I used to manage events for a team back in 2015 and one night I undertook a vigil with a group of people at The Block, Burton on Trent, which to my knowing, now isnt there and has been knocked down.
Teams who are still present within the field today will know how reputedly haunted it was. I know many who had visited many times and had experienced at least something strange at some point over a course of a good few hours.
The history
The Block was built in the early 1800s to service the brewing industry in Burton and has seen quite a lot of history in its time. Housing both British and American troops during the 1940’s as part of the ongoing war effort, it is rumoured that there were just over 3000 troops held here before a big and important war operation. It was also believed it was used as a war hospital and later years It has been used as a pottery factory as well as a large area used for the brewing industry.
The Block thankfully survived many bombings during the war and sat empty and running into disrepair for many years. It become quite famous in the paranormal world for its ghostly activity but strangely there are many apparitions of children.
The attic was particularly menacing and was commonly known for poltergeist activity, which leads on to what myself and 8 others witnessed one particular night.
I was on my last vigil of the evening, I had done two already in this area and it had been fairly quiet. For the last group coming to me, I had placed a oujia board on a table with a candle on the side and a glass on top. Guests took their turn on the board and we wasn’t really particularly getting anything, so I had decided to take the group to the opposite side of the room which wasnt miles away and settled in the corner. We all conducted a vigil in this area and at no point did myself or my guests venture over to the where the oujia board was. Everyone was accounted for at all times (they had to be It was a large abandoned building so I needed to keep guests together at all times).
Anyway after conducting the vigil, we turned our torches on and I went over to the oujia board to collect it, the oujia board was no longer on the table…it was on the floor stacked…it was on the floor on top on the glass with the candle next to it….myself and the guests knew nobody had gone over to the board at any point to have done it…how it got like that I do not know, but the room I was in at the time was known for poltergiest activity and stacking of objects is a common occurence in poltergiest cases I later learnt.
I’ve never seen or experienced anything remotely similar since and I expect I may never again.
As we left the attic we did have little balls thrown at us. It was used an airsoft activity centre some nights of the week so the little glow in the dark balls was scattered around and quite easy reachable. All the guests had ventured down the stairs leaving only myself, my mum, Mike and James. Nobody was behind me, so nobody in physical body was hiding away doing this.
When I say thrown, I am not exaggerating, quite a few came at us as if something wanted us out. We did quickly leave and funnily enough one of the most common reports in the attic was people having things thrown at them, if you Google ‘The Block’ even to this day, you will find it was a very common report.
It is such a shame the building got knocked down, a few on the event often speak to me about this particular night and just how amazing it was- I think I speak for everyone who ever visited ‘The Block’ – It is greatly missed.
Charlene Lowe Kemp