I Bought Ghost-Hunting Gear in London and Took It Straight to Prison

Because every Australian tourist brings their own ghost-hunting equipment on an eleven-month holiday to Europe.
I bought an EMF reader and a digital voice recorder in London, packed them with me, and took them to Shrewsbury Prison for a ghost hunt
Normal holiday behaviour, obviously.

The group was quite big, so we were split into three groups of roughly ten people. Some people had ghost-hunting equipment. Others had just their phones and torches, which, to be fair, was really all you needed.

Our group went into the morgue first.

There were REM pods, EMF readers, and bells in the room. The guide picked them up and demonstrated how they would hopefully be used by the spirits. The bells were the old-style ones you press down to ring.
The morgue had a larger room, directly underneath the hanging chute in the ceiling, and a smaller room off to the side. Most of the equipment was in the larger room, but one of the bells had been placed on the floor in the smaller room.
The guide started calling on the spirits to communicate with us.

The bell rang a few times, with spaced-out gaps between each ring.
I was standing against the wall on one side of the room, looking towards the smaller room, when I saw a large, tall shadow move across it.
I opened my mouth and started to say “I…” to the guide because I was about to tell her what I’d seen, and then the bell rang in the other room.
After it finished ringing, I told her I had seen a shadow and asked if I could go into that smaller room.
So I did.
Another man from our group came with me.

I started talking to the spirit I had seen, and the bell was pressed every few minutes right in front of my eyes. The bell in the other room went off at much longer intervals, but the bell in the room with me was going off pretty much after every question or statement I made.
The supposed name of the spirit was John, and it became the running joke of the night that John fancied me because I had so much one-on-one bell activity after I followed the shadow into the separate room off the morgue.
Which, frankly, is very on brand for my life.
A ghost called John in a prison morgue taking a liking to me? Sure. Why not. Add it to the list.
It would undoubtedly be a better relationship than my last one.

The History of the Prison

Shrewsbury Prison has a very dark history attached to it. The original prison, known as The Dana, was completed in 1793, and the current Victorian prison building dates from 1877. The last public hanging at Shrewsbury was John Mapp in 1868, and the final execution at the prison was George Riley in 1961. During redevelopment in 1972, the remains of ten executed prisoners were found inside the prison grounds. Nine were cremated, and George Riley’s remains were returned to his relatives.

We were told that for many prisoners, once you came through those gates, you never left.
Executed prisoners were buried in unmarked graves within the prison grounds. That detail stayed with me. It’s one thing to walk through an old prison at night with ghost-hunting equipment. It’s another thing entirely to know people were buried there, unnamed and forgotten, inside the same walls.

We were also told about Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last native Prince of Wales, who was executed in Shrewsbury in 1283. His death was brutal. He was dragged through the streets, hanged, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered. That part of the history is not attached to the Victorian prison building itself, but it is part of the darker execution history of Shrewsbury.

Governors’ Office

After the morgue, we were shown the governor’s office and where his residence used to be, with his wife and children living above. The guide told us the office had belonged to Captain Bell. His office is reportedly very active, with many people hearing footsteps. Shrewsbury Prison’s own ghost tour material mentions reports of heavy footsteps in the Governor’s Office, and their social posts also refer to footsteps above Captain Bell’s office.

I didn’t see, feel or hear anything while I was sitting in his office that night, although others in the group said they heard very clear footsteps.
After that, we went into the multi-level cell block.

Ouija Board Time

Two Ouija boards had been set up, with REM pods and EMF readers about 25 metres apart. Not everyone chose to participate. The people who did split into two groups.
We cleansed our energy and welcomed any spirits who wanted to communicate with us.
We lightly placed our fingers on the planchette, and almost immediately, it started to move.

I felt a child’s presence straight away. The lady next to me said she agreed with me and could feel the child as well.
We asked a lot of questions, and the planchette moved continuously around the board, answering.
The child was a girl who had been in prison with her mum. She died there after becoming sick. We struggled to make sense of the name she attempted to spell out for us, but bearing in mind it was unlikely this child could read or write, and likely her mum couldn’t either, the jumble of letters made sense.
After about twenty minutes of communicating non-stop with us, a female mother spirit came through.

This presence felt bigger than the child’s. I’m not really sure how to explain it any other way. Just bigger.
She confirmed she was not English and was from a country starting with S. She had been unjustly put in prison for eight months and had passed away from sickness in prison, as so many prisoners did.
Again, when we asked her to spell her name, it was a bit of a jumble of letters, although she did confirm she didn’t know how to read or write.
She was connected to Cell 9.

The movement of the planchette started becoming more infrequent and visibly less strong. I asked if she was becoming bored with our questions and wanted us to stop.
The planchette moved to yes.
Then it moved to goodbye.
That was a very firm signal.
We thanked the spirits for communicating with us and closed the board.
After that, we had a tea, coffee and toilet break, then some time to explore on our own.

Free Time

We walked around the cell block again and went back into the governor’s office, but I had no more interactions there. There was one odd noise that had me walking past a particular cell and then going back in to look around.
What made it more interesting was that later, when I walked back into the cell block, I heard more sounds from that same cell.

Hanging Room

Next, we did an experiment in the room where the inmates were hanged. The group split up and we placed our fingers gently on tables to see if spirit would move them.
They didn’t this time.

Control Room

After that, we went into another room and sat down while our guide briefed us on what was next: the control room experiment.
The experiment was for three volunteers to sit in the dark inside a cell, with the door closed, while the rest of the group watched from the control room cameras to see if any anomalies appeared.
Of course my hand shot up.

Absolutely had to volunteer for that.
I chose the last cell.
I sat down in the dark and the door was closed.
It was peaceful, not scary.
I started talking about my great great great grandfather, John Savage, who was tried in Lancashire and sentenced to life in Australia. My EMF reader spiked during that conversation, but nothing else eventuated.

Group Vigil.

After that, we did a group vigil.
All three groups lined the cell wing corridor, with REM pods, torches, movement sensors and bells in the middle.
There was a fair amount of activity, with lights and torches being turned on and off and bells being pressed.
By then, the energy in the group was starting to fade. It was getting close to 3.30am.
The tour closed and we got an Uber back, very tired but very happy.
It was quite the night.

I went in with my own EMF reader and voice recorder, because apparently that is who I am now. I sat in a prison cell in the dark. I watched bells move in front of me. I saw a tall shadow cross a room. I spoke through a Ouija board with what felt like a child and her mother. I talked about my convict ancestor in a closed cell and watched my EMF reader spike.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, a spirit called John apparently decided I was worth ringing bells for.
Honestly, I’ve had worse nights out.
If you’re ever in Shropshire, pop in to Shrewsbury Prison. I will certainly never forget it.