This was the team’s first visit to this venue set right in the heart of Stirling’s historic old town.
A former stately home and fever hospital this building certainly has a chequered past with lots of stories to tell. Are these stories available today in the form of spirits? We were about to finf out.
When we arrived the caretaker told us he had heard noised and voices from the gallery area in the main hall as he was opening up. He was a sceptic and therefore this was very encouraging that he had said it.
As we set up our equipment the EMF meter and doll immediately started to react with the lights flashing. We very quickly ruled out that this was being caused by electricity.
Then the fire exit door at the bottom of the room swung open. The team members that took part in the walk round were totally sure that this door had been closed, or at least closed over if not on the latch. We closed the door over again and around 20 minutes later as we were finishing setting up the equipment the door swung open again, not quite as far this time but it had definitely moved. We were able to rule out draughts causing it and the team were at the other end of the hall so it was not floor movement either.
When we were going through our safety briefing with the guests the EMF meters started to go off again so we decided we would start as one group in the main hall.
Our cameras were showing shadows and light anomalies towards the bottom of the room, both at the door and the fireplace so we started there. We were able to get faint, but undecipherable EVP responses so we turned to the dowsing rods. Responses with the rods were mixed so either more than one spirit was coming forward or they were playing with us. We do believe however this spirit was male and had previously worked in the building – we believe whilst it was a hospital but responses made it hard to be 100% on this.
We then moved to the gallery area. Straight away members of the group reported feeling “different”. We sat for a while to see if we could hear the voices and noises that the caretaker had reported from earlier. Some of the group reported feeling a temperature drop around them. Something we could confirm with our temperature guns. We were also able to get whatever was causing these temperature changes to increase and decrease the temperature on demand, therefore ruling out the fact that the initial drop could have been a draught.
As we sat in this area we then heard loud and clear voices from just outside the door. Stuart immediately went to the door and downstairs to make sure no one was there. We can confirm that no one was outside the door or outside the building at the time.
Using the EVP recorder we were able to confirm that one of the spirits we were communicating with on the gallery was female, and that someone had hung themselves from the beam above the gallery. It is unclear whether this was the female spirit but we believe it was, we also believe she was a patient in the hospital and that one of the other spirits was someone that came to visit her while she was ill.
While seated in the gallery a few guests reported seeing shadows and light anomalies towards the roof. This was also seen a few times over the night on our fixed cameras. This lead to the question was there ever another floor to the building, running level with where the gallery is now? We believe when we asked the question that the reply from the EVP and echovox was a yes.
We decided to take a short break from the hospital itself and have a walk round the graveyard next door. Out of respect we didn’t carry out any form of experiments in the graveyard but it was a truly fascinating place with history dating back 600 years.
We then split in to two groups so that we could investigate the smaller café area and the cellar. We had been looking forward to the café area as it felt very eerie on the walk round of the building. However the first group In found it very flat and decided to move back to the gallery.
Having found the cellar fairly quiet the second group moved to the café where they got very different results. While using the dowsing rods to try and get yes or no answers some of the group reported hearing a knocking noise. When asked to repeat a noise Judd made the spirit used the dowsing rods to repeat the noise by moving them and banging them on the chair. To ensure that this was a clear response to our instruction we repeated this several times with differing noise patterns, and each time it copied us. It was amazing to watch and is captured on video which will appear on our site.
The group on the gallery had tried with the Ouija board but with no response at all they decided to put one of the movement sensor balls inside a glass and see if they could get any movement on either the glass or the ball. After a lot of perseverance the 4 guests with their finger on the glass reported that they felt very slight movement, one even said their finger began to feel very hot. They stuck with it and after a short while the ball inside the glass moved from the centre of the glass to knock on the side of it, lighting up the ball in the process.
This is definitely a fascinating and very active venue with a lot more to tell than we were able to find out on the night. The very varied history of the building is evident and we are sure is what makes it so active. We would like to thank everyone at Cowane’s Hospital for allowing us this opportunity, it definitely is a place we would like to return to sometime and see if we can tell more of the story.