FREEWAY, the giant Irish Wolfhound, wobbles with genuine fear when he steps out of the Clockhouse kitchen.

They say dogs have a sixth sense when trouble is afoot and Freeway certainly seems to know something is up in his 900-year-old house.

He is permanently spooked and will barely venture out of the kitchen - the warmest, most welcoming room in the house.

Who knows which particular presence makes his hackles rise, as the Clockhouse is reputed to contain more spirits than George Best's minibar.

A cavalier, two priests and a bereaved mother are all said to roam through its ancient beamed corridors.

There are even rumours that the last woman to be hanged, Ruth Ellis, has found her way to this quiet corner of the Surrey countryside.

Halloween Ghostbusting ... Medium Craig Hamilton-Parker chats to to Clockhouse owner Fred Batt

Three mediums who have visited the house have all picked up strange spirits inside its ancient walls.

Yet this house, which owner Fred Batt shares with Freeway and two clattering suits of armour, is where I have chosen to spend the night.

Fred has grown used to living with a whole family of unexplained spooks - but I am not so comfortable with his extra house guests.

Candelabra in hand, I reluctantly tiptoe around to introduce myself to all of the Clockhouse residents.

Having watched new ghost film, Darkness Falls, I've convinced myself that ghosts are an invention of Hollywood script writers.

I hope I'm not about to be proved wrong.

The room I have chosen to spend the night in has been described as 'the hub' by one psychic.

It's creaking floorboards and resident rocking horse make it seem more like something out of a horror film.

There have been far too many sightings of spooks at this house for my liking. One of the most common sights has been of a pair of monks or priests who are said to pace along the upstairs hallway.

Determined to feel their ghostly presence, I huddle in the house's claustrophobic priests hole - a short hidden passageway where priests from the 16th century would have hidden to avoid being hung, drawn and quartered by Henry VIII's soldiers.

The dingy hole is cold and dark and the sense that someone is in there with me - making the breath catch in my body - is overwhelming.

I hover unwilling for a few unnervingly quiet minutes, feeling spooks - real or imagined - drawing me into their world.

And then I want out.

I relight my candelabra - the flames have mysteriously flickered out - and start exploring once again.

The ancient house does little to dispel the spooky sensations which rattle around it.

The polished wooden stairs creak louder than a Scooby Doo sound effect and the eyes of the eerie portraits on the wall seem to follow me as I follow the path of the priests towards the high beamed living room.

This room is the most haunted in the house and is certainly not the place to snuggle up for a second viewing of that film, Darkness Falls.

Fred has already been scared silly in the room. Shortly after he moved in he took a photograph of it to enter an interior design competition.

When he went to develop the digital photo on his computer, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

There in his shot were at least four ghostly shapes, including a soldier in full body army, a bearded cavalier and a woman with a cloth bonnet covering her head.

"I was looking in disbelief at the photographs," says Fred. "If I had not taken them myself I would not have believed it."

As he stared at the spooky shots, the clock struck midnight, the bells ringing out in the icy night air.

"I was scared to death," he says.

"It really freaked me out, but then I went straight back into the room and shouted 'What the **** is going on?'

"Since then it's been ok."

Many people have heard the pounding of ghostly footsteps in the Clockhouse's narrow hall and have been disturbed by the clunk of an opening door handle in an eerily empty room.

Fred recalls in a ghostly whisper: "My builder was in there decorating the room with the door shut.

"The door knob turned then sprang back and the door opened. He thought it was me but I was out in the garden."

Despite these unexplainable happenings, Fred, who is petrified of ghosts, says he would not live anywhere else.

He says: "I quite often hear noises but I love it here. I can't leave now - it's the homeliest place I have ever lived. It feels like I should have been here all my life, that's the weird thing."

Things that go bump in the night ... The pals call up the spirits

Since her death, screams and spooky goings-on have been reported at the club, particularly in the upstairs dressing rooms.

Now Fred believes she may be following him home.

He says: "I can feel her in my car. People say they have seen me driving with a blonde woman, when I know I have been alone.

"I can feel her when I go to the club and when I leave the club. When I get in the house the feeling goes. The spirit mediums tell me she follows me from the club to the house.

"The best way I can describe it is as if someone is behind me and then I turn round but of course no one is there."

This was part of a PR campaign with Craig Hamilton-Parker for the DVD 'Darkness Falls"
>> See Psychic PR Services section.

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