Landguard Fort has existed, in one form or another, since 1543, and sits on the mouth of the River Orwell in the town of Felixstowe, Suffolk. There have been a number of fortifications built on Landguard Point over the years. In 1543 Henry VIII had two blockhouses built which rapidly deteriorated, so in 1552 the guns were returned to the Tower of London. In 1628, a new Fort was built of earth revetted with wood. In 1717, a new brick Fort was constructed, but gave way to a new structure in 1744, when a new red brick Fort was built in the form of a pentagon, with a bastion at each corner. These walls remain today. In 1871, the Fort was remodelled using yellow London bricks, and in 1878, a submarine mining establishment was constructed by excavating a test room within the thick walls of the Fort, building an observation room and adding a main building on the east side. 1901, because the existing armament of the Fort became obsolete, new batteries were built in front of the Fort facing the sea and river. After the main guns were removed, and for most of the 20th century, the fort was used as barrack accommodation. In 1956 the Coastal Artillery was disbanded and Landguard Fort no longer had a national military purpose. After 10 years of military neglect, the fort was sealed up and left to quietly disintegrate until the 1980’s when the fort was structurally consolidated by English Heritage. Activity includes sightings of a solitary musketeer witnessed many times by soldiers during the Second World War, marching along a rampart. He is said to have been the only defender who lost his life during a Dutch invasion attempt, and it is said dogs are notoriously afraid of this area. Another soldier that haunts the fort is a Victorian Artilleryman. In the middle of an afternoon, a female worker in the shop was more than a little surprised to see this phantom figure step through a wall and grin at her, before turning around and stepping back into the wall. Maria is likely to be the most well known spirit to be found at the fort. It is said in the mid eighteenth century she was the Portuguese bride of the fort’s paymaster sergeant who it is believed was executed by firing squad after which Maria, in a moment of madness, flung herself from the ramparts to her death.

This was my first visit to Landguard Fort, but one of many fort investigations, and previous visits to Brockhurst and Coalhouse gave me great anticipation for an enjoyable event. This was also my second outing with the Farsight Paranormal team with whom I have since become an official member. The event was as always superbly well organised by Ash and the team, and the only shortcoming was the fact that temperatures in and around the fort were set to plummet to well below freezing as the night went on. Nevertheless we bravely put our best foot forward and after the safety talk from one of the staff members we set about arranging the equipment and setting up our remote cameras throughout the fort, which incidentally was no simple task.

Once our equipment and experiments were all in place we set about on the first of our five vigils for the night and headed a short distance to the corridors and tunnels which circled the inside of the main fortification. This vigil proved to be something of a disappointment as all remained quiet despite our attempts at EVP experiments and calling out in various rooms and locations along the tunnels. After a short break we made our way to the upper levels and the Holland Baston - a location where it is believed the image of a Cavalier has been seen before. Again we attempted a few EVP experiments, to no avail and decided to move across the fort to the adjoining Gun Room (the name we had give the room which housed a giant replica gun). Here we experienced our first anomaly of the night, as while the temperature was already touching freezing we started to notice an unusual and sudden drop shortly after arriving in the room. Typically with the presence of a team we would expect a stable or slight rise in room temperature even though it was so cold, but to the contrary we recorded a drop of 6 degrees over the period of about 15 minutes. This is by no means proof of anything paranormal, and could well have been to do with the extreme cold temperatures and the failing of our Non Contact IR Thermometer in picking up a consistent reading, but it gave us food for thought nevertheless.

After another short break we moved onto the Chapel Baston, a set of two small rooms in the corner of the fort and a location where it is rumoured a re-enactment team who had stayed at the fort overnight had heard the screams of what they supposed to be the spirit of Maria falling to her death from the nearby ramparts. It was in a later vigil that we felt a possible explanation for screaming sounds had been discovered when we heard similar noises from outside the fort and identified these to be the sounds of crying foxes - so it may be that we had found a plausible solution for one of the forts many tales. The vigil in the Chapel was for the most part uneventful although we did record another sharp drop in temperature again, and the similarity to the previous experience lead me to believe that this lent weight to a theory of this being a simple anomaly with the equipment combined with the already extremely cold temperatures both inside and outside the fort. Had the drop been recorded in areas where a more regular temperature was the norm this would have been more impressive, but considering it was so cold on this night it really must be considered that this was nothing more than natural fluctuations.

Our penultimate vigil of the night took place back in the tunnels and corridors of the main building, this time taking us to the opposite side to where our first vigil had taken place. The vigil began quietly until about half way through we heard a couple of loud bangs, like doors slamming along the furthest part of he corridor. We set off to investigate and noticed that there were a number of unsecured doors in this area which were easily able to swing quite freely. We decided to experiment with these by opening each of the doors fully and returning to our previous position. After only a few minutes we heard the bangs again and returned to see if any of other doors had now swung shut - and we found that one particular door was now closed. Now on first impression there did not appear to be any obvious breezes running through the corridors, although it was relatively windy outside - yet we could not experience anything we thought could obviously slam these doors with such force. It was then that we noticed there was an entrance to the corridor from the outside which had been left open and this was adjacent to the specific door in question. We initially felt however that any breeze would surely have been absorbed by the wall opposite rather than moving at 90 degrees along the corridor. We closed the outside door and returned to our positions. This time there was no banging heard, so we returned and re-opened the outside door again and waited to watch the effects. It was only a few seconds later that the same door in the corridor started closing shut and at this point we realised the forces at work here. The wall which was opposite the outside door was curved like an alcove, and as such the wind must have hit the wall and whipped around the curvature of the wall. Also the furthest part of the frame belonging to door in question was just exposed enough for this breeze to hit the edge and push the door shut. For a moment we had hoped something strange might have occurred, but it was eventually another example of perfectly natural forces at work.

The final vigil of the night saw the two teams coming together for a final group vigil on the upper floors of the main building. We made our way over to the mapping and communications rooms where we did experience a few strange things. First of all while walking through the corridors adjoining the rooms there were some suggestions from team members that a shadow or an image was spotted and upon hearing this I took off alone to investigate the area. I was soon joined by Jim and Ian, and decided to return back to the mapping room where I sat on the stairs which led to a platform overlooking the room. While sitting on the stairs I started to feel an icy chill, and could not distinguish whether this was the effect of a night in sub-freezing temperatures or simply my imagination, but while I continued to sit there I did notice the air around my feet getting remarkably cold. I asked Jim to take temperature readings, which were inconclusive, at which time Leanne came along and stood beside me next to the stairs. At this point Jim suggested seeing a shape or face between Leanne and I and although I could not say I witnessed anything of the sort or felt any significant changes in atmosphere Jim seemed convinced enough. Jim then took my place on the stairs and he too suggested feeling a coldness around the bottom of his legs. We could not identify any obvious draughts or breezes in this area and in the following moments things appeared to return to normal. On a personal level I don't believe this to have been a paranormal experience as it was particularly ambiguous and fleeting in nature, but it did give me pause for thought while the temperature around me appeared to fall so sharply. Our night had come to an end, and we set about clearing out the equipment and reflected upon an interesting investigation - it was certainly chilling, but not for the reasons I had hoped.