Haunting Journeys: A Paranormal Roadtrip Exploring The Phantoms Of The Isles

Michelle: Before we dive into the eerie tales of the past, I have some electrifying news to share with you. I'm excited to announce that the Haunted History Chronicles podcast now has its very own small shop of the macabre and mysterious. Picture this exclusive merchandise, hauntingly beautiful artwork, spine tingling stickers mugs that will make your morning in coffee seem positively paranormal, and prints that capture the ghostly essence of days gone by. Whether you're a longtime listener of the show or a newcomer drawn to the enigmatic allure of haunted history, the shop is your gateway to the supernatural. Imagine decorating your space with a piece of history, a connection to the spectral past. The merchandise is designed to evoke the very essence of the stories I share, making it an essential addition to your collection of all things eerie. You can find all these hair raising treasures on the website, or simply follow the links conveniently placed in the podcast description notes. It's so easy, even a ghost could do it. So whether you're searching for the perfect addition to your haunted memorabilia collection or just wanting to immerse yourself in the world of the supernatural, the shop is here to provide dive into the past, embrace the spook, and let the stories of history's ghosts haunt your space. So why not visit the shop today? And remember, the spirits of the past are waiting for you. The Haunted History Chronicles exclusive merchandise is just a click away. Happy shopping, and may the spirits be with you.

Michelle: Hi everyone, and welcome back to Haunted History Chronicles. First of all, thank you for taking a listen to this episode. Before we begin, I just want to throw out a few ways you can get involved and help support the show we have a patreon page as well as an Amazon link, so hopefully if you're interested in supporting, you can find a way that best suits you. All of the links for those can either be found in the show notes or over on the website. Of course, just continuing to help spread the word of the show on social media, leaving reviews and sharing with friends and family is also a huge help. So thank you for all that you do. And now, let's get started by introducing today's podcast or guest.

Michelle: Get ready to embark on a thrilling adventure across the landscapes of the United Kingdom. In March 2023, two intrepid souls adventurers, paranormal enthusiasts Lucy Bilton and Chris Howley hatched an audacious plan a paranormal road trip. Picture this a campervan. Two fearless paranormal investigators, one with an extra sense and the other well, that's Chris. And a mission to explore haunted sites across the United Kingdom. Fast forward three months and their campervan was ready, fully equipped for ghostly adventures. They'd even tested the waters quite literally, with a week of planning and visiting a few haunted sites to wet their paranormal appetite. Now back from their first road trip, where they got to visit infamous locations like Borley Rectory, Derby Gaol, Manningtree in Mistley, Pluckley in Hastings and beyond, as well as meeting up with some different people along their journey. Chris and Lucy are here to give us a front row seat to some of their experiences, be it historical or supernatural, of this enchanting road trip, as well as tell us more about their plans for Paranormal Road Trip UK. So get comfortable and fasten those seatbelts and let's go exploring the roads and places travelled with Chris and Lucy.

Michelle: Hi, Lucy. Hi, Chris. Thank you so much for joining me this evening.

Chris Howley : Hi, Michelle. You OK?

Michelle: Yeah, a bit of a cold, but, you know, I think that's part of the course for winter. I'm great. Do you want to start by just telling us about where the idea for the paranormal road trip came from? What inspired you to want to do this project? 

Lucy Bilton : We started talking earlier this year and we were just talking about our love of the paranormal and of history in general, and we just said, it'd be lovely just to get in a van, just go and visit all these places. One day one of us said it and then we started thinking on it and thought, actually, we could actually make it work. We could actually do it.

Chris Howley : Yeah, I think what threw it was I took early retirement I'm still working, but I took an early retirement fund, which Lucy didn't know anything about, and I started looking for campervans and I ended up buying one.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, he rang me one anyway. That was parts of him.

Chris Howley : So we had the van and we had the idea. When was that? That must have been April time. Yeah. So that's how the idea was born.

Michelle: Michelle, I love how you just went ahead and threw caution to the wind to get the van and that was it. That was almost signing the contract. Then you're committed.

Chris Howley : We were just Facebook friends at the time.

Lucy Bilton : Just Facebook friends.

Michelle: That's quite a commitment.

Lucy Bilton : It was, yeah. 

