One
of the staff, a young woman, was doing overtime in the office and her sister
arrived just before 9pm to pick her up. As the sister entered the showroom,
where the young woman was waiting for her lift, she saw a figure who was
wearing a long robe and had long white hair, standing behind the young woman.
The sister screamed out what she was seeing and both sisters ran out of the
showroom in fright. The young woman would not go back to the premises and found
a new job.
It
wasn’t long after this that a big crash was heard on the stairwell. Turns out
that a hand basin, that had been left propped up against a door, had been
thrown down 2 flights of stairs, even though it had to be moved across the
landing to get to the stairs.
At
this point, the owners of the building had approached Gloucester Cathedral to
request an exorcism. When the incidents were annoying, they weren’t violent but
whatever was causing the activity had become more dangerous.
A
medium, Phillip Seff, was to hold a seance at the building. The seance was
attended by local journalists and photographers. Seff said he made contact with
a middle-aged man, who had long white hair and beard, who wore a long grey
robe. Seff said this entity was angry as he felt justice had eluded him when he
was alive. This man had died by falling from the building and breaking his
neck. He did this by his own hand and was trapped in the building and it was
him and his anger that was causing the poltergeist activity. Steff was
confident that all the happenings would now stop as he had spoken to the entity
and managed to calm him down.
Unfortunately,
this was not to work in stopping the poltergeist activity. A new manager for
the branch had not long started and would be, at times, working in the building
alone. He started hearing weird noises and couldn’t find what was causing them.
He said whilst being new to the role, he had heard about the rest of the staff
hearing things, but until now, he hadn’t heard anything. Jean Brown said that
it never used to bother her in hearing all the strange noises but was now very
nervous about going upstairs.
The
worst was yet to come. The cafe owner, Steve Pugh, whose cafe was adjacent to
the Anglian Windows building, heard a terrible crash, followed by the sound of
smashing glass. He saw that a window had been smashed on the third floor of the
building. He rushed over to the business, where he met with Jean Brown, and he
asked her what was happening. She said she didn’t know as all the rooms
upstairs were bolted shut. So, they both went up to the locked room, opened it
up and saw that a large double wardrobe had been moved several feet and was now
moved over to the smashed window. Whatever was haunting the building had
smashed the window by pushing the wardrobe into it.
After
this event, the medium Phillip Steff visited the building and held another
seance again. This time he said he had made contact with a monk-like figure,
who was looking for a key, which was said to be lost in the building. During
the seance, a telephone was said to be constantly ringing, despite it being an
internal line and no one was using it. Steff said he had placated the spirit of
the monk and said things would calm down in time. For some reason, the cafe
owner and his friend, Robin Ledbury, who was a local hairdresser, felt that it
would be a good idea to hold an overnight vigil on Halloween, in which they
would raise money for charity. Steff said this wasn’t a good idea, but the 2
men went ahead with it anyway.
The
charity who would be benefiting from this overnight vigil would be the ‘Money
Mountain’, which a local radio station called Severn Sound, hosted. The radio
station would be recording the vigil and placed their equipment in one of the
locked rooms upstairs, only to find it scattered all across the room when they
went to retrieve the items. A transmitter had been pushed over, wires removed,
and batteries had been disconnected too. Despite this set back, they didn’t
want to pull out as it was too late notice.
Throughout
the hours of the vigil, noises of bumps, bangs and crashes were recorded, and
lights were constantly flickering on and off. It was around 2am that a table
crashed to the floor, but it had not harmed either of the 2 men holding the
vigil. When it was finally over, the 2 men said they were glad they had done
the vigil as it had raised around £400 but that they were never going to be
doing anything like that again.
The poltergeist activity
went on for around a year and I’ve not been able to find any reports of any
further disturbances at this address but if you have, then please let me know - Email
