The Hollywood News ventures down ‘The Hole’ and into the London Tombs!

Tuesday 18th January 2011. The Hollywood News is invited to visit The London Bridge Experience to celebrate the DVD release of the Joe Dante film THE HOLE (which is out now folks). Tonight, we are set to delve into the world of the paranormal and officially become ghost hunters for the evening.

It’s just after six in the evening, and I am dashing through London human traffic in the peak of rush hour. The venue is at least a twenty-minute walk away, and awaiting me is fellow THN journo and Tom Fordy, whos is officially my partner in ghost busting crime this very dark, cold night in our nation’s capital. My attempt to reach Fordy is not to get early access to the venue, but to attempt to get a swift one down our necks before we are thrust 50 feet underground to awake people that don’t necessarily want to be.

First, a history of the tombs that we are about to enter. The London Tombs and it’s sister attraction The London Bridge Experience, opened to the British public in February 2008 in a site directly opposite London Bridge tube station in Tooley Street. The tombs site is thought to be one of the areas that was used as a Plague spot, where victims were buried en mass during the famous plague in 1665/ 1666. Such people as Guy Fawkes and William (Braveheart) Wallace were also executed nearby on London Bridge. Upon researching the place, I have discovered that while constructing the attraction, builders found thousands of bones, skulls and other such unpleasantries buried within, a fact secured by tonight’s tour guide, and site general manager James who is convinced that while 2000 bones were recovered, thousands more are still lurking beneath the depths of the building.

Perfect.

Stories on the internet are rife of the paranormal happenings at the London Tombs. In a BBC article dated October 2007, construction workers on the site recall stories of tools going missing, light bulbs blowing and the builders fear of working alone due the strange noises coming from the many tombs within.

“Lads have put down their tools to go for a cup of tea or a fag outside, and when they get back they’re nowhere to be found.” One worker told the Beeb at the time.

“At first we thought they were just mucking about, but it’s happened a few times now with hammers, screwdrivers, and even a power drill.” He added.

Our evening starts with a very brief tour of the Tombs with general manager James, and the extremely nice Jane from Haunted Happenings, who organised our paranormal event tonight. What’s a little disturbing (already), is that the building itself is closed to the general public, and we are initially led through the attraction’s shop with all manner of weird and wonderful gifts hanging from the ceiling above us. The attraction is dorment. None of the actors are present, and none of the animatronic dummies move. There is no ambient sound, and there is little in the way of lighting. This all adds to the feeling of foreboding, and the growing realisation that something bad is indeed coming our way.

We are led through the tight passageways and tunnels, our tour guide James telling us stories both historical and from personal experience in the three years that the attraction has been open for. I get the impression that this is all ‘part of the plan’ and that soon, one by one we are going to be picked off and hidden from one another and tasked with getting out… alive. Yep, it’s all going to kick off soon! Towards the end of the tour, while telling us a story of working alone in the building one night, James stops his talk mid flow…” Did you hear that?” Silence. “No?” “Strange.” He continues, a little more flustered and the tour suddenly comes to an end. Weird. Yep, it’s definitely all about to kick off.

Two minutes later and we are upstairs, coffee in hand with Jane now having taken over to introduce our paranormal experience. In a few minutes we are to venture down to the tombs once again to see if we can ‘wake the dead.’ Or invite them to shove a glass or cheese board on wheels across a table…

A quick cigarette is called for some of the team, and Fordy is outside reminiscing about ‘back home’ in Bedminster, a place that indeed both he and our guide Jane are from. It’s near Bristol. Stories are swapped, and then the focus is back on the paranormal.

“Have you ever been scared?” Fordy asks.

“Yeah.” Jane replies. “Loads of times. I’ve had tons of experiences. I don’t get scared much anymore. Well… I do sometimes. Once I was actually pinned to the floor by a table that literally was thrownon top of me. It took three massive lads to pull the thing off of me. You, know, we’re talking lads that are James’ size.” She adds pointing to James, not a petite chap, who is talking to another ghost hunter in the doorway.

