Most Haunted At Hodroyd Hall, Part One - Series 24, Episode 4 Review
This article is more than five years old.
In the first episode of a three-part investigation, Yvette had brought her team to a beautiful location near Barnsley in the Yorkshire Dales. An all-but-deserted manor house that boasts a history of murder, death and intrigue.
There's been a building occupying the site since the 12th century, one of the earliest residents was Sir John de Hoderode, who was the steward at Pontefract Castle.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Hodroyd Hall fell into the hands of Sir Thomas Gargrave of Nostell Priory and stayed in the hands of the Gargrave family until 1623, when it was acquired by Dr Richard Berrie. After he married Prudence Gargrave, they placed their entwined coat of arms at the rear of the property. The coat of arms at the front of the hall is that of the Monckton family, who owned Hodroyd Hall from 1725 until 1911.
Since then, this most majestic building has been a military hospital, convent and back to a family home.
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Is Hodroyd Hall Haunted?
Over the years there has been many stories of strange occurrences. Dark shadows have been seen wandering the empty corridors, the apparitions of a faceless man and hunched over monk have been witnessed, and the ghost of a servant girl burnt alive after being pushed into a fireplace by an unknown assailant is eager to make her presence known.
Just about every single room in this building has a paranormal story attached to it, from doors slamming and heavy footsteps, to full-bodied apparitions being seen. And even more mysteriously, pennies are said to fall from seemingly nowhere.
The hall's main staircase is said to be haunted by the clear sound of disembodied footsteps and the ghost of a tall man, known locally as Dr Bell, who is often seen walking up and down the stairs.
The dark and gloomy attic is full of cobwebs, but once would have been home to the hustle and bustle of the many servants that served this great house. Although those glory days are gone, their ghosts are still seen roaming throughout the floor in the dead of night.
Yvette says that the hall has become one of her most favourite locations of all time, she said "it just has a fantastic feel to it and I'm so excited about being here because it's got so much history to it and it's got some great stories associated with it."
The show's resident skeptic, Glen Hunt, agreed he said, "you don't feel any bad vibes the moment you walk through the threshold of the place and it feel really really homely."
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The Cellar
As darkness fell outside, the team started their investigation in the hall's eerie basement. Yvette was joined by the show's demonologist Fred Batt, as well as Karl Beattie and camera man Gregg Smith. They also had a familiar face from the past with them, Rick Fielding, who was a part of the original Most Haunted team when it first aired on Living TV in 2002. Upon entering the dark underground caverns, Rick said, "it's definitely very eerie, there's definitely a presence in here."
As soon as the team started walking through the cellar, a piece of metal was thrown from an unknown source, it hit the stone floor with some force. A concerned Karl said, "when something gets thrown, and certainly something metallic, you've gotta start worrying because you've got to start thinking to yourself if that hits us in the head that's gonna hurt."
The team soon started hearing tapping, that seemed to respond to their questions, tapping out one for 'no' and two for 'yes'. Then a few minutes later, a piece of metal was thrown, it was revealed to be a short length of copper pipe, which landed at the feet of Rick and Karl.
As a result of this Fred vanished. Gregg said that after the pipe was thrown for a second time Fred had stormed off. This lead to the team halting the investigation as they couldn't continue without being able to vouch for everyone's whereabouts. After a search off camera they found Fred, who had apparently left after feeling overcome by an instant sickness and had to leave. He rejoined the team and they continued with their investigation.
Straight away they heard something else metallic hit the floor. After a search they couldn't determine what it was, then seconds later it happened again and this time the team discovered that it was an old penny which had fallen to the ground. Over the next few minutes the same thing happened several more times.
As they were about to leave they heard another odd sound, like a dull thud or a foot stomping on the hard floor and as they finally climbed the stairs out of the cellar, what sounded like a handful of coins was thrown. They ended up with 7p after their time in the cellar.
While most of the team were in the basement, Glen had been in the main part of the house with sound guy, Darren Hutchinson. Apart from a few faint tapping sounds, very little was experienced during their vigil. So Glen decided to go down to the cellar to see if he would experience any of the phenomenon the others had there. He was joined by Fred and Rick.
Fred started calling out to the spirits of the cellar, "if you are here come forward". Seconds later the sound of a penny dropping was once again heard and over the next few minutes, they too experienced several coins hitting the floor from seemingly nowhere.
A voice over from Yvette then said that coins appearing from thin air is a worldwide paranormal phenomena. She explained, "my recent research shows that the coins are usually old pennies and generally seem to land heads up. Across different cultures and beliefs this occurrence has many different explanations, but the most common is that they represent a positive sign of blessings and love." All of the coins the team found had indeed landed heads up, apart from the last which was tails up, which happened after Fred called out and specifically asked for a coin to be thrown tails up.
Fred thought that the coins being thrown might be reflective of the old musical days, he says "when people were bad on stage they used to throw coins at them." An astonished Rick said, "I'm absolutely gobsmacked. This is absolutely a first for me, I've never seen anything like this. This is the most bizarre thing I've ever ever seen."
After this the episode came to an end but there is still plenty more to come from the teams investigation of Hodroyd Hall, the second part of the investigation airs in next week's episode.
The new series of Most Haunted continues on Really. Watch on Freeview (17), Sky (155) and Virgin Media (129), or watch previous episodes of Most Haunted on demand on the UKTV Player.
For reviews of all of the new episodes, plus highlights and evidence from the shows, and to find out when Most Haunted is on next, visit the Most Haunted episode guide.
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