In October 2001 Demolition work began in the centre of Wrexham in Hope Street, after a major fire virtually destroyed two stores.

The WH Smith's and clothes store MacKay’s were destroyed which forced the closure of two of the main shopping streets. A total of 10 fire engines were sent to tackle the blaze which raged for over six hours. The two-storey buildings were later demolished.

WH Smith’s history dates back to Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in 1792 when they only owned news vendors.  After Henry Walton Smith’s death and then later after Anna's death in 1816, H W Smith, trading now as newsagents and stationers, passed to her two sons, Henry Edward and William Henry Smith. In 1828, William Henry Smith was the more capable businessman of the two brothers and the concern becomes known as WH Smith.

In the 1930’s Woolworth’s opened their store on this site before relocating to Regent Street in 1979. Martins and John Menzies also used the premises before WH Smith’s. There’s no doubt in my mind that staff working for these companies would also have experienced paranormal activity especially around the stockroom area. Did you work at this location? Do you have a haunting story to tell? Then please contact our group on our website. www.northwalesparanormalgroup.com

The Investigation

Some weeks prior to the investigation one of the group’s mediums along with the group’s leader Jim and the manager of WH Smith’s performed a walk-about in the store. The manager had taken them to an area where paranormal activity had been experienced by staff members since the company had been on this site. In recent years haunted libraries have become popular with ghost investigators, and the stockroom shelves certainly made it feel like a library.

The medium immediately picked up on two strong characters both women who definitely disliked one another immensely and another spirit that made itself known was that of a young girl who appeared to be very upset and crying. Apparently one of the women was a lady by the name of Margaret Taylor who owned a hotel on this site around the early 1700’s and the young girl was her daughter Veronica Taylor, who was thought to be around 12 year of age. This lady gave the hotel’s name as “The Three Pigeons” The other lady was Elizabeth Cooper a lady in her mid-fifties, she seemed a dominating spirit and didn’t like Margaret one little bit. Elizabeth lived at the hotel around the 1880’s she had changed the name of the hotel to the “The Lion Hotel” Both looked at this hotel premises as theirs and most of the paranormal activity was caused by them throwing objects, such as books at each other.  Interestingly, many of our cases can have spillover from one category to another. In some fairly rare cases, apparitions have learned to move objects, though they rarely do it with the destructive energy of poltergeist cases. When we investigate we often have to tease apart not only what's normal from what's paranormal, but also what kind of phenomena we are actually dealing with.

The one thing both these spirits agreed on was that they hated the new premises and what it was being used for now. However, their legacy still continues today and the area the building stands on retains their spirits, these spirits haunt this space and to them the fire was irrelevant, no matter what the building is being used for today or in the future, they will continue to see it as their home or place of work.

We passed by a room and a radio could be heard, the manager went in to switch it off, but to his surprise the radio wasn’t even switched on.

The manager then entered a room on the second floor facing the main road, again our medium picked up on two men with strong links to St Giles Parrish Church which is only a hundred yards away. The names he came out with for these men were Thomas Jones and Charles Davies but just what the link was he didn’t know and we would have to wait until we return for the night’s investigation.

On the night of the investigation the team set up their equipment, it was thought that the best instruments to use in the storeroom would be the K2 meter and voice recorder. Itis believed that spirits are comprised mainly of energy and In order to speak, make a noise or manifest in the form of an apparition, ghosts need to gather energy to do so. They use electricity to "build up" energy to give them enough power to make themselves known from the other side. EMF detectors are often used by paranormal investigators to measure electromagnetic fields at a location. After taking a base reading of the location, any fluctuation by an EMF detector that happens in conjunction with a noise, sighting or EVP recording, might possibly indicate the presence of a spirit. If you know the locations of the natural electrical energy of the location and have the base readings, any fluctuation in the meters can be a valuable asset to the investigator. In an Intelligent Haunting the spirit, or ghost, demonstrates intelligence and an awareness of its surroundings. These spirits have been known to communicate with humans and to interact with their environment. In this type of haunting it is common for objects to be moved.

