Smethwick Swimming Centre
We have investigated Smethwick Swimming Centre six time in the last twelve months with over thirty hours of video footage, many hours of EVP and photographs. This is a location the SPRT team love and enjoy going back to everytime. WE HAVE A TO GIVE A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THE STAFF WHO GIVE THEIR TIME TO HELP US ON EACH NIGHT THE SPRT TEAM ALSO WOULD LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU TO THE MANAGMENT OF THE CENTRE ITSELF FOR ALLOWING US TO GO IN AND INVESTIGATE THE PHENOMINA.
This picture was taken in the Sauna and can be viewed better in our
Photos page.
We also recorded an intersting EVP down in the small subways.
Sandwell Paranormal Research Team were invited to investigate strange goings on at Smethwick Swimming Baths. With reports of voices being heard and the feeling of being watched and also reports of the staff seeing a little girl in the subways, what would we find?
The History
Smethwick Swimming Baths (formerly known as Thimblemill Baths) was opened on March 30th 1933 and designed by the Smethwick engineer Roland Fletcher and the architect Chester Button and is based on a German design for an
aircraft hanger. The pool was also boarded up in the winter months and used as a concert all where
groups such as the Beatles performed live.
Details of the Investigations
We arrived at the location at around 7:30 pm, we were greeted by the duty manager where he then took us into the room we were allocated. After an initial health and safety talk with the duty manager we began to carry out the baseline tests in the subways which are where staff had been experiencing phenomena. It quickly became apparent that we could explain the feeling of being watched by where the plant machinery is and was situated before, as being exposed to very high levels of electromagnetic fields which is known to affect the brain.
We measured the humidity, temperature and emf which were pretty much the same throughout the whole of the subways. We decided that we had sufficient data to conduct the investigation so once we had set up the trigger object (which consisted of some old coins all dated around the time of the second world war) we went and joined the rest of the team, where we were greeted by a few guests from the leisure centre.
Our initial walk around with our sensitive took us on a good walk around the subways until she picked up on the energy of children (In the same spot where a child had been seen by staff). She began to tell us that she was not alone and that she had a brother and a cousin with her, after around half an hour our sensitive lost communication with this energy and seemed to be getting the energy of a male we followed her to the small subways where she said she could taste blood in her mouth (It has been recently revealed that a part of the centre was used as a morgue in the second world war). We entered the small subways after a brief pause and our sensitive picked up on a male energy that
seemed to have an injury of some sort, but again this energy seemed to be weak.
We decide after around an hour of investigation to have a break this had taken us to around 9:30 pm. myself and our other investigator decided to take two guests down into the subways with us where we seemed to make contact with the girl spirit every time we tried to leave the vicinity of the air raid shelter. One of our guests seemed to be picked on by the energies of these children as he kept having his leg brushed past and he stated on many
occasions that he felt as though he was being pinched.
The most activity we got were a few taps and a few light anomalies but nothing significant at all on this vigil so we decided to go and join the rest of the team this was around 10 pm we had decided to have a brief interval in the investigation, and find the results of the esp. experiment we were conducting throughout the night and interestingly out of the 10 guests that were there only one of them got it close. He said it was a toy of some sort and this person was
the most sceptical person out of the group.
After our break we split up into small groups where one group went into the small subways and the other group went into the air-raid shelter. However it seemed that on both these vigils we seemed to get nothing more than a few changes in the light and a few bangs but these were easily explainable.
We finished the vigils after around half an hour and then decided it was good to have a short break, where it was then decided that half the team would go and investigate the sauna and the other half would stay down in the subways and try to see if the could get any phenomena this time round.
Unfortunately the attempts in the subways were in vain however the sauna came up with some interesting phenomena, people in the group reported that it was unnaturally cold and a very peculiar picture was taken of some sort of anomaly, it there for became apparent to the team members that were there, that they may not be alone.
And before we knew it 12:30am came and it was time to draw the investigation to a close. The staff at the centre were very enthusiastic in the whole evening which played a big part and helped us get the phenomena that we did, however we have been able to explain many things to date but there are still unanswered questions and this is the whole reason why we have decided to go back and see what else we can find out.
The History
Smethwick Swimming Baths (formerly known as Thimblemill Baths) was opened on March 30th 1933 and designed by the Smethwick engineer Roland Fletcher and the architect Chester Button and is based on a German design for an
aircraft hanger. The pool was also boarded up in the winter months and used as a concert all where
groups such as the Beatles performed live.
Details of the Investigations
We arrived at the location at around 7:30 pm, we were greeted by the duty manager where he then took us into the room we were allocated. After an initial health and safety talk with the duty manager we began to carry out the baseline tests in the subways which are where staff had been experiencing phenomena. It quickly became apparent that we could explain the feeling of being watched by where the plant machinery is and was situated before, as being exposed to very high levels of electromagnetic fields which is known to affect the brain.
We measured the humidity, temperature and emf which were pretty much the same throughout the whole of the subways. We decided that we had sufficient data to conduct the investigation so once we had set up the trigger object (which consisted of some old coins all dated around the time of the second world war) we went and joined the rest of the team, where we were greeted by a few guests from the leisure centre.
Our initial walk around with our sensitive took us on a good walk around the subways until she picked up on the energy of children (In the same spot where a child had been seen by staff). She began to tell us that she was not alone and that she had a brother and a cousin with her, after around half an hour our sensitive lost communication with this energy and seemed to be getting the energy of a male we followed her to the small subways where she said she could taste blood in her mouth (It has been recently revealed that a part of the centre was used as a morgue in the second world war). We entered the small subways after a brief pause and our sensitive picked up on a male energy that
seemed to have an injury of some sort, but again this energy seemed to be weak.
We decide after around an hour of investigation to have a break this had taken us to around 9:30 pm. myself and our other investigator decided to take two guests down into the subways with us where we seemed to make contact with the girl spirit every time we tried to leave the vicinity of the air raid shelter. One of our guests seemed to be picked on by the energies of these children as he kept having his leg brushed past and he stated on many
occasions that he felt as though he was being pinched.
The most activity we got were a few taps and a few light anomalies but nothing significant at all on this vigil so we decided to go and join the rest of the team this was around 10 pm we had decided to have a brief interval in the investigation, and find the results of the esp. experiment we were conducting throughout the night and interestingly out of the 10 guests that were there only one of them got it close. He said it was a toy of some sort and this person was
the most sceptical person out of the group.
After our break we split up into small groups where one group went into the small subways and the other group went into the air-raid shelter. However it seemed that on both these vigils we seemed to get nothing more than a few changes in the light and a few bangs but these were easily explainable.
We finished the vigils after around half an hour and then decided it was good to have a short break, where it was then decided that half the team would go and investigate the sauna and the other half would stay down in the subways and try to see if the could get any phenomena this time round.
Unfortunately the attempts in the subways were in vain however the sauna came up with some interesting phenomena, people in the group reported that it was unnaturally cold and a very peculiar picture was taken of some sort of anomaly, it there for became apparent to the team members that were there, that they may not be alone.
And before we knew it 12:30am came and it was time to draw the investigation to a close. The staff at the centre were very enthusiastic in the whole evening which played a big part and helped us get the phenomena that we did, however we have been able to explain many things to date but there are still unanswered questions and this is the whole reason why we have decided to go back and see what else we can find out.
