With the end of October here the spooky season is in full swing with its creepy goings-on and trick-or-treating.

And what better way to celebrate than send reporter Brad Harper on a hair-raising ghost hunt around a former priory at night with terrified strangers…

We are standing in pitch black in a former priory, my chest feels tight and I am praying to anyone who will listen.

“I have just been grabbed,” cries a woman in my group after three people reported feeling sick.

“Can anyone see that shadow growing?” someone asks. “Does anyone else feel cold?” another says. “Does anyone feel this room is getting darker?”

There is a musky stench in the air and I feel nauseous as I am surrounded by people questioning what is real, what isn’t and what could be paranormal.

But when I leave the room, perhaps bizarrely I say to myself: “I want to do that again!”

When I arrive on Saturday afternoon in the Bilsington Priory car park – a puddle-riddled patch of gravel littered with horseboxes – the rain is pounding on the windscreen and the strong wind is throwing branches onto my car.

I am here two hours before the guests arrive at 7pm so I can speak with members of the Faversham-based paranormal company Ghostly Encounters.

Team members Hayley and Mark Alsop peer around the back of my car and kindly offer to escort me to the priory.

“So, are you a believer or a sceptic?” Mark asks me.

I hesitate. “I am a sceptic,” I shamefully admit.

“That is fine,” replies Mark. “I sit on the fence.”

Despite this admission, I am told all the other staff believe in the paranormal.

The ‘mediums’ do not reveal to customers what they claim to be able to see, as guests are urged to lead investigations themselves.

Some staff also choose not to research the history of sites in case this influences an investigation.

Hayley and Mark tell me this weekend is usually a sell-out, due to it being the final weekend before Halloween, and we are expecting 13 guests – a superstitious person’s worst nightmare.

And to add insult to injury, I am told tonight will be a full moon.

“We do not have many guests at a time due to the sound pollution as it interferes with the equipment,” Martin explains to me.

Bilsington Priory sits five miles away from Ashford in rural bliss and is now used as a wedding venue.

The former Augustinian monastery was formed in 1253 by Sir John Mansell, Lord Chief Justice of England and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and would have been bustling with monks once upon a time.

I approach the priory, which is covered in scaffolding and constructed of grey rubble and topped by a clay-tiled roof.

As I walk through the doors, I am warmly welcomed by Keith Young, the CEO of Ghostly Encounters, who also happens to be a lorry driver and roofer.

He says he used to go to paid paranormal events but explains: “You get to a point where the fakery is so bad and I could not do it anymore as I was paying loads of money and getting ripped off.”

Keith would rather nothing paranormal happen on one of his firm’s investigations, which I am told has happened before, than it is faked.

“There are enough charlatans out there at other companies,” he adds.

The 51-year-old is keen to rebuild trust with people and reassure them they are genuine.

“Interest in the paranormal increased when Most Haunted first started,” he says, referring to the TV show which intermittently ran from 2002 to 2019.

“But there was a lot that came out in the press about them faking stuff.

“That killed a lot of interest as people thought they made it all up but I think it is starting to come back again.”

His interest in the paranormal was sparked after seeing something strange at Toddler’s Cove in Canterbury.

“I was with my friend Sarah and it all went cloudy and dark,” he says.

“There was a girl dressed in black with a white hat, who turned to look at us and fell.

“Sarah and I ran to find her and there was no one there.”

Many of the staff have had their own experiences, with some more extreme than others.

Medium Jane Munro, 49, says: “We went to have something to eat at a pub.

“I noticed the man at the next table who I felt to be his mother come up and put her arm around him. He did look a bit sad.

“I heard her saying, ‘It is going to be OK’, but I did not feel I could say to him that his mum was there.

“She noticed I was looking at her so she went away and came back with another couple of people who were connected to the man.

“Before we knew it, the whole room was full of spirits who wanted to talk to me and I could not hear myself think.

“I had to leave as I could not cope with it.”

The staff are gathered in a gazebo at the side of the monastery, which has a flickering chandelier and is being pelted by the wind and rain.

It is now close to 7pm and we think the first group of guests have arrived.

“Excuse me,” an elderly woman asks. “Is this where the quiz is?”

“No, wrong place,” Keith says. “We’re going to be talking to the spirits this evening.”

She understandably looked both confused and horrified before quickly vacating the building.

Being a former priory, I am told there have been monks spotted at the site and stalking the stunning grounds, where they used to keep beehives.