“I was thrown across the room once.” She adds. ” In here [referring to the Tombs], I have seen Shadow Man. He’s a darling. Then there’s the little girl in the white dress. I have seen stones thrown at people going in there. Shadow Man is quite a common thing to see. He can be seen in certain parts, mostly in the Viking Room, or the Spider Room. We’ll go down there in a minute.”

Perfect.

I look at Fordy, glancing at the pub opposite. Surely a better option?

Minutes later we are back inside and Jane is going through her ghost busting kit. We are each given a couple of rods each (see below). They are metal rods with bic pens (without the ink part) attached to each end. Jane speaks to someone who isn’t visable in the room. “Are the spirits with us tonight?” She says as her rods cross each other. That means yes. Indeed, they are with us.

Off we go then.

Trust me, I am not a believer in the paranormal… but tonight, I felt uneasy about waking them up in a place that was soaked in the London’s history… A lot of people died here, and I didn’t want to be added to that number. I was hestitant to enter into doing anything to try to communicate with the ‘other side’. But…. then we set up a séance. In perhaps the most active part of the building, and indeed all of London, 50 feet underground.

Now this séance, was the group of us putting our forefinger on the edge of what was essentially a cheese board on wheels. There are no lights down here now, and all of our torches had been confiscated. Our eyes slowly adjust to the surroundings and we can just about pick up shadows in the distance. We stand, fingers on the board, Jane hollering in her best west country accent: “C’mon. Show yourselves. Are you here tonight? Come closer… touch somebody, tap them on the shoulder. Push ’em!” I stare literally past all of the dead animatronic statues and broken doll heads into the distance, Jane still hollering and everyone else is deadly silent… “Let’s see you.” I am tempted to touch Fordy on the ass, but realise that this isn’t the place or time for any such behavior. Nothing. I keep staring into the same spot. Is that a shadow growing. I blink and the shadow is gone. Am I hallucinating? Are my eyes playing tricks on me? A shudder runs down my spine, instantly dissolved by Jane who announces that we will try to awake the spirits by putting each of us, in pairs, in different parts of the attraction to spread the energy out.

I am paired with my partner in crime, Tom Fordy and we are taken, and duly left, amongst a pile of blood stained warehouse boxes and animatronic rotting corpse dummies, with no lights. Everone else is positioned in other areas of the attraction; the toy room, spider room etc. It is indeed pitch black, but we do now have our torches with us. It is deadly silent. Nervously, I reach for my camera, switching it to video mode. We lark about and let off a few nervous laughs. In the following video footage, I profess to hearing a kind of scratching noise nearly a minute in. I say this to Fordy, who dismisses it, either a little scared, but more likely a little bored (the pub was calling us at this point again), but that was all we could hear. I have to reiterate, it was so quiet down there.You could have literally heard a pin drop. The faintest sound was amplified ten fold,a nd believe me, we were listening hard. There was nothing! Play the video and listen to the background noise. Turn up your computer speakers fully and you can clearly hear a scratching sound, repeated and repeated and growing louder from about a minute in….

A few seconds after the video ends, Jane was at the door and we were being led out, all reconviening to attempt a shot at calling out the dead for one last time. Thus, we heard or saw nothing. That cheese board did move, but there was no massive shuddering of the table and certainly no pinning against the wall or floor by such apparatus. We departed for the pub shortly afterwards, and to be honest I left with questions as unanswered as when I arrived. Is there anyone there. Is there a parallel universe where the dead exist in an afterlife, who constantly try to communicate with the living. Or is it just a load of old bollocks?

I will add finally that when putting this article together, not only did we discover that unsettling sound in the video above, countless images that I took that night have disappeared from my camera’s memory card altogeher. All I have is a series of black and white files featuring nothing at all. I know I took more photos than I ended up with… is something strange a foot here too? Or do I just need a new camera?

I am still on the fence, but it was a great night out, and I’d personally like to thank James and Jane, and all of the folks at The London Bridge Experience and Haunted Happenings for taking us around.

Why don’t you give it a go?

THE HOLE is out now on DVD and Blu-ray from E1 Entertainment. Check out the trailer below, and Tom Fordy’s review of the film right here. We have also posted some more images from our night out at the bottom of the post too. Enjoy.