The Grade Two-listed Old Rectory dates from the early 1500s. The Rectors of Cheam were also Bishops of Chichester for many years and the post is still an important Church position. One Rector, Anthony Watson, wrote an eyewitness account of Nonsuch Palace in 1538. He was Elizabeth 1st’s almoner, a key court position, and was about five minutes’ ride from Nonsuch. It is tempting to imagine the Rectory, which would have formed a kind of B&B for prominent visitors to the Court, humming with gossip. Queen Elizabeth 1st said, ‘I love well of Nonsuch air’ and hunted in the park with her boyfriend, the Earl of Leicester. Later, Nonsuch was a centre of Catholic plotting to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. The Lumley family lived here for years but the Palace decayed until Charles 2nd gave it to Barbara, Lady Castlemaine, a high-maintenance sexy piece, who had it pulled down and sold the stones to pay her gambling debts. A well-known Rector of Cheam was Lancelot Andrewes who wrote the famous meditation on the Magi: ‘A cold coming they had of it. Just the very worst time for a journey, and such a long journey.’ These words were taken by T.S. Eliot to open his famous poem, Journey of the Magi. The Old Rectory is said to have more than seven ghosts. They are very shy and the house has a warm and friendly atmosphere. Activity has included a Roman Legion seen marching through the Sitting Room, former rector Henry Peach seen resting his arm on the fireplace in the Dining Room, and a White Lady witnessed on the 1st Floor Landing. The negative energy of a past rector is said to inhabit the Green Room while 3 wounded Cavaliers have been seen in the Venetian Room. A woman in black has also been seen running across the road outside and is said to run through the front door and up the stairs before disappearing.

We were warmly welcomed by owner Jane Furnival upon our arrival, and after bringing the equipment into the Rectory we were given a tour of the property together with accounts of all the experiences Jane had in particular been exposed over the years. The building very much carried a family atmosphere as it was still home to Jane's teenage children as well as some loyal animals, which in many ways made this a unique location for an investigation. The building had seen much activity in recent weeks including photo shoots for the John Lewis catalogue as well as playing host to film crews from time to time. The property itself, although a little rough around the edges, was a delightful example of Elizabethan architecture and was certainly something of a gem.

After setting up the CCTV cameras and various experiments we split the team into groups to investigate the different floors of the Rectory. We began on the upper floors where we started our investigation in the notorious Green Room where Jane believed the only real dark energy existed, believed to be that of a former Rector. I began by setting up a new divination experiment which involved a pack of playing cards and some corresponding lettered and numbered cards to represent the 14 different types of card (A, 2 to 10, J, Q and K). The idea was that the team would attempt glass divination, however a playing card would be drawn by one of them from the deck, hidden to them, and I would hold this up away from the table asking for any spirit presence to help move the glass to the appropriate lettered and numbered card around the table which matched the playing card. Our first attempt suggested a possible presence as the glass quickly moved to a card, however it was not a correct match. The second attempt however was more successful and certainly raised my hopes that adding an element of control to glass divination might just offer some element of proof to something unusual taking place. The next four attempts however were all unsuccessful even though each time the glass moved to a card. The results were disappointing to say the least, but it did prove that the experiment was worthy of continuing on other investigations. For the remainder of the vigil Liz and Jen stayed in the Green Room while Cliff, Lee and myself moved to The Venetian Room next door, and all remained quiet for both groups.

My next vigil took place on the ground floor where we decided to try our hands at solo vigils in the cellar. Each team member spent 10 minutes alone, but up until my turn it had proved to me something of a disappointment. When I entered the cellar I sat on one of the chairs with my video camera running and asked out for any sign of presence. As I half expected there were no responses, and in all none of the team recorded any activity. The final vigils of the night began with a visit to the Laundry and Stables area adjacent to the main house. Here again we recorded no signs of activity, so we decided to return for one last time to the Green Room to attempt Glass Divination with the cards again. We were having very little success, so decided to try some card guessing between us by drawing a single card and asking each team member to pick the exact number and suit of each. To our surprise both Kev and myself picked correctly from four attempts, which did somewhat go against the laws of chance, but to say that was the most paranormal thing of the night pretty much summed up this investigation. The Old Rectory is an incredible building which gave so much hope and expectation for the night ahead, but unfortunately failed to deliver. This just goes to show the fickle and unpredictable nature of the paranormal world.