Visage Paranormal Team were back! A revisit to Thorne Former Workhouse, now taken over by the sea cadets. There were 13 guests, a few of them first-timers & 8 Team Members & two haunted dolls Paul & Lydia.

At 21:15pm during the introduction talk in the main hall I felt a male presence to my left hand side, which I chose to ignore for the time being. I went with Group ‘A’ up to the attic area at 22:10 where during the initial group vigil, two of us felt a very cold spot behind at about the same height. Then one of our guests, young Harry, was game for sitting alone in the dark on a solo vigil. He saw a shadow away by the staircase. Some guests did some glass work in the school room area, where the glass moved, extremely slowly & seemed to go toward ‘Yes’ & the number ‘8’ and possibly the letter ‘F’. Later another guest, Ian, sat alone in the same area & also saw what he took to be the figure of either a child or a small hunched lady in the door frame & picked up on the name ‘Lily’.

After a tea break (Yay! Seabrooks crisps and mini Curly Wurlies) my group moved to the downstairs bar area. Nic had earlier picked up on the name ‘Frank’ while working with Group ‘B’ so we were interested to find out more about that. Earlier in the night 2 male guests from Group ‘B’ stood in the cupboard area at the back of the room where Nic had picked up on ‘Frank’ the workhouse master having assaulted a servant girl. They did not want to stay in there for long! Harry from our group also went to stand in there alone & also did not feel like staying in there for too long. We then tried a human pendulum with Harry in the centre. Questions asked seemed to point to an adult female called ‘Annie’ who was a servant at one time. She had been 14 years old & had been abused sexually by the master of the workhouse & had died with child, at the hands of the master ‘Frank’ by strangulation. She was still afraid of him as he was still around & he had never been brought to justice. There were other spirits around but ‘Frank’ would not allow them to speak to us. Her younger brother (7) witnessed the attack on her & had also not crossed over.

We then moved to back to the downstairs main hall to try another human pendulum near the rear of the hall as Group ‘B’ had a lot of activity there earlier. With the K2meter on the mast & Ian in the centre of the human pendulum this time, we made contact again with the spirit of ‘Annie’. Apparently the main hall was a safe place for her & ‘Frank’ had not followed her there. She thought we were dressed strangely & did not like Linda’s scary nun outfit. Harry reminded her of her brother. We called out for her to talk to us or shout into the EVP device or the K2. At this point I picked up on the words “You can’t hear me. You can’t hear me” inside my head.
Ian’s neck began to ache at this stage just like Harry’s had earlier. I got the name ‘Clifford’ in my head & when Nic asked if Annie’s brother was named Clifford, the response was a strong YES from the human pendulum. The K2 at this point began responding to 2 green lights, briefly jumping to amber & back again.

There was a big build-up of energy around us at this stage, with more than one of us feeling it. With Nic picking up on ‘Frank’ being in the doorway & that he still thought he was in charge. I got a very strong sense of a male shouting “whore” at me, at which point the K2 lit up strongly and again when we asked if anyone else had come into the room. We asked if ‘Frank’ was still in the doorway & got a resounding YES response from the human pendulum & the K2. I got the name ‘Nancy’ come to me which prompted another strong Yes response from the human pendulum. When asked if Frank was still at the door the pendulum response was NO and I got the word “upstairs” in my head and “Frank’s a swine”. Ian became a little drained at this stage so we closed off the pendulum as it was almost 1:30am & the other group had come downstairs ready for the debrief.

In all a successful evening. Everyone seemed to have had a great night & were happy to be back out investigating again. We can’t wait to do it again somewhere else next year.

Thank you to Thorne Former Workhouse and Dave for having us back & to the guests for joining us and dressing up. And a big thankyou to Nic & Brett for the treat bags of sweeties & the refreshments.