Secrets of Glastonbury - Part 2

Previously on Secrets of Glastonbury, Mrs J (the mountain goat that she is) and I ascended the Tor, drank from the Chalice Well and added to my ghost hunting arsenal with the acquisition of a pendulum. But the spirits do not seem to be interested in conversing, with the sum total of bugger all coming through my equipment.

It was time to regroup and refresh and finding the local eatery My Fine Deli on the high street, I refuelled with a ploughman’s platter so large, filling and amazing that it would have justified an afternoon nap. After the last crumbs of cheese had been consumed, leaving only smears of pickle and chutney as testament to my conquest, we were off to our third site of the day – Glastonbury Abbey.

Credit: SJP

Rumoured to have been built on the site of a church constructed during a third visit of Joseph of Arimathea, the now ruins of the once great abbey are one of the key tourist destinations Glastonbury has to offer. The earliest evidence of there being a place of worship on the site comes from 700 years after the death of Joe’s nephew, with Roman and Saxon activity being excavated from below the foundations of the existing structures. Further invasion of our fair isle saw the Normans arrive in 1066 and the change of management led to the brutal death of many Saxon monks. Change being as good as a rest, the monastery flourished until 1184 when a fire destroyed much of the building resulting in a charity drive to fund repairs.

Henry II, being a charitable bloke, coughed up a significant amount of the repair bill – until he coughed his last leaving the monks high and dry and financially cut off. Coincidentally 2 years after their main benefactor fell off his perch, the monks amazingly discovered the body of King Arthur and his (second) wife buried under the floorboards. One creative advertising campaign later, the newly discovered bones become a draw for pilgrims (and their heavy coin purses) travelling from Wales to Canterbury. By 19th April 1278, the Abbey was complete and in a ceremony fit for a (departed) King, Arthur’s remains were removed under the watchful gaze of Edward I and reinterred in a black marble topped tomb elsewhere on the site – forever to be lost due to Henry VIII’s destiny to have a male heir (and his fondness for wedding cake).

Credit: SJP

The death of last abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Richard Whiting, echoed the fate of the Abbey. As he was found guilty of robbery (the fictitious treason charge being changed at the last minute after the riches of the abbey could not be located) he was dragged to the Tor, hanged and dismembered. The Abbey was promptly pillaged of all valuables, its very fabric dismantled, removed and repurposed – leaving only what now remains for visitors to see.

It is on this note that we re-introduce Frederic Bligh-Bond into the story.

As mentioned in part 1, Bligh-Bond designed and gifted the Chalice Well cover, but this was not his only legacy in Glastonbury’s history. In 1899 Fred expressed a belief that the design of the Abbey formed some sort of messianic code and was soon writing papers like a Victorian Dan Brown. His theories came to the attention of The Bishop of Bath and Wells (who may or may not have eaten babies) who installed Bligh-Bond as their director of excavations. The team that were employed in the uncovering of a series of small walls were not your average archaeologists with beards, large hats and small paintbrushes, all pursued by Tony Robinson and the cameras. In fact, the advisory team that Bligh-Bond used were significantly more transparent and very much dead.

Termed Psychic Archaeology, Bligh-Bond, through medium John Alleyne (to his friends Captain John Bartlett), claimed to have made contact with dead monks through automatic writing. They provided him with information and instructions on where to excavate.

Paranormal assistance in the study of the past is not just restricted to the Abbey excavation. Karen Hunt employed the use of dowsing rods to detect electromagnetic photo-fields in Point Crook, Australia. Augustus Le Plongeon used séance, occult practices and meditation in his investigation of the Mayan site of Chichen Itza, Mexico. Mediums have also been employed in digs searching for the truths about Alexandria, the Pyramids, The Sphinx and Atlantis.

Sceptics state that rather than anything mystical or paranormal, the knowledge of period architecture, site history and cultural norms are the reasons for the ‘psychic’ archaeologist’s discoveries. And of course the other classic sceptic response- that ghosts don’t exist, let alone have the abilities of a phantom time team. The Church of England soon discovered Bligh-Bond’s use of ethereal employees in 1921 and sacked him, partly because they disapproved of spiritualism, but mostly because he was a bit weird.

Bligh-Bond however did rediscover the nature, location and size of a number of buildings lost to the past – whether this was through old fashioned research, by just being a bit lucky or through receipt of spectral assistance, we will never know. But taking inspiration from Frederick’s spiritualist practice I fired up the Chattergeist and turned on my EMF detector in the hope that some of the deceased clergy would take an interest and want to communicate with me.

