The Guildhall of today is the fourth such building within the city of Salisbury. The first Guildhall dates back to Medieval times, when it was known as “The Bishop’s Guildhall”. Then, in 1585 the guild built a new headquarters called “The Council House”, to the north of The Bishop’s Guildhall. In 1780, The Council House was burnt down after a banquet. The second Earl of Radnor, the City Recorder, then made the generous offer of providing a new building at his own expense. The Bishop’s Guildhall had fallen into a ruinous condition, with the Bishop unable to afford its upkeep. The new Guildhall was built practically on the site of the old one. Alterations were made to the building in 1829 which led to the addition of the Grand Jury Room, extensions to the size of the courts and new accommodation for the judges. Since that date, other alterations have been made, including extensive internal alterations. Since the Municipal Corporations’ Act, 1835, the whole building has been under control of the then City Council, now Salisbury District Council. In 1991 over £1 million was spent on restoring the Guildhall. Activity at The Guildhall includes sightings of a White (or Grey) Lady on the stairs leading up to the Oak Court, Unexplained cold breezes and noises in the lobby area and upstairs chambers, and feelings of uneasiness in the public toilet area. A man in his late 20’s is said to haunt the whole building but is quite often seen around the Guildhall cells, and people has describe the feeling of being watched throughout the whole building.

Salisbury Guildhall would be one of the shorter Paranormal Tours investigations as we only had 6 hours to explore, but the shortened version of our events often mean that the energy and intensity are heightened. We were joined by medium John Crowdey and warmly welcomed by Barry who would be our guide and host for the night. We also had the good fortune of spending an hour with local historian Margaret Smith who joined us on the traditional ghost walk at the start of the night. This was again a time for John to shine, as he picked up on the spirit of a very elegant lady who would be seen and heard on the stairs. Margaret confirmed that there was indeed a well known reported sighting of a White or Grey Lady on the stairs. While in the Oak Court John also felt the presence of a judge who had a rather negative energy. He described him as a rather tall man wearing red robes with white 'fluffy' stripes down the front and felt he would take no nonsense and handed out stiff sentences. This was also confirmed by Margaret as the description matches a Judge Park who was a very stern judge who handed out 28 death sentences in one year. Moving on to the Juvenile Court and Cells John correctly suggested that a building here had suffered a large firs and that he could see flames everywhere which could relate to the Elizabethan Guildhall which was destroyed by fire in 1780.

The investigation would consist of three hour long vigils and I started by taking a team to the Oak Court Team where we had something of an eventful time. A number of the team swore that they could see small lights and a shadow moving on the balcony which is a location popularly known to be haunted by a small girl. We also had some physical experiences as shortly after the vigil had started Claire and Ash noticed that their digital camera which was placed on the bench shelf in front of them suddenly vibrated and slid off towards them. It must be noticed that the shelf is slanted towards the bench so items would naturally slide in that direction, but both of them assured us that the camera did appear to vibrate on its own before it moved, and no other vibrations were felt in the room and no team members were near that bench at the time. It was then suggested that this might be the young girl trying to interact with us so we took a marble and placed it on one of the deep grooves on a bench shelf near the front of the court. I checked that knocking the bench would not cause it to roll of, and it was only with a large forceful shunt that I managed to dislodge the marble. We left it there under observation and asked politely for this girl, who we had now named Claire also as we had two Claire’s in the group, to try and knock it off as she may have already done with the camera. For about 15 minutes nothing happened and we took our focus off the marble, however shortly after we heard a thus on the floor and Kev exclaimed that the marble has just rolled off the shelf. He had been stood nearby but guaranteed he had not accidentally caused any vibrations, while we checked if any of the team had unknowingly jogged the bench at all. Ash did suggest he may have brushed past it, but when trying to replicate this we could not get the marble to roll off once more. It is certainly not conclusive evidence of anything paranormal, but was interesting nevertheless.

Our next vigil took place in the Juvenile Court and Cells where for the most part things were quiet. We attempted an experiment by locking various members of the team in one of the cells along the corridor leaving them to try and experience some activity, and initially this was unsuccessful. Our final attempt however did have some interesting results as Linda and Claire decided to enter the cell together and during this time they experimented with whistling out loud in the hope that they would get an audible response. Upon returning to check on them they explained that at one point during their whistling they had heard the same whistle back. I asked them to repeat the experiment and to my surprise I could have sworn that I too heard a faint and distant sound resembling the same short tune they had whistled. Of course this could have been attributed to external noise from outside as we were nearing the time when the pubs and clubs of Salisbury are usually vacated by revellers, and there had been quite a lot of extraneous noise from the streets outside all night, but I have to admit it was intriguing that I heard what I did.

For the final vigil of the night I took a team to the Grand Jury Room where we attempted both glass divination and automatic writing with the planchette, however both were unsuccessful. After a short spell if table tipping and a brief séance we decided to call it a night. The investigation had certainly brought about some interesting activity not only for the teams I had worked with but also for the other groups during their vigils. Other activity recorded included EMF fluctuations in the Grand Jury Room, the smell of unexplained cigar smoke, experiences of sickness and nausea and the sound of a door banging. It had certainly been an eventful investigation, and the shortened format is one I would definitely recommend for future events.