Our medium again entered the area of the storeroom where he had first heard the young Veronica crying and the two female hoteliers arguing. He sensed that the young girl whom he thought to be around twelve had some sort of physical disability,  she had suffered with it from a very young age which he described as infantile paralysis of her leg’s, but the cause was unknown only that this young girl suffered severe pain throughout her short life. One of the two women also came through to our medium, Elizabeth had changed the name of the hotel to the “Lion Hotel” in honour of our brave soldiers who had fought and died in the Crimean War.  Although not married to a soldier, she had lived with an 11th Hussar soldier who had fought at the battle of Balaclava and survived; she gave the soldier’s name as Billy Ellis. The medium also picked up on one of the men in the top floor staffroom that made himself known a couple of weeks earlier, Thomas Jones was apparently a grocer and owned a shop next door to The Lion Inn, on the right, although the other man Charles Davies didn’t show himself on this occasion our medium felt he owned the premises on the left side of the hotel, but he couldn’t pick up on what the shop sold, but he did smell the aroma of baking bread. A number of orbs had been caught on some digital cameras. In a ground floor store room while calling out Lorraine and others saw a recycle bin move forward in her direction, some voices had been heard and a growl was heard which caused some concern to our investigators and staff alike. Mike Roberts performed a vigil in the stockroom in the hope of capturing EVP on his digital recorder; he called out for any of the female spirits to make themselves known. Listening back before we left the shop you can hear the faint voice of a woman replying to Mike’s request for her of give us your name, this will be checked back again on a spectrogram. From the back of the car, Jim brought out his favourite piece of equipment, a small sized piece of fibreboard with a pasted-on design of letters, numbers and symbols, and a heart-shaped piece of plastic. When users of the Ouija board put their fingers on it and begin asking questions, almost anything can happen, or so they say. Whether you believe the Ouija board can tap into the supernatural or merely our subconscious, there's no denying that stories of people's experiences with it are fascinating. We have gleaned an immense amount of information from it, some admittedly didn't make much sense, especially dates, but a great deal of information did. Mention the use of a Ouija board to a paranormal research group these days and you’ll get a lot of head shaking and statements about “opening portals” and “demonic entities”. Mention it to religious fundamentalists and you’ll practically see them shudder and back away on shaky legs, as if the board was created by Satan himself as a means of enslaving human souls. Some promoted the idea that the Ouija board was a conduit to dark forces. Previous to these Hollywood productions, the Ouija board was not generally regarded in this way. But the idea was also latched onto by many Christian fundamentalists, who tend to consider just about anything they don’t agree with as the work of Satan. Then many paranormal researchers also came around to this way of thinking, but I've never come across any convincing evidence that would lead to this position. Toy and game companies sell them by the thousands, but most people don't realise exactly what they are. Are they evil? No, no more than your Monopoly board is. Are they dangerous? Well, in the hands of someone who's untrained -- or an idiot -- they could be. Look at it as a spiritual version of the chat room, if that helps. There's nothing at all wrong with talking to thirty strangers… until one of them turns out to be a serial killer or a pedophile. And the thing is, you don't know who is what when you enter that room, it’s the same with a Ouija board.

During the Ouija board session at Smith’s most of the information was directed towards staff members that attended the investigation, family and friends had been brought through and I think it left everyone elated and those who had been sceptical beforehand had certainly changed to believers by the time it was time to leave.

Group members attending the Investigation

Andrea Ellis, Kate Lloyd, Lorraine Ellis, Mike Griffiths, Amy Matthews, Dan Matthews, Michael Roberts, Jimmy Ellis, plus of course a number of employees and friends from Smith’s.

Scrying

The term scrying comes from the word descry in its sense of discovery. This in turn is thought to originate from the French words descrier and descrie.

Traditionally the use of the word scrying was restricted to divination via the medium of a crystal. Today the word scry is often used to refer to any method of divination through psychic, occult or other paranormal means. That is the sense in which I'll use the word on this site - with my apologies to the traditionalists.

Note that divination does not necessarily mean learning the future (that in itself opens a whole debate about determinism and free will!). Scrying can equally well be used to discover what happened in the past, what is happening now and how best to react to it.

Does Scrying Work? There is, of course, great debate as to the value of scrying.

Some believe that divination genuinely taps into an occult or psychic force. Either the scrier or the materials possess genuine power, possibly some form of P.S.I power. Sometimes it is an external power that is being channeled during the reading.

The Sceptics on the other hand reject it all as nonsense. If it appears to work then it is simply coincidence. Such a blanket refusal to accept facts doesn't sit well with those of us who've experienced the power of divination (and, before any Sceptic jumps in, I've also studied statistics and understand terms like "confirmation bias").

A middle way might be to say that neither the scrier nor the materials contain any innate power. Instead they are a simply a channel through which the "psychic" gets better attuned to their subconscious and taps into information that was already there but undiscovered. This is sometimes called "eyes shut" divination, a derogatory term indicating lack of self-awareness on the part of the worker.

Whatever the mechanism, the fact remains that for many people some form or other of divination works. And that's really all that matters. Successful scrying depends on mood and atmosphere. Above all else, do not force yourself into a reading session when you don't feel like it. The results will be at best useless.

Crystal ball gazing

Gazing Technique, most people find crystal ball gazing is easiest in a quiet, dimly lit room. Many people like to have candles burning. For some the reflections of the flames help to summon images - others find them a distraction. Burning incense is common and some people like to have soothing music playing gently in the background.

The important thing to remember is that you are creating an atmosphere. If someone walked in unexpectedly, they should instantly be aware that something significant is taking place.

The method that follows is simply what works for me, take it as a starting point and discover through experience what works best for you.

"How To" Tutoria, place the crystal on a table in front of you. Many crystal balls you can buy come with their own stand. If you don't have a stand you might like to use a small cushion or a silk handkerchief purchased and reserved specially for this purpose.

Sit down and relax. Lay your hands gently on the ball for a minute or two in order to energise it and strengthen your psychic rapport. Whilst holding the crystal ball, think about the purpose of this scrying session. If appropriate try to visualise the subject of your question. Some people like to ask the question out loud, others prefer to internalise it.

Now, remove your hands from the crystal. Look into the crystal, stare deeply. Allow your eyes to relax and become slightly unfocussed. After a little while you should see a mist or smoke forming in the crystal. Let this mist grow and fill the ball, then visualise it gradually clearing to reveal images within the crystal.

The images you see might not be what you expected. That's OK, don't fight them. Your subconscious mind knows what information you need. Just let the images flow, changing and taking you wherever they choose to go. Don't try to rationalise now, time for that later.

Once the crystal ball has shown you all the images you need, they will begin to fade. Don't just stop the session suddenly; instead reverse the process you used at the beginning. Visualise the mists coming back and covering the images, then receding to return the ball to its natural state.