Is HMP Dorchester Haunted? Oh my Goodness...
- Dr Iain M Lightfoot
- Jul 27
- 12 min read
Location: HMP Dorchester, DT1 1JD
Date: 24-25 July 2026
Time: 2100-0330
GeoMag: G1 Minor geomagnetic storm.
Environmental: Clear Skies, 13 Deg C, 68% Humidity.
“As we stood in there, they were like calling out, and then in front of me, I see something appear… it was a metal washer, and it came from the window. I saw it come up into the light of the window, bounce, hit the sink, skim my shoulder, and then clatter on the wall or the radiator behind me. What made me jump was that it came from somewhere and it hit me as it went past.” Anon.
Firstly, thank you to Haunted Happenings for arranging and hosting such an amazing venue. We had a great time and wonderful to meet the hosts and guests. Read to the end - there are 2 amazing videos embedded in this blog!
I can state without fear of over egging this place... Wow... This is an active location which is simply a behemoth! You can, I suspect, get lost if you don't have a sense of direction... and, there is activity oozing from every brick it seems. The prison itself is old, dating back to 1795 but when you consider that it was built over a medieval castle one gets an indication of actually how old this occupied land is. From the moment we entered, there was a sense that something within the grounds was still very active. I had the impression of a dog being with us, and we were to find out that this may well have been the case. The energy was not necessarily threatening, but it felt that we were being watched and they were fully aware of us. This is actually that strongest impression I had throughout the investigation, that we were being watched, assessed and I certainly felt we were being followed.
We didn't know of any stories before we visited, as investigators, we have to distinguish between what a location is reputed to contain and what we actually experience. We cannot allow the history or stories associated with a building to dictate our conclusions. However, when repeated reports begin to resemble what we independently encountered, they become worthy of closer examination. This is our truth as we experienced it.
This is Dorchester Prison...
A site layered with history
HM Prison Dorchester was a local men’s prison in Dorchester, Dorset. It's rather an impressive Victorian buildings stand on a site with a history stretching back much further than the prison itself. The prison was constructed over the remains of a Roman town house, including a mosaic that is now held by Dorset Museum. This places the building on land that had been occupied for many centuries before the first prisoners ever entered its cells.
The prison held adult and young adult males from courts across Dorset and parts of Somerset. Roughly half of its population consisted of convicted prisoners, while the remainder were being held on remand.
Conditions were not always good. Reports described overcrowding, ageing buildings and limited opportunities for prisoners. Although improvements were later made, the prison remained a place associated with confinement, uncertainty, fear, frustration and loss of freedoms.
The Ministry of Justice announced its intention to close Dorchester Prison in September 2013. It formally closed in January 2014. Plans were subsequently developed to convert parts of the prison into housing while retaining its significant Victorian buildings. During preparations for redevelopment, human remains buried within the prison grounds were identified for exhumation and archaeological examination. This is unsurprising as people were executed on site, the last was David Jennings in 1941.
The knowledge that people had been buried within the grounds inevitably adds another layer to the location. During our investigation, there were two particular areas where we suspected there may have been bodies beneath the ground. Whether this influenced our experiences is impossible to establish, but the energy in one particular area near a demolished building felt highly restless and unusually active.
The haunted reputation of Dorchester Prison
Dorchester Prison has developed a considerable paranormal reputation. Visitors and investigators have reported footsteps moving through empty cell blocks, jangling keys, muffled voices and doors opening or slamming without an obvious cause. There have also been reports of dark figures standing at the ends of wings, only to disappear when approached. Sudden cold areas, oppressive sensations and the feeling of being touched by unseen hands have also been described. The prison’s history includes executions and intense human suffering. One of the best known cases associated with Dorchester was the execution of Martha Brown in 1856. A young Thomas Hardy witnessed the execution, and the experience is widely believed to have influenced his later writing, particularly Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
However, historical tragedy does not automatically create paranormal activity. As researchers, we have to be careful not to turn suffering into entertainment or assume that every sound must be connected to someone who died there.
What makes Dorchester interesting is not simply history, rather the consistency of the unusual experiences reported by people who spend time there.
Objects apparently thrown from nowhere
Before beginning our own investigation, we spoke with someone who had regularly worked inside the prison. He was cautious about sharing his experiences because he did not want to influence anyone else’s investigation.
One incident took place in a cell near the chapel. Three inexperienced investigators were attempting table tipping while he stood in the doorway observing them.
During the session, he saw a metal washer appear in the light of the window. It travelled across the cell, struck the sink, skimmed his shoulder and then hit the wall or radiator behind him.
The important part of this account is the apparent direction and trajectory of the washer. It did not fall from above, it appeared to travel from a position near the window and move with enough force to cross the room and make physical contact with him.
