Most Haunted star talks about Derby City centre's most prolific paranormal sites
Derby has previously been named one of the most haunted cities in the UK, with the Derby Goal, Ye Old Dolphin Inn and surprisingly Derbion all being focal points of paranormal activity. The city is teeming with spooky stories that will make your hair stand on end.
Richard Felix, our Derby's favourite ghost hunter and expert talked through some of the most bone chilling stories and experiences he knew about in the city centre.
In one instance, Mr Felix recounts the time he was telling ghost stories to a group of budding enthusiasts late at night one Halloween just two years ago in the old Derby Goal (or jail), when a poltergeist seized a glass from a table and knocked it to the floor, leaving the room absolutely astonished.
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Richard Felix said: "They say that the veil lifts between the living and the dead on Halloween but you don't get that many actual stories coming out of the night. I was sat at the table telling my ghost stories, I was telling a story about a guy who saw the ghost of my dead father in my passenger seat of my car.
"Unbeknownst to anyone the glass of whiskey I was drinking was inching across the table whilst I was telling my story. Then it jumped onto the floor and I looked up and saw that the young lady across from me was filming my story."
So naturally Richard then checked all of the possible causes that could have made this spooky occurrence happen, however he found that there was no reason logical reason for the occurrence . He also boasts that you can watch this paranormal happening on Youtube.
The Friar Gate site is one of Derby's oldest jails and is a popular tourist attraction as the cells date back to the 1700s and is said to be one of the most haunted spots in the country.
Alleged paranormal activity reported there includes the cell doors opening by themselves and even a "condemned cell" that is said to make people feel ill when they enter.
Richard also talked about how the paranormal experiences don't only happen late at night when no one is around, after he found out one late Friday afternoon. Mr Felix had just finished one of his coveted ghost tours and was in Derby Jail at around 3.20pm when he felt like he was being watched.
The ghost connoisseur then looked up and saw a ghostly figure glide across the room and slowly dissipate into nothing before his very eyes. This was Richard's only first-hand ghost sighting and he still speaks of it's lasting effects today.
But this isn't the only city centre spook that Richard told us about, with the famous Derbion being an apparent hotspot for spirits and ghouls.
The instances of paranormal activity got so distressing that exorcisms were carried out in order to help with the regular frights that workers at the shopping centre were experiencing.
Richard said: "When they had built it in the 1980s the reports were coming galore, the council didn't want to scare people so they brought in an expert to perform exorcisms as not to deter potential shoppers. One example is that a security guard saw a little girl in one of the shops, he rushed to get a keyholder to come and open the shop, but after searching everywhere they couldn't find anything.
"The second occurrence that I heard about was a worker was doing some work in a shoe shop, when the stock room erupted and all of the boxes threw themselves off the shelves."
Richard recounts that the shopping outlet was built upon the old east end of Derby, and that the staff of the then Eagle Centre were terrorised by appearances, and sounds coming through the walls. One instance even led a cleaner to quit her job after hearing a "blood curdling scream."
The sightings led to the council issuing a pamphlet entitled "Your Poltergeists and How to deal with it" after the strange phenomena that took place in the late 1970s and 1980s.