Credit: SJP

Standing at the brown plaque detailing the location of where King Arthur was originally discovered, I let the small black puck scan the surroundings. Result: nothing, which was unsurprising as the sign told me that Arthur had been moved on several hundred years ago so why would he still be hanging around an old hole in the ground?

With the screen resolutely devoid of words I took a stroll across the well-tended lawns in the direction the Abbot’s kitchen. Suddenly the screen lit up with Irk, Irrational, Struck; reminiscent of the negative undertones received when I started using the Touch at Stonehenge. Finally something promising from Glastonbury.

As I crossed the threshold of the Kitchen, Albertson, Effort, Bronchiectasi and Tabernacle flashed on the screen. Having a search around Albertson linked to the location I could find no link to anyone by that name at the location, however a lung condition would lead to effort in breathing and a Catholic Church having a Tabernacle would make sense. This could just be clutching at straws or at least making the puzzle pieces fit by cutting off the jigs and the jags.

Credit: SJP

As I sat on a bench at one of the long tables that show visitors how the kitchen would have been set up when it was operational, my attention was drawn from the flashing screen of the Touch. Expecting some sort of canine at the end of the lead the only other visitor the kitchen was holding I was distracted by the tiny form of a cat, having the time of one of its nine lives, rolling around a large stone bowl. Breaking every known social convention, I entered into a conversation with the feline’s owner and discovered that this mill stone was this cat’s favourite, that it enjoyed going for walks and sightseeing (but I was met with disapproval from Mrs J when I recounted my tale as I did not find out the cat’s name).

The conversation becoming a dialogue I explained what my electronic pets were and that I was looking for ghosts. The woman, possibly breaking into some quiet prayer, tightened her grip on the cat’s lead and backed away slowly. Bemused by her reaction and realising that the adage ‘if you cant see the maddest person in a room – then its you’ might be correct after all, I left the kitchen and tried to locate Mrs J.

Credit: SJP

Outside the kitchen is a fenced of ruin with a heavy metal gate, which I later learnt was called a Galilee. The Galilee was used as a turnstile for pilgrims to wait their turn before filing through to the main event to pay the devotions. Whilst I did my best meercat impression to locate my missing wife, the EMF detector flashed to mid-range several times. This could signify a spectral presence but was more likely caused by an electrical cable that ran the lighting in the kitchen. I discounted it and resorting to more modern-day communication, flipping my phone off airplane mode and making a call. Stowing my gear into my many pockets and following the instructions provided, I located Mrs J sat in the basement of the Abbot’s Hall.

After my attempts to try out some SLS apps at Eastgate House were proved fruitless due to lack of suitable light, I took advantage of the well-lit environment to test them out. The apps that I had downloaded were GhostTube SLS and Ghost vision by Jada Soft. To the uninitiated SLS stands for Structured Light Sensor and was given birth by Microsoft as the key human interface part of the Kinect for the Xbox games consol.

In simple terms the Kinect camera generates an invisible grid that would detect a human form and, depending on the game, will let the player control an avatar, control a raft down river rapids or cut fruit through moving your body and swinging your arms around. The interesting thing discovered by players (especially those playing on their own) was that randomly, and with no logical explanation, the game would register that player 2 had entered the game. The theory began that the Kinect could pick up spirit, and so portable devices were developed and sold as an investigative tool. SLS cameras retail for a lot of money – but are meant to show the image of a spirit represented as a stickman on a tablet screen.

So how would these apps, reliant on the iPhone camera, compare? Trying both apps in the same location, they appeared to identify the visible human figures meandering around the hall, producing the expected stickman overlay. The Ghost Vision app seemed intent in producing stick figures from the horizontal lines of the buttresses in the stonework leading me to believe that the basis of this app was to produce something from nothing rather than spirit detection.

The GhostTube app performed in a similar manner but did produce an interesting stickperson figure as you can see from the photo below.

Credit: Mrs J

Still unsure of the validity of these apps – and whether their ‘for entertainment purposes only’ status is more apt, I resolved to further test them when I had access to an actual SLS device and draw comparison from there.

Feeling a little disappointed with the ‘evidence’ I had obtained during my daytime investigations, but very grateful for the opportunity to investigate such a legendary set of locations, it was time to return to our rented cottage before I would return to Glastonbury for a night time ghost walk and investigation with Extours – stay tuned for my nocturnal experience coming up in the third and final part of the Secrets of Glastonbury.