Chris Howley : I've got a van for us and we're going to travel. It ended out well, ended up going up to meet Lucy. We went out for the day for Burton Constable Hall. Did Constable had a little ghost walk around there during the day and chatted some more about the idea? I took a month off work, we planned the dates and it was just a case of the whole concept we wanted between us was to the actual aim of our trip was apart from going around haunted locations, was to sort of because our ideas on the paranormal are very much the same. Even though I'm a skeptical paranormal investigator and what you call yourself....

Lucy Bilton : I'm supposedly a medium, but I don't really like the word medium because sometimes it gives people sort of the wrong idea because I don't believe that you see mediums on TV and people go and see mediums and whenever they go and see mediums. They seem to be able to bring through a family member every time. And realistically, for me, that's not how it works. And I do work for the police as well, for missing persons. And it's all a bit different for me. And I sort of like, Chris knew that, and I'm just a different sort of medium.

Chris Howley : Yeah, Lucy is quite raw. She's getting nothing. She'll say, I'm not getting anything. And it's like, for me, with ghost hunting, like, again, going with the TV shows, every time you see a program go into a haunted house, there is always activity. And we wanted to show it. It's not always like that the actual reality of the paranormal. So we thought if we did it as a road trip, we could sort of see, we knew at some point we would get activity on the law of averages because we're not disputing that paranormal activity exists, but we just wanted to use it as an experiment, but also to get at least well, unfortunately, TV only take three minute clips. Now I've got to edit a month long trip down into a three minute segment to see if the TV like the idea of what we've come up with touring the country in a campervan and seeing if we can get any paranormal activity and trying to explain it or how it comes about. But also to show that not every place is necessarily haunted and you can still have a great time investigating.

Lucy Bilton : Exactly.

Chris Howley : Well, that's the other thing, actually, the history of the places, as you would agree, Michelle.

Michelle: Oh, gosh yeah. And looking at some of the places that you've been to along the way, it has been a journey in itself, exploring quite iconic places that are kind of renowned within the paranormal, but then some deeply historical locations with history. So very much part of the fabric of the United Kingdom and a wider global history. And so, yeah, to be able to journey to these different places and have something very unique and tangible, very different in each location and place, and get to meet some of the people that you also met along the way is a fabulous way of experiencing history and the paranormal together. Really?

Chris Howley : Well, it is if you think we started on August 3 at Derby Jail and the best historian in the paranormal world, Richard Felix. I mean, it didn't start off any better, really.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah. Richard brilliant.

Michelle: But I do think it's a wonderful, wonderful way of kind of giving a glimpse into some of the wonder that we really do have on our doorsteps, whether it's for the paranormal, for the history, or for them both together. It's almost taking one style, which is the documentary style of traveling to different places that you see being done on television that is so great and very immersive, where you really do get to understand the culture of a location a country that they're visiting, for example, whoever it may be. So you're kind of taking that model and applying it to the paranormal field, which is fabulous, because usually what you have is something very static in one place, and they may go to a different location, but it doesn't have that sense of a journey in something that is what you've been doing, which is this idea of a road trip where it's as much of a journey from one place to another, where your experiences are kind of collecting over that period of time as opposed to something that's very distinct and discreet that you then put behind you and you move on from. This feels much more connective. Like you said, it's an experiment in itself, isn't it? Going from one place to another to see what you have and see how you can approach things or try different things or get to speak with different people along the way who might have different perspectives. And that's a very interesting way of kind of approaching this, I think, which does set you apart.

Lucy Bilton : As we were traveling from location to location, it was good because we sort of had some time in between. We could go sort of down backwards, down roads that we'd never been before and we'd end up finding new places or old ruined buildings we could stop at and have a look at and find out a bit about. We'd find sort of hidden gems along the way, wouldn't we?

Chris Howley : Yeah.

Lucy Bilton : And that was the beauty of it as well, that yet we had these locations to go to but we had time in between them to sort of do our own thing and the traveling and enjoy the traveling. Because nothing was ever rushed, was it?

Chris Howley : No, you hit the nail on the head, Michelle. It was an experiment for us this whole trip because we've got the concept. But it's one thing having a concept and rather than go to a producer with an idea, we thought at least doing it this way by trying it out, see what works, see what doesn't work. We'll have a three minute teaser to try and get a meeting, but to go to them with footage of some completed episodes, showing them what it would look like and what else we would like to do to improve the content.

