Complete Review Of Most Haunted Early-2019 Series
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January seemed to drag on forever, cold, grey and miserable, but one thing that brought a bit of joy early in the new year was the return of Most Haunted to the Really channel.
There's a bit of confusion over series numbers as the show's creators count the number of series differently to websites like IMDb and the count even conflicts with the DVD boxset number system. Even UKTV have given up and simply refer to it as the 9th series they've aired since the show moved from its original broadcaster in 2015. So, to make things easier, we're just going to refer to it as the early-2019 series.
Yvette Fielding returned with her normal team, including the show's resident skeptic, Glen Hunt and demonologist, Fred Batt, but there were a few surprise cameos in the series too. The ten new episodes saw the team searching for paranormal activity in five new locations across the UK, starting out with a two-hour-long "As-Live" special filmed in real-time at the Eden Camp Museum in Malton, North Yorkshire.
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For more from Yvette and the gang, check out our 'Most Haunted' hub, where you will find up to date news on the show, highlights and evidence from the latest investigations, and a complete 'Most Haunted' episode guide.
The special at the former WWII prison camp got the team off to a flying start and proved to be an active location, giving the team plenty of scares, including Yvette and Karl Beattie's daughter, Mary who embarked on her first investigation as part of the show.
Yvette introduced Mary to viewers and said that she is "representing our younger teenaged fanbase". Mary appeared in both episodes shot at Eden Camp and even braved a vigil on her own. Mary went down well with fans of the show, many taking to social media to say how they wished she'd stuck around for the rest of the series.
The big moment of the investigation was when Karl and Stuart Torevell went alone to a prefabricated house, one of the museum's many outbuildings. While in the old-style wartime living room, which Stuart described as being like a room at your grandparents' house, he started calling out, "move something in this living room so we know you're here, we know you're capable of doing it" and as soon as he said that a bike that could be seen in shot in the hallway through the door moved.
It was clear to see that the luggage rack over the back wheel lifted up, then the whole bike was pulled backwards before landing on its side on the floor. The fact the rack is seen lifting indicates that the bike didn't just fall over, it was dragged.
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The gripping episode had thousands of viewers taking to Twitter to tweet-along with the show, which resulted in #MostHaunted trending at No. 4 in the UK. And, there was plenty to tweet about. The team experienced strange spikes in the ambient electromagnetic field that was picked up on their EMF meters, a door was caught opening on its own on camera several times, and Karl and Stuart experienced knocking on the prefab house's door, despite no one being there.
The second location the team investigated was a Victorian Mansion in Manchester, which is now abandoned and in a sorry state, but is slowly being restored to its former glory for use as a music, art and photography haven. The episode was probably the slowest of the series, but one intriguing moment came towards the end of the investigation when Fred was in the basement with camera man Gregg Smith and sound guy Darren Hutchinson.
They heard the sound of something metal hitting the floor, bouncing off of Gregg as it did. They found that a coin had been responsible for the sound. The incident happened at the same time as Glen, who was in another part of the building, said "if you want to let us know you're here without alarming us, can you drop some coins?"
Next the team embarked on a three-part investigation of Hodroyd Hall, a 12th century hall in Barnsley, where visitors have seen the ghosts of a monk and a nun. There's also been sightings of a spirit known as Dr. Bell on the hall's staircase and the ghost of a murdered maid.
Yvette said that the hall had 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."
Yvette was joined by a familiar face from the past, her brother, Rick Fielding, who was a part of the original Most Haunted team when it first aired on Living TV in 2002. Just like Mary, his cameo went down well with fans of the show, especially many female viewers, who commented online that Rick has aged well. Rick appeared in all three episodes shot at Hodroyd Hall, but sadly as he was just visiting from the US where he now lives, there's no plans for him to feature in any more up coming episodes.
The location proved to be very active, with a short length of copper pipe being thrown in the cellar, but that wasn't they only copper being thrown around. Through out the investigation there were several instances of coins being thrown around, having seemingly appeared from nowhere. This happened in various parts of the hall, including in the cellar and the attic.
The coins were old pennies, sometimes thrown one-at-a-time, other times a handful scattered across the floor, what was weird is they all landed heads-up.
