THE?Chronicle’s resident paranormal expert Claire Barrand goes behind the scenes at the paper’s Nevill Street offices to uncover the mystery behind it resident ghosts...

Having heard all the stories about the resident ghost at our very own Abergavenny Chronicle’s offices in Nevill Street, last Friday, editor Liz Davies very kindly invited my sister and paranormal partner in crime, Linzi Smith and I to conduct our very own vigil at the Chronicle’s offices.

Built in 1730-1750 Tindle House in Nevill Street offers a wealth of spooky stories, well documented now, and known to move chairs or heavy desks, launch heavy felt tablecloths at visitors to the board room,throw bottle tops at cleaners, whispers and footsteps heard so we were intrigued to see what evidence we could collect via our preferred method of spirit detection, EVP.

In the paranormal world, electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are the sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices that have been recorded via digital devices such as voice recorders.

We use a normal handheld digital recorder for our investigations. We also decided to do an Echovox session. Echovox is an audio app, used by many investigators with the use of a database of phonemes (parts of words) although it is so new in the field of Paranormal IT, it is something the jury is still out about with many skeptics and investigators alike, us included.

Many paranormal investigators experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the afterlife, including EMF readers, temperature monitors, static detectors, videos and cameras and the use of trigger objects.

The National Spiritualist Association of Churches has commented that "An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device”

We were able to sit quietly until 2am, simply talking to spirit, inviting them to come forward and make themselves known to us whilst recording. During the evening we had quite a bit of activity.

When sat in the board room, we all heard a loud scraping noise coming from behind the closed door – as if a large object was moved. We asked “them to move it again” and a disembodied male voice is heard on our recording saying “not moving”.

A candle flame in the center of the table bounced avidly in response to other questions, but no breeze was detectable.

When we later moved into Liz’s office her desk had moved about an inch or so, evident by the impressions in the carpet where it had long been stood.

When we asked for a name we heard “Ben”. Liz told us the story about a young man called Ben Hales who former Chronicle editor Edgar Straker wrote about once.

Ben was caught up in a terrible situation after a man was stabbed to death in 1834 and he was hanged for the crime despite his protestations of innocence.

After the rope was cut, someone discovered Ben was still barely alive and managed to hide him in an attic in an unknown building in Nevill Street, to recover. Local children would catch him standing in the window and declare they had seen the “ghost of Ben Hayes” and so he was soon discovered and hanged again.

Years later, on his death bed another man confessed to the stabbing., however, when asked “is this you Ben?” we got very clear responses.“Yes” he said. “Do you need help Ben?” I asked. “Nope” was the reply. “Happy” he concluded.

The scent of cigarette smoke was evident during the evening, as the spirit of a former typist Marjorie Jackson has been known to appear on previous investigations.

As we discussed the smell.. a long exhale is heard! Was this Marjorie listening to us, amused as she smoked her Three Castles tobacco?

We all heard a snigger as Liz asked a few questions in Welsh... captured on record. ”Were you laughing at my Welsh, Ben?” Liz said later on... “No...No.. Yes” was the reply on the Echovox.

In the attic room, we all saw a tall black shadow blocking off the faint lights shining from a streetlight outside on the wall...and heard the floorboards creaking in the same area by the door...who was there watching us? We certainly didn’t feel alone. We played some music, Linzi and I believe that spirit enjoys hearing the music they would have listened to whilst in their physical body. Then I asked out, “what music did you like to listen to?” A clear response is heard... which I think may be saying saying Jaëll (17 August 1846 – 4 February 1925) - who was a French pianist.

Madame Ardin, a Belgium refugee from WW1 resided at Tindle House in 1930... could she have been a fan of Jaell?

In the ground floor offices, we wondered if Mr Edgar Straker was with us as my torch left across the room was turning on and off to our questions

At this point Liz asked “If you have read any of Claire’s articles Mr Straker can you turn the torch on after three? one..two..three...”.

Well, I think he decided that “no comment” was the most diplomatic approach on this occasion.

We concluded that Tindle House is certainly haunted by friendly spirits.

Ghosts that like to keep the editor and staff on their toes, but are certainly are nothing sinister or anything to fear.

Abergavenny has many an amazing building steeped in history and based in the heart of our historic town, Tindle House has a main purpose, being the hub of news and information, who wouldn’t want to reside here? I too would find it difficult to stay away.

A collection of just some of our EVP evidence is online for you to listen to and decide for yourself what the Abergavenny Chronicle Ghosts have to report - visit the Chronicle’s website at www.abergavennychronicle.com to hear the results