Michelle: I think the concept and everything about it is something that would be really interesting to view and the partnership of yourselves as well, as you mentioned, having kind of a different style or approach, even if what you believe is the same. Being able to come at something differently is also, I think, important sometimes to show because everybody will have their own unique perspective and experience when it comes to belief in this or how they investigate. And I think it's a really healthy thing to show that you don't have to be one style fits all and it can be something very collaborative and much more rewarding as a result when having different kind of approaches and trying to combine different things together. And so having yourself, Lucy, where you have that kind of intuitive sense of things is probably maybe putting that across. And then Chris, who is more of that skeptical investigator, it's a really unique, interesting blend to try and combine intuitive responses to investigating alongside that scientific, analytical approach. But being able to see these come together in such a way, I think is a really powerful thing to again, put across to people watching. I just think it's a fantastic concept and probably very enjoyable.

Chris Howley : Well, yeah, it was very enjoyable for us. It did work well. We had a great time doing it. But what you say, yeah, I am skeptical and analytical, but I've got to admit there were times on the trip, for example, we stopped off being a campervan. We had to use the facilities at campsites just to recharge water supplies, what have you, and we'd come down through Borley rectory just to say we'd been there, because it's not there anymore, as you know. But we just had to go drive through Borley just to say we've been there, and then we decided to go. So we stopped off at a campsite fairly near a little bit further south. I knew we were on our way to Pluckley the next day, which was literally 2 miles away. I hadn't told Lucy where we were going. As we were driving through the woods, literally quarter of a mile from Pluckley, Lucy said suddenly turned around and said, why am I seeing Cromwell soldiers in the mean my history of that area? I hadn't looked anything up and I didn't have a clue whether Cromwell had been anywhere near the area at all. In fact, I thought he'd gone further. Yeah, I actually said, no, he wouldn't have been over here because I thought he'd gone further north. Well, further across to the west and then on up north, because I know he went through Gloucestershire. But it was only when we actually stopped at Pluckley and you started picking up on other things to do with Cromwell.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, we just stopped there and we were just walking around the church, really.

Chris Howley : Because it was in the day.

Lucy Bilton : Wasn't a yeah, yeah, that's another thing that there's this thing on TV where everything's in the know and that's again, not really how it works. I mean, we were doing things in the yeah, a lot of the time and like Pluckley. I mean, Pluckley really, though, we just stopped off I just wanted to walk around the church and just have a nerdy, but seemed to pick up a lot of things in Pluckley. I was picking up a lot of things there. And then you were having to get on google.

Chris Howley :  It was almost like she was reading my mind as fast as I was googling names that she was coming up with as truth and the stories and Cromwell, she was coming up with another name or another story, and I was as a mean, I've got no explanation how she did. So it's things like did doing something during the day as well. So you can actually see the location in the day?

Michelle: Yeah, I just think it's something I've spoken about on the podcast before. I think it's such a missed opportunity, actually, not only because you do get to really see the beauty of the location that you're exploring, you can see the details of the architecture or the presence that it has amidst the rest of the landscape. I mean, it's so much more acute, I think, in the daytime when you can experience it with all your senses to its fullest. But I also think so much activity is always reported during the daytime, and we schedule these things at nighttime because of that scare factor of it being dark. There's no reflection a lot of the time in terms of how that property would have been used by the original occupants. And so it's bonkers that we don't schedule and do things at a time when you might expect more activity first and foremost. And then, like I said, just such a missed opportunity to not have data from 12 hours of the daytime when most people are using it, but for something completely different, it's kind of crazy for me. And I just think it would make it more accessible in so many opportunities for a wider group of people to explore who find nighttime difficult.

Chris Howley : Yeah, exactly. I mean, we did do some nighttime. We did balance it with nighttime investigations, but obviously for filming, I had to light it so it wasn't completely dark. And even doing that, I've actually debunked a phenomenon.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah. Managed to debunk something.

Chris Howley : I've come up with a theory. You know, when people hear breathing in their ears in the dead of night, when you're in the pitch black, somebody's just breathed in my ear. I can't say what it is because it's still new, but I have a experience, and due to filming it in the light, I have a scientific explanation for how that can happen. And if you're filming in the dark, then you can't dismiss that it hasn't got this logical explanation. Yeah, we chatted about it quite a bit.

Lucy Bilton : It's interesting.

Chris Howley : So, again, all this TV likes it in the dark because, like you say, it's more scary. But I mean, when you throw some light on the buildings you're in, like, you say you see the beauty of them, but you can also see the more logical explanations for some of the activity that happens.

