Langenhoe Churchyard, England Investigation

The church, which is no longer there, was built sometime in the 14^th Century. It was severely damaged during an earthquake in 1884 and later demolished in 1962. What remains today is a sign on a fence indicating of what used to be on the property. There are no signs of the church. The area is a weed-infested field with some of the foliage reaching as high as five feet or more. Scattered amongst the weeds are the remnants of a long-forgotten cemetery with headstones that have either fallen over or are listing at precarious angles and are covered with moss.

Address: Located near some marshlands near Mersea Island and just off the B1025

Hauntings: A priest from the north of England was inducted here in 1937 as its pastor. The Reverend Ernest Merryweather began to almost immediately have some paranormal activity within the building, even though he had never experienced anything of a supernatural nature in his lifetime.

One of the first events involved the pastor’s valise becoming inexplicably locked and could not be opened while inside of the church. Once he left the area of the church, the valise opened without any issues.

On a very quiet fall day, September 20, 1937, the west door was slammed with extreme force even though there was barely a breeze outside at the time. Poltergeist-like phenomena soon followed such as the movement of objects and strange bumps and thuds, all recorded by the reverend in his diary.

All was quiet for many years until in 1950 when he heard the disembodied voice of a young lady singing. This sound came from the same side of the church where the door had been slammed decades ago; the west side. Workers also heard this same ethereal signing on one occasion.

Music and a man’s heavy footfalls were also experienced by Merryweather. Around Christmas time in 1950, a shadowy figure of a man purportedly dressed in a tweed suit glided across the nave and into the pulpit area. During some Sunday services he spied the apparition of a woman dressed in the style of the late medieval or Tudor dress again seem to disappear at the west side of the church.

Feelings of being watched have also been reported in the past. There are a couple of legends of a lady in black that is supposedly seen around the church in the evening. In 1908, a story came about of two sisters who encountered a nun moving around and disappearing into the north wall and again towards that now infamous west side of the structure.

When being shown around the building in 1947 by a Mrs. Cummings, the rector said that he felt as though he had walked through a naked ghost that apparently had tried to hug him. The occurrence only lasted for a few seconds.

There have been a lot of untimely and premature deaths in the church. Three people committed suicide and nine children died in infancy. Rev. Merryweather died in 1965. Other people have also committed suicide or have had misfortune when associated with the church.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Langenhoe Churchyard on May 31, 2023 and the team members included: Paul Adams and  Dale Kaczmarek., with help from Sylvia Shults.

Equipment setup: A K-II Meter, Melmeter, ParaTek app and digital recorder was used.

Experiments performed: A single ParaTek app session was conducted in the old graveyard after we were able to discover a few graves.

Personal experiences:

Dale Kaczmarek: I did not sense anything paranormal during our visit to Langenhoe Churchyard but did feel loneliness and a feeling of being forgotten. These graves have been out here so very long with no one visiting or paying their respects to the dead, gave me the feeling of great age and hopefully our visit here gave the dead a bit of happiness and belonging.

Evidence collected:

Here Langenhoe.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “Where was the church; straight ahead, left or right?” The device immediately responded with, “Here.”

Zero Langehose.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “Is there anything left of the church out here?” The device replied with, “Zero.”

Words spoken by the ParaTek app: raised, read, hand, 7, remain, induce, inches, you have, indeed, scratch, ramp, region, (screeching bird), numbers, here, coke, popping, 90, magnet, wings, batteries, rat, window, key ring, thick, bad, Victoria, leave, bath, you have, diabolical, yield, instead, determined, phone, zero, intersection, simple, seeds, one and new moon.

Conclusions: While, at one time, this church may have been very active with paranormal activity; it was extremely quiet during our visit. I believe from what I have read both in books and online, the majority of the activity was centered in and around the church. Since the church was demolished over 40 years ago, and human occupation ceased about that same time, it is logical to assume that whatever was here used to like to interact with those living beings. Once those “living beings” had left, the ghosts must have moved on as well.

It would have been nice to have at least stood where the old church once was. This was a very sad location but interesting nonetheless.