The land on which St. John's House stands was given to the establishment of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist In the middle of the 12th century, during the reign of Henry II. The hospital itself was created by William de Beaumont who was then Earl of Warwick. This hospital provided two purposes which were to help the local poor and ill and to provide casual overnight boarding and food to impoverished travelers such as pilgrims. The Hospital of St. John the Baptist was one of two such hospitals in the town of Warwick at the time. The other was the Hospital of St. Michael, founded with the sole purpose of providing help and respite to those in the parish suffering from leprosy. Out of both the hospitals only the chapel building of St. Michael still stands. In 1291 the Hospital was noted to own a dovecote worth 2 shillings. Additionally, the ploughing rent of land owned by the Hospital was valued at 10 shillings per year. In 1337 the hospital’s brethren was granted protection. At this time it was suggested that some building renovation was necessary. It is known that in 1610 the site comprised four standing buildings, including a gatehouse topped with crenelations. The largest of the three other buildings has crosses at the roof's apex, suggesting its religious use as the site's chapel. At the time the hospital site also included a cemetery where remains have often been dug up during refurbishment or remodeling works on the House. The first recorded case was in the 1830s when work was being undertaken in the kitchen garden. In 1987, two workmen digging the front End of St. John's Court flats discovered two skulls. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries on the orders of Henry VIII, St. John's was granted to Anthony Stoughton, for services to the King. The land was later inherited by his eldest son William by Neither of the two actually ever lived in the house, instead they leased it out to others such as Richard Townsende, who was a yeoman at Warwick. Eventually the land was inherited by the son of William Stoughton, Anthony Stoughton (junior), who built a house on the site. It is important to note that in the East Wing of the house there is a door lintel which bears the date 1626 and the initials A.S.The house remained in the posses
Ghosts of St John's House
St John's House is thought to be haunted by many spirits but in particular there are two sisters who are vociferous in their attempts to drive people away from visiting this Jacobean Mansion.It is thought two sisters both met tragic ends at the house; one was burnt to death when her clothing caught light while trying to dry herself by an open fire and the other fell ill after the house was broken into and many believe she literally died of fright. Some of the paranormal activity within the building includes ghostly footsteps and voices thought to belong to young girls. Over the years the figure of a woman has also been seen wearing long clothing and almost oblivious of anybody else. Children have been seen walking the many corridors of St John's House. Their laughter is often heard as is the sound of running. There is also a spirit of a man who is violent towards women which was picked up in the cellar as well as lurking figures being seen in the corner.sion of the Stoughton family until 1960.
Location: St Johns Mansion
Address: St John's House
Museum St John's
Warwick
CV34 4NF
Aprox. year Built: 1200’s
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The weather conditions for this investigation was wet and very cold. Although inside the building it was fairly warm. Our investigation started with a walk round the building so that we could orientate ourselves to the layout and size of the building. This includes the cellar, Kitchen area, Glass room, Class room, Play room and the attic. The Attic was in the second floor and the rest of the areas that we used on the ground floor. The second floor if the Royal Fusiliers Museum which we did not have access to. One the walk round we spent some time in the Cellar doing a watch and wait vigil.
Vigil One - Cellar. The cellar was very cold and but also quite dry. We started in the middle of the cellar and called out to the spirits for some indication that they were around. In this first part of the vigil we had a verity of taps and bangs coming from all round the cellar. This could simply be pipes cooling but in some of the areas that we heard the taps there was no pipes. We had a selection of K” meters dotted about the area that we was working and had very little response on them. There was then a strong smell that I can only describe as dirty unwashed soiled smell. A very strong hit of Poo. This smell was very dry on the back of my throat and was smelt by at least three people in the group. As this smell passed there was a very sweet smell of perfume that seemed to circulate around the group. There was no action on the K2 meters at this point. I then decided to go to the small pot room at the other end of the cellar to the main group as we had heard lots of tapping coming from this area. While I did not smell or get any readings on the K2 I did have a series of bangs on pipes just out side the room that the rest of the group did not seem to hear. There was also an uneasy feeling in the cellar as if you were being watched from the shadows.