Michelle: Do you know what I really appreciate about what you've been doing, though, more than anything, is that you're kind of throwing some of these rulebooks away of expectations of what an investigation should be, which is you go at nighttime you're in one location, and that's pretty much it. And instead, you're kind of showing that actually, you can go anytime you want, really. If you can make it in the daytime, go and do something like this in the daytime. You can be mobile with it. You can make the experience, I think, what you want from it, as opposed to, again, just carbon copying something that you see being replicated either on TV or through paranormal teams who are putting up events. You can have your own experience with the paranormal. And I think, again, there's something quite powerful and empowering about that for someone who really doesn't think that it could apply to them and they could be part of that community in that world. Here you are showing that actually it's something that you can do however you want it to be and however you want it to look like, really. And I think that's really great.

Lucy Bilton : I think Chris was surprised, really, as well, with the because I think initially when we were planning to do this, we thought about lots of evening events, and once we got going and he realized that, actually, yeah, we can do this in the day, and things can be picked up in the day, and I think it surprised you more. I don't think you thought we'd be doing what we did in the day.

Chris Howley : Of Mean, and that was quite early on in the trip, really, because if you think we left Derby Jail and we moved across to Manningtree in search of I mean, even driving through Mean, I'd never been there before. You'd never been there before, had you?

Lucy Bilton : No, I'd never heard of it. Which is embarrassing, really, as I am a pig. It's quite embarrassing. I'd never heard of it.

Chris Howley : But it was what blew me is we were driving through the town center, which is quite small, the actual center of Manning Tree. Lucy suddenly looked at me and said, Where's the church? And I said, I think it's over there, the other side of those buildings, because I think I clocked a spire just a bit further down. And she, no, no, there's supposed to be a church here. Where is it? And I said, no, the church is over there. And we left it at that until we parked up. And then when I got down to doing my research about Manningtree, I found out that there was a church that had been demolished in the center of Manningtree, and all that remained of it was literally a few bricks about ten foot high up against the side of a shop. But Lucy couldn't even have clocked that because even when I knew where it was on the map, I was stood outside it, Michelle, for about five minutes. I was right by it. And it was only when I virtually given up, I looked through the ivy around the other side and there was a blue plaque saying, this is all that remains of the original Manning Tree Church. So she'd picked that up during the day about a church being in the town and I thought, we need to be documenting things like this.

Lucy Bilton : We started doing more in the day, didn't we?

Chris Howley : So, yeah, we started doing more work during the day.

Michelle: But some of the significance of locations like that, or simply just being close to where they are, I think they are so under discussed in many ways. I mean, I think people are aware of Matthew Hopkins and the witch trial persecutions and his particular conduct and the significance of that, but I doubt very few people have ever been to locations associated with some of those trials, places that he traveled to. And to see just the remains of some of that, like the importance to document some of that and to share that with people, to really raise awareness, I think from a history perspective, is so crucial.

Chris Howley : You're right. Well, with the history again in Manningtree, we drove past the Mistle what was it? The Mistley Hotel.

Lucy Bilton : We kept driving by this building and the first time we drove by it, I did say to Chris, we need to stop outside that building because it's important in some way. We couldn't, because obviously we were quite big and we kept driving by it. And we'd been a pond one day, hadn't we?

Chris Howley : Hopkins Pond?

Lucy Bilton : And you'd been talking about where the trials, so called witches were tried. And I said, no, they weren't tried here. I said, There weren't tried here, and you said there were, and I said, there weren't. And we kept driving by this building and eventually I got him to stop outside of it.

Chris Howley : Do you know what Michelle it just looked like a modern fronted hotel with loads of people sat outside on lovely modern tables, eating food. And I was like, dad, there's nothing here. But it was third time lucky for Lucy. Eventually, just to appease her, I stopped and I got out the van and I walked around the side of the building and found a plaque which said, this is the building that Matthew Hopkins purchased with his inheritance. And it said where the witch trials had taken place. So I just went straight in and booked. Because you were drawn to the middle floor?

Lucy Bilton : I was drawn to the middle floor, but I don't know why we booked a room there, because it wasn't good.

Chris Howley : For us, it was not good for Lucy. But I went in and I just booked a room on the middle floor for the night. And just as a break, really, just as a stay over, it affected well, you were quite poorly, weren't you?

