Spirit hunters unearth clues at Llay miners' institute

So there could be no more appropriate a venue for Mike and his crew to visit than Llay Miners Welfare Institute, a place where many a miner sank a pint or two after a long shift toiling down at the former Llay Main Colliery.

The area’s mining history seeps out of every room of the 86-year-old building where the group’s overnight stay last month unearthed a series of suspected paranormal phenomena, including a ghostly voice of a former chairman and flashing orbs of light crashing around a dance floor.

The Wrexham-based group has investigated over 150 locations, including lighthouses and aircraft museums, preparing a DVD and report for the owners.

On their previous visit to Llay they discovered the malevolent spirit of a former miner lurking in the cricket pavilion and spotted a cardboard box moving across a cellar.

Again during an overnight stay last month they recorded more spiritual happenings and strange phenomena on a range of equipment, including voice recorders and K2 meters, which are used to detect changes in magnetic fields triggered by spiritual presences.

“There was quite a lot of activity. It was very typical of some of our visits in that we come away thinking it was a bit poor at first, then when we played our devices back there was a lot of evidence,” recalls Mike.

“We’ve done lots of pubs, but I prefer a big location like the Miners Welfare. We took in 13 investigators and six or seven of the staff were keen to help out – I did ask them if they were non-believers first.”

The group set up night vision cameras on a landing and in the main dance hall, and also camped in the spooky, musty confines of the Llay Miners’ Heritage Centre upstairs.

“Llay has a reputation for being haunted and we’d got quite a bit from a previous visit,” says Mike.

“When we used our noise box this time the name ‘Cyril Harrison’ clearly came through the white noise among the frequencies.

“The last time we had a cardboard box on a beer keg in the cellar falling to the ground after we left the room.”

Mike likened the stage and dance area to “a spiritual spaghetti junction” and said on both visits several orbs were caught on film – one shooting along the length of the bar.

Miners Welfare staff who joined in said they were left in no doubt about the authenticity of the investigation – some of them were left with scratch marks from an unknown source.

Tracey Hughes revealed one of the voices was very familiar.

“It was a former chairman of the club, who passed away some years ago, and when they put their machines on his name came out clearly. I was a bit sceptical at first, but this is an old building with a lot of history.”

Group member Jimmy Ellis says the methods of those probing the paranormal are often misunderstood, including the use of ouija boards.

A board was used on their previous visit they “disturbed” the spirit of an alleged “wife-beater” and a clearance prayer was needed to banish him from Llay’s cricket pavilion.

Jimmy stresses: “The ouija is a brilliant piece of kit. It is how people come through and talk to us.

“But people don’t know how to close them down, but we’ve been using it for years now and we’ve had no problems whatsoever.”

Mike adds: “What is the point of faking things. We try to convince people that there is real phenomena.

“Years ago we had a woman who was doing that and we asked her to leave the group.

“If we don’t catch anything with our equipment then we don’t catch anything. We try and debunk things, we are always looking for explanations for things.

“We probably have a 90 per cent clearance rate when we go into a lot of private houses where people are having problems – they may be seeing things and the kids are seeing things – and we go and get rid of what is there.

“We don’t bash the spirits, we send them over to where they should be.

“A sudden death can take them out of their body and they don’t realise it. They don’t go over sometimes and we try and convince them they should.”

Despite the spooky goings on, Llay Miners Welfare Institute does not earn the accolade of the most haunted location the North Wales Paranormal Group has probed in its 10 years of existence.

That honour rests with the old Odeon Cinema in Brook Street in Wrexham, now the Liquid and Envy nightclub, while the Royal Oak in Wrexham’s High Street goes down as the most haunted pub with the Trevor Arms in Rossett a close second.

Mike is convinced Wrexham and its surrounding villages are the most haunted in North Wales and says the group is always looking for new places to investigate.

As the medium of the group, he says his extra-sensory skills have helped him cope with tragedy in his personal life, including the death of his wife, Lynn, from cancer last March.

“I used to live in a haunted house, my gran’s house was known to be haunted and I used to see and hear things others couldn’t. I realised as I grew up other people didn’t see these things.

“I’ve got 140 electrical voice phenomena of my wife’s voice,” he revealed. “She died at my daughter’s house and before she passed we had a key bell at the end of the bed which I told her to ring if anything happened.

“After a couple of days the bell was ringing at the bottom of my bed.”

l North Wales Paranormal Group is looking for locations in Wrexham and the surrounding area to investigate. Ring Mike on 01978 854984.