A spiritual medium who claimed to have once communicated with the ghost of Oliver Cromwell is hosting an event at a Victorian mansion.

Pauline Day, who has worked as a medium for more than 40 years, is holding her next ghost hunt in Ravensknowle - which was turned into Tolson Museum in memory of two brothers killed in World War I.

The 66-year-old, of Holmfirth, suspects that spirits of the mansion’s employees may still be active there.

Springfield Mill Denby Dale plays host to a Ghost hunt. Medium Pauline looks at one of the night vision monitors.
Medium Pauline looks at one of the night vision monitors.

She said: “The actual building has never been investigated before so I don’t know what to expect, it’ll be interesting.

“The only time I’ve been there before was when I was five. As a child, I never noticed anything, but you can definitely feel somebody following you around.

“I’m bound to get something, but I don’t think it will be nasty because a family lived there.”

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Ravensknowle, which is on Wakefield Road in Huddersfield, was built in the late-1850s for a local textile baron, John Beaumont.

Beaumont died in 1899 leaving the house to his daughter who sold it to a relative, Legh Tolson.

Tolson’s nephews, 2nd Lieutenant Robert Huntriss Tolson and 2nd Lieutenant James Martin Tolson, were killed at the Battle of the Somme and in late 1918 respectively.

“It usually seems to be the working class to come through, not the rich,” Pauline, a former horse groom, added.

“A lot of them were Christians and would be above it because they think spiritualism is the devil’s work, which it’s not. So the mansion’s butlers, maids and cleaners are more likely to communicate with me than the family who lived there.”

Pauline uses a variety of methods or ‘triggers’ as she calls them, such as an Electromagnetic Field (or EMF) Meter, to reach out to the spirit world. She also participates in glass moving and table tilting, but does not use Ouija boards.

Pauline welcomes between 25 and 30 people on her hunts. She takes each group on a tour of the building with the lights on and then with them off.

Her past hunts, including in Denby Dale’s Springfield Mills, have raised thousands of pounds for Kirkwood Hospice.

Pauline said: “My sister and my friend who had both been in the hospice passed away this year and it’s a cause close to my heart.”

The museum, which was formally opened in 1922, was originally a natural history museum but now features the industrial and war history of the Huddersfield area.

The ghost hunt will take place on Saturday, May 27 starting at 6pm.

To book or find out more, e-mail paulinedayghostevents@gmail.com or call 01484 690428.