The new Haunted Mansion tour at Woodlands of Marburg is a spine tingling look into the paranormal inside one of Ipswich’s most haunted houses. With a team of paranormal investigators take a tour around the century-old mansion and learn about it’s spirits…
Sessions run weekly, with a mansion tour and a sleep over tour on alternating weeks – where you can hear all the things that go bump in the night.
I recently did a tour for the first time and dined at Tommy Smith Cafe before-hand.
It’s fair to say that nerves were on high alert as we set off for the night.
It wasn’t the nice dinner we had planned, or the fact that Woodlands of Marburg is a Haunted Mansion, but the fact we would be undertaking a ghost finding tour in the dark.
Despite the nerves we couldn’t help but marvel at the mansion, built by Tommy Smith in 1890, in it’s glory surrounded by beautiful sting lights in the twilight.
We started dinner with a drink to build up some courage making small talk at our candle lit table.
Four of us dined on arancini balls, pasta and pizza that was lovingly prepared by the chef Tommy Smith Cafe.
The generous serves of comforting pappardelle with beef ragu, pizza and spaghetti cabonara helped ease our apprehension about what laid ahead.
And then just like that it was time to begin the tour.
We met our guides from Kate Harvey Paranormal outside the foyer of the historic mansion and set off for the grotto that was built by the seminary monks that lived at Woodlands after the Smiths were long gone.
The paranormal investigators then led the group to the onsite church and cemetery before heading inside the mansion to get our bearings before the lights were turned out.
My first encounter began in the cellar, where an Estes method of communicating with spirits was set up.
Donning some ear phones and a blindfold my other senses were heightened as I listed to the jamble of radio, voices and haunting growling noises.
Then I heard a name loud and clear say Mary, at the same time as the two other participants heard it.
After that things got spookier. I felt a presence all around me as I received the messages from beyond.
“Can’t find the jumper. On the wall.” Then I started to feel nauseous.
I stopped it there, walked away as another took my spot. I felt as if something didn’t want me in that room, but also like there was a protecting force warning me.
The other listeners heard something tell them to leave. The Spirit ball started flashing – a ball that flashes lights when it is touched.
I asked the room, is Mary asking me to leave because something down here wants me to go and the Spirit ball flashed again.
That was my cue to head upstairs, where we used pendulums to try and communicate with spirits.
Some in my party received messages from their passed relatives and another felt a massive temperature drop when walking into Tommy’s room. That same person also received a message to leave when sitting in Tommy’s chair without asking for permission.
By that stage we had split up and I was exploring on my own and had headed down to the cellar near the end of the tour.
I sat down and waited as a few were still using the Estes.
Suddenly one of the paranormal investigators asked if I was ok. He told me the spirit ball had started flashing as I walked down the stairs.
He asked for my name, then asked the spirit if it liked me. It started flashing again, immediately.
Then he asked if there was any messages, “Sarah’s coming” all three women on the Estes said in unison.
If I wasn’t a believer before I came on this tour, I am now.
I’m still not sure what they were trying to tell me, but I did feel the presence of spirits beyond the physical realm.
To book the experience click through to the Woodlands of Marburg page and click through.