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, I was quite poorly. I don't scare easily, but I think it was the one time I was actually quite scared. Nothing scares me, really, but what intrigued.

Chris Howley : Me was I went out taking photos, I said, to Lucy. You get some sleep. I went out into Manning tree. I was out for about an hour, just taking photos and video throughout the town. And it was only when we got back, Lucy found a photo on her phone of her asleep in the bedroom. Made some joke. Why did you take a photo of me asleep on my phone? I said, A, I don't know your passwords. I couldn't have taken the photo. And don't forget, I was out in Manning Tree filming at the time. So we've got a mystery in that room as well, all during the day. Again, look.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, that was in the afternoon.

Michelle: But it's really quite staggering because I think something like that is echoed in so many locations up and down the country and probably everywhere else around the world. We have beautiful buildings, so little knowledge sometimes about what's actually happened inside of them. I mean, the Mistley Thorn Hotel is a perfect example of that, where it has this deep connection with a really significant moment in English history, and yet it's simply just a plaque on the side of the wall. It's not something really kind of broadcasted or it's not dead, which is I don't know if that's it is. It is so surprising because it's a massive part of our cultural past, our historical past, and it's right on our doorsteps, but somehow we don't always observe it. And I think it's really important that we do, that it's documented and that it's understood for the kinds of things that have taken place in some of them and how maybe some of that has shaped the landscape of that community. But also, then from the paranormal perspective of, well, does that then leave something else behind? Also, that is deserving of further study and investigation. It's tying those threads together and yeah, from all of those different perspectives, I think it's so important to not keep overlooking the gems that you have everywhere. And again, I think this is the downfall of paranormal investigating that you see on the television. Not to rant too much, because I'm quite passionate about it. Yes, we see the same brilliant locations. Very costly. Yes, the same things time and time and time again. But actually we have wonderful history, some obscure little gems, and sometimes not so obscure. They're literally right there on the corner of your street that we just don't ever seem to do anything with. We don't kind of celebrate the history that those buildings have, whether it's a local pub or a small little Tudor house or manor house or something of that nature. They're just quietly there in the landscape. And who knows what's happening inside?

Lucy Bilton : Who knows exactly. Yeah, we say this as well all the time. Our history is so rich and the beauty around the country, some tiny little places, some bigger places, but we just don't see enough of them on TV. People don't realize they exist. And they should do because they're amazing. They're amazing to be in. They're amazing to look mean without the know.

Chris Howley : Yeah, without the paranormal. We were driving to pick the keys up, but we're moving to Herefordshire. It's a place I don't know a lot about and it's a big move for Lucy coming down from Yorkshire. We were driving through the country yesterday just to go and pick the keys up and both just observing, oh, look, Tudor, look at that, Tudor house. Or look at this, what's that abandoned derelict building there falling down? And the ages of some of the inns.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, we saw so many in one trip.

Chris Howley : And that's just driving from Ross on Y to a little town called Broad Oak, literally 7 miles. There is so much to see in our country.

Lucy Bilton : And that's why it needs to be. Why if we could do a proper longer road trip and we had the time and we had the resources the resources, the resources, we could go to some of these more obscure places, the places that deserve to be spoken about on TV. That's what we'd really like to do.

Chris Howley : Yeah, I mean, that's the plan to get the obviously a trip. I think that one of the main reasons a trip like this isn't undertaken lightly. It is costly. I mean, if you think we drove getting on for 2000 miles round trip I mean, the cost of that in fuel alone alone feeding us and the MOT halfway around it's almost like taking a month is although we'd love to do it full time it is a project that you would need to do.

Lucy Bilton : Need some sort of backing.

Chris Howley : Some sort of backing. Which is why, hopefully if TV take it on, we would then have financial backing to show everybody. Show everybody. Yeah. More more of these hidden gemstone to.

Michelle: Celebrate heading into the spookier season.

Michelle: Autumn nights, howling wind and freezing rain. Halloween spookiness in the dark depths of winter. Haunted History Chronicles will be posting daily podcasts on Patreon on all tiers over there, as well as the usual additional items offered. Signing up now will gain you access to these, as well as all previous archived content. For as little as one pound, you could be getting hundreds of podcasts to enjoy writing source material and more and know that you are contributing and helping the podcast to continue to put out more content. You can find the link in the episode Description Notes as well as on the Haunted History Chronicles website or social media. So why not come along to enjoy a rich web of accounts perfect for this season dark tales of corpses, ghosts, folklore, Christmas and Halloween, macabre traditions and connections and a whole lot more. And now let's head back to the podcast.

