Ghost Hunting in the Black Country and Beyond is a companion to the gazetteer guide Black Country Ghosts and Hauntings by the same author. This book is about what really happened when experienced paranormal investigators were given access to some amazing properties. Mainly due to the immense popularity of television shows such as Most haunted, ghost hunting has changed almost beyond recognition in a relatively short space of time. Whereas we were mostly invited in to investigate phenomena as it was occurring, locations are now more likely to be booked by paranormal event companies. Nowadays, it is possible for anyone to pay for an organised ghost hunt in buildings which previously would only have been open to established research groups.This is not necessarily a bad thing, as there is clearly a great deal of interest and many of the locations in this book now host organised ‘ghost hunting’ events. However, in the author’s experience, paranormal activity is far from reliable and established ghost stories often bear little or no resemblance to what is actually happening when a site is active. We were fortunate during our investigations that we were generally called in because the locations were actively experiencing periods of paranormal activity.This book chronicles well over 25 years of investigating anomalous phenomena in a variety of locations in conjunction with various paranormal research groups. Many were investigated more than once and some on multiple occasions over a long period of time.There are some very well-known haunted locations within these pages. In the Black Country there is Dudley Castle, West Bromwich Manor House, and the Black Country Living Museum whilst further afield we have the Ancient Ram Inn, Belgrave Hall and Woodchester Mansion to name but a few of the fascinating cases recorded here.Look out for the video symbol which denotes actual location footage available on YouTube. This footage can be accessed simply by scanning the QR codes with a suitable mobile phone application.This book then records the highlights of those occasions when something ‘other worldly’ really did manifest itself whilst Ghost Hunting in the Black Country and Beyond.