Yvette then explained that coins appearing from thin air is a worldwide paranormal phenomena, "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."
However Fred thinks that it 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."
Later in the investigation, while in the orangery, Yvette conducted a tapping board experiment where she ran her finger across the rows of keys on a laptop and asked the spirits to tap to indicate a letter in order to spell out a word or phrase. Using this method, Yvette was able to deduce that she was talking to the spirit of a man named Henry Harries, who died in May 1901.
Fred was able to check this information against records he had relating to the property. According to Fred, "Henry Harries aged 55 who was a groom and gardener for Mrs Spencer at the hall. Died instantly when he fell from his cycle on 11th May, 1901."
In another strong two-parter, Yvette and co visit the Grade I listed Kelham Hall, which stands in 52 acres of Nottinghamshire parkland. The hall is said to be haunted by the sound of loud voices and footsteps. Items have been move around in empty rooms and many are too afraid to enter the building's cellars alone.
Early in the investigation, Yvette again conducted a tapping board experiment, this time using her mobile phone. Running her finger over the phone's keyboard, Yvette was able to obtain the name "Johnathan Collebrough". Another question and series of taps revealed that Johnathan died in 1771.
This name and date matched a person listed in Fred's research he'd conducted on the property before the show. According to Fred, Johnathan was one of the priests who lived at the hall. He was 89 when he died and is buried in the churchyard across the road.
Later in the investigation, Gregg had a chilling encounter in the hall's cellar. He jumped out of his skin when there was a loud metallic crash from around him in the darkness. This turned out to be a large metal pipe that had fallen from somewhere. Due to the weight of the pipe, Gregg described the incident as concerning, "because that's either fallen off the ceiling or something's thrown that."
Gregg propped the pipe up against a chair in a way that it wouldn't fall and walked through to the adjoining chamber. As he did the pipe was seemingly thrown through the doorway. Later, speaking into the camera, he tells us he can smells a sulphur-like smell similar to burning matches, then he's cutoff mid-sentence when he's startled by a loud crash as something is thrown nearby.
Gregg walked through into the adjoining chamber to find that some storage racking has been pushed over. He said, "I'm not happy, I'm getting out," but before he ran off explained what had happened, "one of these cabinets there, which was right there and it's down on the deck." After that he didn't hang around and made his way out of the cellar as quickly as he could.
Meanwhile, Karl was alone in one of the upper corridors where he heard what sounded like a laugh or a cry coming from behind a closed door. He quickly opened the door into the room to find an office chair just the other side of the door spinning. Karl described the evidence as "amazing."
Later while stood outside that same room with the door closed, Karl heard a loud knock on the door, but once inside the room it was revealed to be empty. When he left the room via the same door he'd came in just moments before, a recycling bin had been dragged into his path.
The final location of the series was Guy's Cliffe House in Warwickshire. The main house fell into disrepair in the 1950s and is now in ruins, but the adjoining building, St Mary's Chapel is said to be a hotbed for paranormal activity and is now a Freemasons' lodge.
Throughout the investigation several objects were thrown near the team, including bricks, stones and at one point a piece of scaffolding bar that had been leaning against a wall fell over, but the most fascinating moment came towards the end of the second episode.
Yvette was with Karl and Darren in the middle chamber, a small wood-panelled room. They started to feel the table shaking and vibrating underneath their fingers and very soon the table started lifting up, seemingly levitating under its own power. Yvette said, "my god, it's actually floating." The long rectangular table began to twist and turn, when the team attempted to turn it back, they were surprised by how heavy it was.
After a while Darren placed the camera under the table so we could see the team's feet, although not clearly because of the small room and tightness of the shot. The table continued to move and then, once the camera was placed on top of the table again, it started to vibrate and rock violently.
The movement became so violent that at one point the camera almost fell off of the table. Karl eventually stood up with the camera to get the whole table in shot. The table continued to shake and vibrate and then once again began to float from one end.
It was an impressive end to the final investigation of the series and with a bike being dragged at Eden Camp, through to the table lifting at Guy's Cliffe, it has proved to be one of the most active series yet.
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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