Michelle: Well, as I say, I think it's a fantastic concept. I really do hope someone gets behind it in some capacity. And because I do think it's something that resonates. With people. I think for most people who are interested in the paranormal or history or both, in my case, it's kind of a dream. It's something that we'd all love to be able to do, to just get into your vehicle and off you go and go to different places that you want to explore and just do this brilliant road trip by yourself. But here you're actually doing that. You're putting something that you thought was a good idea into practice. And, yeah, it's something that I would definitely want to watch. It's something I would love to experience because I think those little meanderings down those side paths and into other places are just as exciting as having the planned destination of, well, we're on our way to Steve all erectory, or we're on our way to see Derby Jail with Richard Felix. These offshoots of that are just as mean.

Chris Howley : Some of the roads we drove down, I mean, alone, some of the footage through the window. Obviously, on a budget, we physically couldn't run the camera 24 hours a day because over a month, I just would not have had the hard drive space. But, I mean, if you've got a film crew with you, it would be fine to stop, just drive back up there, we'll film you coming down this road because that looked hairy. And it was.

Lucy Bilton : Like from the moment we get on every site or, you know, like literally every brick or, you know, I love to explore everything. And in the daylight, you can see all that, everything etched into woodwork or old brick, and you get the chance.

Chris Howley : To see that, whereas when was it left there? What's the story behind?

Lucy Bilton : And you don't get to see that.

Michelle: On a nighttime well, it's an adventure, isn't it? As much as it is an investigation. You are off on this road trip and you're able to experience those different things, the visual sites, the auditory sites, the atmosphere of the place. And again, what's brilliant is something like that, if it would make it to the screen. Just like people who go off on these adventures, if they're touring a place for food or whatever their concept is for their show, you bring the audience with you. And so this would bring history lovers, it would bring paranormal enthusiasts, adventurers, all of those types of person would find this interesting.

Chris Howley : I think we could bring the foodies with us as well. We're experts at Just Eat now, I'll tell you what, it was like that in some places. Michelle, where are we going to get food from? Just Eat.

Michelle: And it's the thing that at the end of a busy day, when you have been sat behind a wheel driving, it's very important that you get fed.

Chris Howley : There's a little comical things you can put in there. Like the morning we woke up when it was raining and first discovered the van had a leak and we were getting dripped on.

Lucy Bilton : Well, that was being absolutely soaked.

Chris Howley : You were absolutely soaked. Yeah, you had the worst just little things like that. Obviously you don't think to film that, but you could recreate it because it did. But just the little things like that. There's other little bits you can put in just to show the quirky side of touring in a tiny such a small space.

Michelle: But again, I think that's what makes it very different. It's something that you go along with those people experiencing it, so you get to experience the banter of getting lost. What do you do when you end up somewhere where you're not thinking or on a road that you shouldn't be going down and you get a bit stuck or whatever else happens that throws a spanner at you? Kind of a situation like being rained on overnight. It's as much that there's real kind of joy to it and fun in being able to see those kinds of things play out. Personality to.

Chris Howley : La we had so many laughs on the trip, Michelle.

Lucy Bilton : We really did laugh so much throughout it.

Chris Howley : Yeah, sometimes not at the time after the event, but we did laugh.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, we did laugh. Yeah, that was the strongest emotion, I think. Just laughter. And we enjoyed it so much.

Chris Howley : Yeah, it really was. I don't know whether to call it a holiday or work. It was so many things that we did throughout the tour. But also meeting up with, as I said, I've already mentioned Richard Felix. We had Ian Varrow as an expert on Alistair Crowley and Hastings Dave Gordon at North Fort. And even we met up with Mark Richardson, who actually said to us, I just sent him a message to say we were in the area. And he said to me, oh, if you're going out towards Weymouth just stop off at Preston Manor, it's just down the road. He gave us directions. He said, Take Lucy to the church and let me know what she picks up. So again, we did a daytime location.

Lucy Bilton : Because it was actually closed building, so there was only the church.

Chris Howley : That's right.

Lucy Bilton : It was hard to find, wasn't it?

Chris Howley : Very difficult to find. We actually got there, but again, did another daytime investigation that was interesting and got something there as well. But again, the history of the little church was phenomenal.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah, the history there, I was surprised just how much and how far it.

