Far From Over!

Well, two more BPOS investigations today in Surrey: one at the Silent Pools near Guildford and one at a hospital not far away by another group.

I cannot tell you about the results about the hospital yet because I am awaiting to get a report (and photographs) back from them and – as at the time of writing – they have not got back to London yet. (I hope they’re OK and no ‘ghosties’ have got them!) But I can tell you about the Silent Pools one though, as I was on that myself today: I went down there with Patsy and her new husband, and Gareth. We left around midday (an hour later than planned because they were delayed by London traffic jams) and arrived at the Pools in about an hour and a half. There are two Pools (a lower and a higher one) and the place was practically deserted.

The story is, that a ‘water wraith’ has often been sighted there; the ghost of a young maiden who reputedly committed suicide in the Pool back in Medieval times. She was the daughter of a local woodcutter who lived near to the Pools, and one day she was bathing naked in the top pool, when a vagabond horseman spotted her who pursued her – on his horse – into the Pool. She panicked, but in a desperate attempt to get away, waded out of her depth, and was drowned (or so the original story goes). Since then, over the centuries, the ghost of this girl has been seen in and around the Pool, but her ghost just disappears after a matter of seconds.

I first visited the Pool in 1979 to try and get more information on these sightings, although I wasn’t too successful – although I did get some good photographs. Patsy had made two independent visits there (before I met her); one in 1998 (when she was leading a group of archeology students) and another in 2002. On the second occasion, she actually got an account from a man selling snacks in the lay by (his van was not there today unfortunately). He told her that when he was ‘clearing up’ after a day’s work, he saw the figure of a young woman who ‘just disappeared into the trees’ around the edge of the top Pool.

I saw little change in either of the Pools when I visited them again today. Still an area of ‘uncanny silence’ seemed to pervade them both – almost a sense of timelessness and melancholy whose silence eclipsed everything else. I took a few photographs, but then my camera began to inexplicably malfunction, despite have been loaded with a new film and batteries. Luckily, though, Patsy managed to use her film up completely, so hopefully, we will still get some good pictures.

And then, back to London. But not before stopping at an isolated pub not far from Farnham around 6 to get a really nice dinner (which Patsy paid for, bless her!). So, in all, it was a nice day out.

More about the hospital thing when news comes in of that, but in the meantime, the Silent Pool’s investigation is far from over!

David