Gloucestershire Ghosts

The phantomfest group is based in Cheltenham Gloucestershire so naturally we have
investigated Gloucestershire more than anywhere else in the country. Whilst Ross Andrews
was chairman of the local Paranormal society he wrote several books about the
investigations and local haunting's, and the ‘Paranormal Cheltenham’ book from Amberley
Books features some ‘do it yourself’ ghost walks around Cheltenham and Prestbury.
If venturing to the Gloucestershire area of the Forest of Dean then you can stay in a haunted
Castle for the night in St.Briavel’s. There are a couple of books just about the haunting’s
that have happened there and the investigations that have gone on over a period of 5
or 6 years.

If you have ever ventured onto the Internet before to find ghosts in your local area then
you have probably come across a link to the paranormal database site, Gloucestershire
has an excellent entry so please take a look there, and we will try and add the ones that
missing from that site.

Amberley have also published a book by Lyn Cinderey called ‘Paranormal
Gloucester’ and she is an excellent person to meet up with and take you on a ghost tour
of the city.

The well known paranormal researcher C.J.Romer (various writings and blogs here)
is also based in Cheltenham and has contributed to many an investigation here, and it is
through him that we found out a great deal about, ‘The Cheltenham Ghost’, possibly the
most documented case of paranormal activity in the history of psychical research.

There are many paranormal investigation groups based in Gloucestershire the best of
which seems to be PARASOC based in Cheltenham as they have a very balanced
Approach. There are also a great deal of books, and magazine articles out there about
Gloucestershire ghosts, the old thin volumes of ghost and folklore by Bob Meredith are
very interesting but hard to track down a cheap copy. The ‘Haunted Cheltenham’ by
Diz White is a very disappointing book, for if you take out the section on Prestbury,
(which is a few miles outside of Cheltenham) and also the section on Winchcombe
Which is a much further distance from Cheltenham, and anyone in either town would
never class them as being the same place, then you are left with about 5 or 6 stories
taking up about 14 pages (with pics). There are several good books about Gloucester
as the history is very well preserved in the city due to its historical importance.

The Forest of Dean has several books written about, and obviously we are biased to
The Ross Andrews ‘Paranormal Forest of Dean’ by Amberley books, and I personally
Advise against the book ‘Ghost Stories of the Forest of Dean’ by Dena Bryant Duncan as
Most of the stories in the 40 page book (about 35 pages of large text and photo’s) are
lacking in paranormal details, and are featured in other larger books about the area anyway.

The Forest has an excellent, and very busy, investigation team, (The F.P.I) they differ from
the Cheltenham PARASOC team by their methodology, tending to work from a believers
point of view rather than a sceptical point of view. Do not be fooled into thinking that
they are not scientific, and rational however,and they will turn up to an investigation with
more bits of electronics and gadgetry than the Ghostbusters. They often do investigations
that are open to the public, and smetimes charge though this is always a reasonable price
and in reality covers the costs of the equipment or insurance and they are definitely not in
this to make money.

The Forest Bookshop republished and excellent little book by Sue Law called, ‘Ghosts of
The Forest of Dean’ though this is more expensive and even less pages, most definitely
worth reading if you wish to research some of the older stories of the Forest.