To our delight we had a great opportunity to investigate 'Calthorpe House', an old, empty house, built in 1750, in the centre of Great Yarmouth. The property was originally a grand merchants house. Later it was used as accommodation for doctors and senior nurses of the old hospital which stood very near to the location of the property. Most recently, the property provided a safe environment for education and rehabilitation for people with mental health issues.

A few days before the investigation Val was walking past as she looked up, at the many windows, she saw the hazy figure of a young lady. She had red/ginger hair and appeared to be wearing a white, old fashioned, dress. As their gaze met the figure seemed to 'duck' back. Val was very excited about this and soon told Penny.

This, incidentally, is common practice for us as it is a good idea to document any prior knowledge or experience which might be picked up by our mediums during the investigation.

We started the investigation at about 8.30 pm. Our first thought, as there was no electricity supply, was to do a quick walk around and familiarise ourselves with the many rooms and the layout of the property whilst there was still some daylight. As there was no power it was back to basics in terms of the equipment we could use. We, obviously, took torches and our digital cameras. In addition we took stealth cameras, EMF meters and digital voice recorders. It reminded us how lucky we are today to be able to use more high tech equipment e.g. CCTV systems. In spite of this 'set back' it was refreshing to get back to good 'old fashioned' ghost hunting.

After exploring the vast, rambling interior it was apparent that the atmosphere was calm and friendly, not as foreboding as one might expect from a building of such age and stature. We had been 'warned', by the key holder that “... the place is very spooky...”. However, there were a couple of upstairs rooms, a room on the ground floor and the cellar in which our mediums felt the energy of spirit. Our guest, Nicky, held the K2 (emf) meter as we walked around, unfortunately the K2 didn't register the energy.

The cellar was very atmospheric, as we made our way down the stairs, by torch light, amid the cobwebs and spiders we found that the torch batteries kept draining.

Often an indicator of spirit presence, they 'borrow' energy, not only from ourselves but also from our equipment.

Penny's camera would not work at all. There was a sudden flourish of activity with Carl, Val and Nicky all feeling the rush of air passing them.. Penny didn't feel this, although she was standing in very close proximity to the others. As this was happening the K2 meter flashed straight to red.

This particular EMF meter has an array of lights, which go from green, though amber to red depending on the amount of electrical energy it is sensing.

The activity was so quick and unexpected that Carl was not able to gain any information from, whatever had passed us. We decided to deploy one of our stealth cameras in this area, in the hope of capturing 'scientific' evidence of spirit presence.

The stealth camera takes up to 9 photographs in quick succession when/if the sensor picks up activity in front of it.

Although Val had made sure that all the batteries in our equipment were new, and in good working order, prior to our investigation the stealth camera had to have new ones put in again, because they had drained, also our digital cameras were experiencing the same energy draining, in this area of the property. Eventually, after two battery changes, the stealth camera was set and we looked around the rest of the cellar. This area was very small and cramped it had two small rooms. Nicky and Penny went into the two rooms and could feel nothing. As they rejoined Carl and Val the K2 meter 'spiked' again to red and straight back down again. There were electric meters etc. down in the cellar, we passed the K2 right near them, just to be sure and the meter remained in it's default position, registering nothing. It remained a mystery as to what was causing the activity. As the cellar was otherwise quiet we decided to return to base, leaving the stealth to monitor it for us.

Next we made our way to the top floor, the building had 3 stories, to one of the bedrooms that had, earlier, attracted our mediums. Both Tracey and Carl described a young woman who they sensed in the room. The description they gave matched the one Val had seen prior to our visit.

It is worth noting here that Carl had arrived later that the others, due to work commitments. Val, Tracey, Nicky and Penny had visited the bedroom before Carl arrived and Tracey described the lady to us. When Carl entered the room, despite having no knowledge of what 'the girls' had discovered there, it became apparent that he was sensing the same lady.

Carl also sensed a younger boy, in the room he felt the pair were close friends, but not in a relationship. Whilst in this room, but at different times, both Tracey and Penny were distracted by noises on the landing outside. Penny stood in the doorway, in view of the others, she sensed children were running and playing out there. The team heard one or two knocks, so tried to communicate with the spirits there but as they could not get a response and all fell quiet the team returned to base, downstairs.

We decided to have a comfort break and Carl had to leave us, at this point. Whilst sitting chatting and enjoying a cuppa, Tracey and Val became aware of someone in the room with us. The room temperature was fluctuating, with the team all experiencing cold and then normal temperatures, although our thermometer did not confirm this, the reading remained constant only varying by a point of a degree or so.

With things falling quiet over the house we decided to call it a night. We collected the stealth camera from the cellar. There was one set of photograph taken and to our dismay it was pictures of the bottoms of our legs and our lovely shoes.. Still at least we had a good laugh at the end of the evening.

We enjoyed the our investigation and would love to go back in the future, as it was such a large house to investigate in one evening.