Would you be brave enough to go ghost hunting at a former Victorian workhouse? Georgia Banks was – but it wasn’t enough to put her cynicism to rest

RIPON Workhouse Museum is a forbidding place. Volunteers have worked carefully to preserve its Victorian grimness, and it's easy to imagine to terrible hopelessness its inmates must have felt on entering the building, so many doomed to leave only in a coffin.

There has been a workhouse on the site since 1776, although the present building dates back to 1854. Inmates would spend a minimum of eight-hours a day breaking stones to mend roads.

As well as the museum housed in the male vagrants' section, the building also hosts ghosthunting events, and it was with huge curiosity that I signed up for a night there with SimplyGhostNights.

Team leader Rosey Dawson, who heads the company along with her husband Stuart, a medium greeted me when I arrived.

The couple have investigated haunted buildings up and down the country for more than ten years, and Rosey showed me around the building before the ghost hunt started. I was led down a long, dimly lit corridor that was decorated with pictures of historic figures, including the workhouse’s master.

As we navigated our way up a grand Victorian staircase by torchlight, Rosey told me about a female spirit named Harriet, who haunts the building after dying on the staircase. It is believed she committed suicide on the stairs in the 1850s, not being of sound mind.

Harriet was to be the focus of our night, and later, when the session was in full swing, we apparently contacted her using a Ouija Board in a Victorian classroom that was originally the women’s quarters. Incongruous among the classroom's rows of wooden desks and chalkboards, was an ambient temperature sensor that resembled a radio, lying on the board.

We were told it would change colour from green to red when the temperature changed by five degrees.

Guided by the team, which was made up of ten female friends, we asked Harriet to change the colour of the sensor by making it colder. As we did this the lights flashed several times, startling the teenage group.

One woman began to panic, saying her chair was moving sideways. Keen to check for myself, I swapped chairs with her, but didn’t notice anything. Maybe my spiritual side was not fully engaged.

Rosey then asked Harriet if she could move the table like she had with the woman’s chair.

For a few minutes, nothing, then the table started shaking erratically, frightening some members of the group who wanted to leave.

But a few sceptics mentioned how a few people had their hands on the table at the time.

Volunteers for a lone vigil in one of the renovated rooms were thin on the ground, so in the name of research, I put myself forward.

Accompanied by a member of staff, who seemed very uneasy about the vigil, we went into a small room that looked like an office where the only light trickled in from the streetlights outside.

She told me that on the previous night humming was heard from the room and the team believed it came from Harriet. I sat on the floor with her and waited for Harriet to get in touch.

Sadly, as the minutes ticked by, there was no sign. Harriet was either shy, or could sense my scepticism.

Instead, we passed the time chatting about the layout of the building and where there might be spirits lurking. In the old male quarters, apparently, she feels like a spirit is watching her.

We gave up and headed back to the main group ready for our last session, this time with Stuart and the Ouija Board.

I had my back to a large empty room presented as it would have appeared when the workhouse was operational.

The room contained only a brown piano, and in hushed tones, Stuart told me that over my shoulder was a spirit named Ruth. After being encouraged to start a conversation, I asked Ruth to enter the circle and the temperature sensor that lay on the table started pulsing and flashing.

Stuart asked the spirit to repeat a tapping noise on the table. I didn’t hear anything, but 21-year-old Gaby Banks, from County Durham, told the group: “Someone’s tapping on the back of my chair! I can feel a vibration going through the seat as if someone’s right behind me.”

Ruth had seemingly made her point and broke off her communication, bringing the ghost-hunting night to an end.

Would I go back for more? Probably not. I didn't get the sense of anything paranormal going on, but the workhouse is a truly fascinating place.

Its tragic history is drama enough, without the need to bring the spirit world into it.