Chris Howley : Went back and we were the only ones there. I mean, again, it's a place that deserves recognition and pointing out to the general public. Look, tucked away off this road is a church that dates pre Norman and it's open to the public. They don't hold any ceremony there now, but it is open, run by a trust and open via donations and well.

Lucy Bilton : Worth a visit for anybody and nobody knows it's there. It's just such a gem.

Michelle: And again, I think this is the beauty of this concept because there are so many places that could make the list of possible sites, cities, towns, villages oh, God.

Chris Howley : Yeah.

Michelle: To visit. And there are so many. And I think it's something that could run and run and run as a concept because you could do it by location, just stick to a specific area, region, then go else. I mean, there's so many different ways that it could play out but still have that premise of you're going on this journey to different locations and just seeing where it takes you see what takes flight, kind of a thing. And yeah. Some of these little beauties that are there that nobody knows about. There's something very special when you're able to bring that, I think, to people's awareness, because they are often the locations, sadly, that get very little thoroughfare and support from trusts charities, from lottery funding, from heritage funding, and they're very much dependent on public support. But without huge media organizations and publicity organizations behind them, how do people find out about them? They just don't. And so they're kind of in that Catch 22. That's right. Yeah. Having people who just help promote some of those, I think is so worthwhile to helping preserve those buildings as well as really showing us as the public, here's a place that you're missing out on. Here's why we've really enjoyed it. These are the kinds of history that you can experience here.

Chris Howley : Yeah, that's right.

Michelle: If you can go and see it, go and explore it for the paranormal, if that's a possibility, or for your history and yeah, just make the most of what we have. Again, I think there's something fantastic about that and being able to share that with all of us, he'll very much appreciate what we have and want to really be able to have more of it.

Chris Howley : Yeah. And I think you're right in what you say with paranormal shows, they are stuck in the tried and tested locations and that's where everybody seems to go.

Lucy Bilton : It becomes a bit tiresome after.

Chris Howley : Yeah. But some of these, as lovely as they are, the locations, I mean, they are fantastic locations, but like you say, there are so many hidden gems.

Lucy Bilton : Like you said, some little cemetery somewhere. The history was amazing. Nobody knows about it. It's such a waste.

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. And also, they are very expensive in a lot of occasions, even for event teams coming in, they're very expensive because they do have that name and that reputation. So they are able to kind of ask for those kinds of fees and yeah, smaller places just don't get that same takeup because people just aren't aware of them for that. So, again, being able to bring that to people's understanding, I think is fantastic because I do think it helps keep them going and being able to preserve what they have.

Chris Howley : Yeah, exactly. We've still got locations left to film because where we did get so behind again, like finding these doing Preston Church and finding these other little places to stop and explore. We did get a little bit behind. We did get a bit we also had a location that come in en route that we thought we need to do that. So we made plans to be in that area and then just as we got there, unfortunately it canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. But the ones that we've postponed, as soon as we're set up and moved in, we will take the van out and go back and do them.

Lucy Bilton : Yeah.

Michelle: And I suppose the beauty is that having bought Annabelle a camper know you are set up, you have the means to do this when you can be it over the weekend or a few days away or anything of that nature to kind of get the footage that you need, really. And again, I suppose that's the beauty of this kind of a project because it's mobile, it can fit in with when you have that time to be able to go on that adventure.

Chris Howley : She used a mobile film studio. Really? Yes, because we planned on doing our summaries in the evening, sat in the campervan. But by the time we got set up in the evening and Lucy found out Harry Potter was on, we watched Harry Potter and decided that it's a film studio. We can film our summing up parked on the drive at home one evening so we could enjoy the well, I think you'll agree we had a great trip, didn't we?

Lucy Bilton : No, it was wonderful.

Michelle: Oh, gosh, honestly, I really do hope someone picks it up because as I say, I just think it's a brilliant concept and if they don't, you just have to do something else with it to be able to get it to people's attention, crowdfund something. Because I think there would be far more people behind it than you might realize, because it is such a unique way of exploring the paranormal and history. Yeah. And I just think it's a very inspiring way to showcase all of this in this kind of a documentary style of something that's an adventure at the same time. And yeah, I think one way or the other, you have to get it to work.

Lucy Bilton : We really want to.

Chris Howley : Yeah. The hard part now is getting the three minutes. I've spoken to a producer I've worked with in the past and he's told me what it needs to be, but he said no more than three minutes. And when he said that, my heart sank, because I'm thinking, God, we've got so much stuff.