Vigil Two - Kitchen. The next vigil took place in the kitchen where we started with a watch and wait, they only thing picked up on this first part of the vigil was foot steps coming from the corridor when we knew that there was no one in the area. This was heard twice in the space of 5 minutes. We then split into smaller groups and started with some table tipping. One group stopped in the Kitchen while our group moved to the smaller room next to the kitchen. We started to call out with the table and it was not long before we had movement. As the energy built around the table we had the table spinning on one leg and turning at such a speed that we were thrown off it. We then asked the spirit to turn the table clockwise for “YES” and anti clockwise for “NO”. Using this we established that the spirit was a 3 year old girl that had lived in the house as an orphan. How she died we are not sure but she liked playing with the table and loved having the company there. She was very happy in the house. However when were tried to get her to walk the table to the glass room which was the next room along she did not want to go in there. She seemed to be scare of a spirit that was in there. The Little girls name which we found out in a later vigil was “Elizabeth” . This vigil gave us some great table tipping.
Vigil Three - Nursery Room. Located on the other side of the building to the Kitchen this was filled with old toys like Punch and Judy. All the toys seemed to give of a constant reading on the K2 meters and we were not able to find any power source. We started with the Ouija Board in this room and also place a Maglite on one of the toys. The glass on the Ouioja board did move very slowly and was just pushed off the board. So we reverted to table tipping. The table moved straight away but with very slow rocks, as if a baby was being rocked to sleep. The Maglite also seemed to be turned on when ever we asked questions for a yes answer. From this we think the spirit was a baby girl that had been smothered.
Vigil Four - Glass Room. This we called the glass room as it has big glass cabinets in it with dummies and old clothing from the 1800’s all the way to the second world war. For this vigil it was just myself and Paula. We had a K2 which we had no readings on, The camera and two Maglites. After lots of calling out the only action we had was some loud tapping on the glass cabinet directly behind me and the Maglite being turned on but not turned off. We think we had the spirit of one of the sisters who both died in the house. This also seems to be the spirits that the children are scared of.
Vigil Five - Attic. We started this vigil with an energy circle and just asked the spirits to give us a sign that they were there. We had quite a few taps but most of these were from the radiators cooling. We did have one sound that sounded like a hollow metal being banged. We could not replicate this on the radiators however an old pot on the table when tapped sound just like it so we have to put this as a sign from the spirits as there was nothing that could have blown into the pot. We then moved to glass work. This proved very interesting with Elizabeth coming straight through. This is where we were able to establish her name and had conformation from her that she had been in the attic when we did our walk round and that she had held my hand and the hand of another lady that was on the table with us. We then had two other spirits want to talk the first was the father of the other two ladies at the table and the second seemed to be a fellow soldier that I had been in training with called “Rambo”. He seemed to want to tell me something but I was not able to get to much out with just “YES” and “NO” answers on the table. I did ask him to talk to the EVP recorder but as yet have not had the chance to listen back. If anything was captured it will be shown below. Again the spirits were very active with us in this vigil.
Vigil Six - Class room. Although we had spent some time in the class room earlier that I have not recorded above on the first visit to the class room we had the desk that I was sat on shake and a few taps happen. On the second visit we had more of the same with all the desks shaking at the same time. This was such small movement that you could feel but not see it moving. We again asked for the spirits to doing something for us and we had some tapping on the desks directly under someone's hands. The class room was one of the qui tier areas but still with some activity.
Summary -Is St John’s haunted? Well from our investigation I would say Yes. Our main evidence would have to be the Maglites as you physically have to twist the end to turn them on and every time they came one in the investigation there was no one around them. The sceptics would say that the tapping, Table tipping and glass work could be some one pushing or making the sounds. However in our opinion this we not the case on this investigation. How many spirits live at St John’s it is hard to say. Personally we encountered three that lived in the building and two that were just visiting. I am sure there are many more that we just did not come into contact with on the night.