He described another occasion when a small piece of material appeared to rise, strike the ceiling and then fall back down. On a separate night, a BB pellet reportedly struck a plastic screen in reception at considerable speed shortly after someone asked anything present to come forward and make itself known. We know that the entities here have significant energy!
Those present attempted to recreate the incident. They dropped, stepped on and threw the pellet, but could not produce the same speed or impact. None of this proves paranormal causation. Old buildings contain loose materials, uneven floors, deteriorating paint and countless opportunities for ordinary sounds and movements. What interested us was that the witnesses had actively tried to identify those ordinary explanations himself. They had not simply accepted the events as paranormal.
The march from the gate
Even before our walk round I had the sensation of a dog being present (We have a feint EVP of the dog barking and a photo of a dog's outline in D Block). This was to manifest an EVP and Photo during our investigation. During the initial walk around, I received a strong impression of soldiers marching from the gate and continuing down the side of the prison. The perceived route seemed very specific. It began at a gate and continued towards the rear of the block and appeared to stop around the education wing. It did not continue to the very back of the prison.
This was an intuitive impression rather than a visual apparition or recorded sound. I could not prove that soldiers had marched along that precise route. Nevertheless, the clarity of the sensation was for me very normal as it is with being sensitive and intuitive. It was as though a movement once performed many times had left an imprint on the environment.
The kitchen was quiet as was the the education centre. When I say quiet, I mean paranormally quiet. Sounds seem to carry from deep within the prison, creating the impression that activity was taking place somewhere just beyond our immediate location.
It is really something to note that throughout this period, we both repeatedly felt watched, and I mean, when you think about it we were in a former prison, was this the layout and design intent or was it something more?
Everything led back to D Wing
As we explored the prison, we encountered a significantly different sensations in different areas, energies, but the investigation kept drawing us back to D Wing where the atmosphere was highly charged at first.
There was energy elsewhere, although I did not find the wider building especially oppressive. That changed when we entered D Wing. Something there felt wrong.
I was on edge and could not shake the sensation. After our first walk around, I noticed that my hands were shaking. Nothing dramatic had happened. No object had moved in front of us and no figure had appeared. Both my and Barry's physical reactions seemed to arise solely from the energy and atmosphere.
That is important because fear can be created by suggestion, expectation, darkness and the architecture of a location. Narrow corridors, locked cells and limited visibility naturally increase alertness.
However, I had entered the building with other people and nothing had occurred that should have produced such a strong response. The intensity felt disproportionate to the situation.
When we later spoke to the hosts, they appeared surprised that we had independently identified D Wing as the centre of the activity. They indicated that there was a story connected to that area which they intended to share at the end of the evening.
That very response suggested we were moving in the right direction.
A strange formation captured in D Wing
While reviewing the area, we captured what appeared to be a large, elongated formation / strong orb close to the floor in D Wing, it came out of a cell door and then I turn the camera to the rear of D Block. As I swing back round, the anomaly moves across the floor gaining in height coming straight towards me where it pauses in front of me. It then appeared to dissipate.
The string orb / formation did not resemble a conventional dust orb. It appeared almost transparent, with several concentrated centres resembling small marbles joined by a plasma like structure.
We have seen unusual formations before, and not every orb or light anomaly is paranormal. Infrared cameras can illuminate dust, moisture, insects and airborne debris. Camera focus and movement can also distort an ordinary object into something far more dramatic. What do you think?
However, for me, the structure, movement and apparent orientation of this formation did not seem natural to us. It appeared organised rather than random. Our working interpretation was that it could represent some form of paranormal manifestation. That remains a hypothesis rather than a confirmed conclusion. We did not witness this again the whole evening.
Are we being Watched?
By approximately 11pm, I had developed the impression that the activity was building.
It felt as though whatever occupied the prison was watching us and deciding whether we were worth engaging with. This might explain why attempts at direct communication initially received limited responses.
The spirits, assuming that spirits were responsible, appeared resistant to making contact. I began to question whether we were dealing with one dominant presence that followed us through the prison or several separate energies concentrated in particular areas.
D Wing remained the most active location, but the sensation of being observed did not remain confined there. It seemed to move around the prison with us.
The chapel felt different though. There was energy present, but it did not feel negative. The atmosphere was reverent and calming, providing a noticeable contrast with D Wing only a few metres away.
Knocks, bangs and movement
In the former visitors’ room, we experienced knocks, bangs, scraping sounds and slight movements and even a shadow move in the kitchen area. At times it felt as though something was inside the room with us, although we could not determine what was producing the sounds.