Michelle: I mean, it's hard to highlight every wonderful experience or what it could be in a three minute quick sound bite, effectively, because that's what it is. It's very fast paced, isn't it? And frantic. Whereas I think the concept that you've got is something that is much more it's a journey. I don't want to say slow, but yet it's a journey, it's something to experience, it's not something to feel like. It's this one thing straight after the other, after another, after another, which I think it is partly what happens with paranormal investigations on the TV. You feel like you're jumping from one screen to the next, paranormal bit of activity or phenomena that they've got, then something else in another room. And it is that fast paced, frantic feel about it that gets them, the viewers. It works. But this is much more of a journey and this approach of let's enjoy all of it. But don't you think it truly reflects actual paranormal investigating that it is well, yeah. You're not always going to get something.

Chris Howley : No. And we didn't there was places that.

Lucy Bilton : Well done and we didn't get anything at all.

Chris Howley : Yeah.

Lucy Bilton : And we said on camera, nothing here.

Chris Howley : From my perspective, nothing here. That night, one of the places I've investigated before and I felt really uncomfortable, but this time, bearing in mind there was only two of us in the building, so I was quite apprehensive after my last visit there. I'd have been quite happy if we just slept in the building. But again, that's the nature of paranormal investigation. It doesn't happen every night or every time, or every time.

Michelle: Each time is going to be something very different. And again, I think being able to go from place to place, you really do kind of get that as a sense of, well, it's not a carbon copy of something else. You're kind of really again, it's that word, it's the journey. You're showing what you could experience along the way, that it's not always the same. And I think that's far more realistic. Well, it is far more realistic because it is literally you on your adventure, people coming along to see that. So it's very true to what you are experiencing and doing. So, yeah. Is there anything that people who follow you on Facebook or anything else can do to help support get the project off the ground? Is it just a case of more following? Anything that we can do to help?

Chris Howley : Unless there's any TV producers who are listening in, Michelle, and they like the idea of the please, please, if they can get in touch, we would love to discuss the project further to see, but I think at the moment.

Lucy Bilton : We have a group on Facebook.

Chris Howley : We do?

Lucy Bilton : Yeah. We have some great followers on there at the moment. Like Chris says, unless someone sort of picks it up.

Chris Howley : Yeah.

Lucy Bilton : There's nothing really anyone can do at the moment. But we're hopeful. We are hopeful because it is a different concept.

Chris Howley : Is it surprising the amount of support we've had actually? I mean, we finished our tour at Parameet.

Michelle: Well, I will definitely make sure to put out onto the podcast description notes and on the website details for people so that they can come and find you and follow your journey and obviously hear firsthand if something positive happens with this being picked up. And, yeah, we can all collectively cross our fingers and our legs, whatever other limb that we can cross, because I just think it would be so nice to have something a little bit more different. And I think we've had a couple of investigation shows that have a different slant and a different perspective come out over here on British television, and I can see that we're kind of branching out and trying to put out other things when it comes to the paranormal into history. And I think this would be another brilliant way of highlighting that in a very unique, refreshing approach. I can't endorse it enough. I just think it's fabulous. And like I said, I think 90% of people listening will probably go, Heck, yeah, why haven't I done that?

Chris Howley : Yeah.

Michelle: You might inspire loads of people to want their own little Annabelle Van.

Chris Howley : Or Scooby Doo, whatever else, and off they it's. Well, it's the biggest vehicle and it was a bit hair raising at more so for yeah, yeah, I was going.

Michelle: To say, I don't know which bit is worse, being the passenger or the driver in that scenario.

Chris Howley : Definitely the passenger with me at the wheel.

Michelle: But, yeah, honestly, I'm just so appreciative that you've come along to share some of this.

Chris Howley : Thanks for having us on.

Michelle: Hopefully we can all do our bit when the time comes in some capacity, just to help, because it's fabulous to see something like this being done by people again. It's something fun, it's something enjoyable, but also has real meaning and heart behind it. I think oftentimes that gets lost in kind of these big productions, the heart of these locations and the stories and their history that they have and also the paranormal that they have. Yeah. Well done, both of you. It's a brilliant idea. Absolutely brilliant.

Chris Howley : Well, thank you.

Michelle: And I will say goodbye to everybody listening.

Michelle: Bye, everybody.