We attempted simple communication and asked for one knock in response. A single bang followed. One response alone cannot be treated as evidence. Buildings settle, water systems move, materials expand and contract, and sounds can travel considerable distances through stone corridors. We did not notice another bang made in a similar way.
Elsewhere, we experienced whistling, fleeting shadows and DVPs and EVPs, including the bark of a dog!
Doors and gates opening
As we moved through the prison, we had the persistent feeling of being followed. We tried to make contact again outside near to D Block. However, not getting any contact we went to move off, but every time we nearly left through the main gate separating zones in the prison, something would happen. A metallic banging on the gate. A knocking on the door, a manhole cover rocked and made a sound before we were near it (the only one that made that sound btw, suggesting the the entity, if there was one, was standing in front of us.) Near the main entrance, a gate opened by itself. My immediate explanation was the wind. However, another group joined us and we all witnessed a door open on its own in response to a lady trying to look through the key hole, the same person said she had seen a black shadow move away when that happened
The door opening due to the wind, remains entirely possible. Air pressure can move doors and gates, especially in large buildings containing long corridors and open spaces. Yet what made the incident stranger was there did not appear to be an obvious route through which the wind could have moved it. Nor was there a breeze at the time?
Earlier, while walking through the prison on our own, we had heard bangs against another gate. We also clearly heard a door open and close with a bang, On inspection, no one was near at all and that door was heavy and couldn't open on its own. There was no clear reason for the gate to move or produce those sounds.
These sounds and movements created, for Barry and me, the distinct impression that something was attempting to attract our attention, wanted to talk but couldn't in the way we knew. Again, we must consider environmental causes. Wind, vibration, uneven surfaces and accidental contact all have to be examined. Yet the combination of the gate, the manhole cover and the door, the banging, slamming doors, DVP/EVP, orbs, and dense energy, makes it very difficult to dismiss as simple explained events.
Footsteps and a heavy door
A previous group had also reported footsteps above them while they were working in D Wing. This is something we experienced too! I mean not just footsteps but heavy boots... walking first one way then back again (this is when the door opened and banged shut) - no one was there.
We initially assumed another group was moving through the upper floor. The footsteps travelled in one direction and then returned. Yet when an actual group later passed through the area, their voices could clearly be heard alongside their footsteps upstairs.
No voices had accompanied the earlier sounds at all - just footsteps. Why did the footsteps move away then back to the door area and stop? It doesn't make sense? You can hear this on the video at the end of the blog...
These events we experienced reflect the most common reports from Dorchester Prison: movement taking place in supposedly empty wings, footsteps and opening doors.
The Queen connection
Another of the more unusual moments during the evening again was in D Black, and it involved a sudden and overwhelming thought about the band Queen. I felt compelled to play Queen’s It’s a Kind of Magic and others. The thought was persistent enough that we played several Queen songs in the area. Around the same period, unbeknown to us, another group working with a spirit communication board received the word “Queen”!
A lady taking part in communication with spirit was surprised because the communication appeared to relate to her father, who apparently resembled Freddie Mercury and the word Queen kept appearing.
Coincidence has to remain the most obvious possibility. Queen is one of the most famous bands in the world, and the association could have arisen independently.
Nevertheless, the closeness in timing was curious. The thought of Queen had appeared spontaneously and with unusual intensity before we knew what the other group had received. Was the band in the energy around the area, this is a part of being intuitive/mediumistic
It was not evidence, but it was a synchronicity worth noting.
Our conclusion: Is HMP Dorchester Haunted?
Is HMP Dorchester Haunted? Well, Dorchester Prison did not produce one single event that could be presented as definitive proof of paranormal activity, we think that there was a pattern which the hosts of the evening can take forward, a pattern.
There was the persistent feeling of being watched. There was the physical reaction I experienced after entering D Block. There was the elongated formation recorded near the floor. We heard knocks, bangs, scraping, whistling and movement. A gate and an office door opened, a manhole cover appeared to produce a loud sound, and we experienced EVP/DVPs and strange photos.
Individually, each event could potentially have an ordinary explanation. Collectively, they created an investigation that was difficult to dismiss. The most significant aspect was D Block. The atmosphere changed when we entered it. Our attention repeatedly returned there, and people familiar with the prison appeared surprised that we had identified it without being told about its reputation.
Was D Block occupied by one dominant presence? Was it the focus of several separate energies? Were we experiencing the psychological effect of a former prison environment, or were we detecting something that remains within the building?
At present, we cannot answer those questions with certainty but I felt that the energy in D Block was strong and somewhat a little disturbing.
What I can say is that Dorchester Prison felt active, aware and unpredictable. It observed us
Perhaps the strongest impression was not that we had entered an empty prison.
It was that the prison absolutely knew we were there.
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