Manager Claire Pascoe, who researches the locations, says: “There have been children, especially in the kitchen and pantry area as some of the ladies who used to work here used to bring them, according to research and the owners of the building but we cannot be 100% sure.”

Sometimes relatives come through, such as on the Ouija board, but the staff ask them to step to one side as the evening is about finding spirits in the house and not personal ones.

When all 13 guests arrived in the gazebo, we are given an introduction and shown the equipment.

There is a super-flash structured light sensor camera used to detect paranormal entities which will show up as a figure-like person, a K-2 meter which locates sources of electromagnetic radiation and an REM-pod which is used to track the movement of energy across a room.

But the piece of kit celebrated by Keith is worth about £2, a ball toy for cats which lights up when it is moved.

Before we start the investigation, we gather in a circle, hold hands and a black candle is lit while Keith walks around the room and reads a “protection spell”, throwing black salt as he goes.

It is shortly after 8pm and we are divided into two groups before we venture into a downstairs section of the building which is now used as a bar.

The lights are switched off and the room falls into darkness, while members of the group dot cat toys across the room. There is also a motion detector in the centre of the room.

Not knowing what to expect, I am surprised when members of the group call out: “If there are any spirits in the room, please come forward. We mean you no harm.”

They continue their calls in an attempt to attract whatever may be lurking in the room.

One of the cat toys lights up but it is decided a draft under a door caused it so it is relocated.

A short time later, it is lit up again. “Thank you, spirit,” the roomful of guests call.

I have to confess, it being my first time, the idea of calling out to spirits is quite embarrassing and I cannot build up the courage to do it.

After a lack of activity in the room, we move into the kitchen where almost immediately a cat ball is triggered.

And I am told two women in a neighbouring pantry are having a lot of activity in there and the equipment is going wild.

But as soon as I enter, it stops. “Sometimes they don’t like men,” I am told and leave the female pair to it.

Before long, it is time for our first break. It is already past 11pm and the time has flown by due to the anticipation.

For the next part of the investigation, we climb a narrow, spiral staircase to the third storey of the building to a space dubbed the music room, which is soon plunged into darkness.

A motion sensor, which shines a torch when it is triggered, is set off.

“Have you got something to tell us?” a member of the team asks. “Make the light flash again if you want to talk to us. Do you want to call out to the other spirits? There is a party going on in here. Get them all in.”

The light comes on again, which I capture on camera. There is no logical explanation for why it was triggered.

We then move into a side room which is empty except for bird feathers scattered across the floor and a nest in a corner of the room.

An Ouija board is set up and five of us, including myself, offer to take part.

With our five index fingers pressed on a wooden planchette it slowly creeps across the board.

But I am told the energy is not good this evening, perhaps due to it being a brand new board, so we gather in a circle and switch our torches off.

Soon, my group reports the room becoming dark, with some seeing a shadow growing on the floor despite nobody moving.

Three people say they feel sick and I am sandwiched between two of them.

Other customers report feeling strange and my chest gets a little tight as it feels a bit overwhelming.

And one person says they were physically touched.

Trainee Kerry Smith, 33, says: “I stood there and it was like someone was next to me or I could feel a presence behind me.

“I wanted to stand forward a bit as it felt like someone was standing too close to me.

“It does make you feel not so mad when other people are saying there is something next to me.

“On my jumper, it felt like someone tugged it or if someone was putting their hand on my back.”

The third part of the tour involves investigating the church upstairs before venturing into a storage room.

Inside, a dressing table mirror is set up with candles burning on either side.

It is set up so customers can sit down and potentially see their facial features alter into those of a spirit.

“I see an old man with a moustache,” someone says about the middle-aged woman sitting in the chair.

I am told to go through a door into a smaller storage room where two women are holding a K2 meter that is getting a lot of readings.

The lights go from green to red multiple times and they thank the potential spirit in the room.

For the final part of the investigation, we return to a room at the top of the building where three people reported feeling sick and it is plunged into darkness once again.

But everyone says they are fine and whatever may have been in the room has since left.

For some, it validates their feelings something was in there before.

We then conclude by visiting the cellar, which is covered with puddles due to a leaking roof. There is no activity at all.

We all meet again downstairs and join hands once again while Keith reads out a protection spell.

Participant Emma Haynes, 38, says she travels around the country for paranormal events and does about one a month.

“We started doing local places but we have done prisons, been to Wales, mental hospitals and an unfinished mansion,” the Lenham Heath resident says.

“I want to prove there is more to life after death. It is very addictive.”

Pal Sophie Leigh, 31, compares it to getting your first tattoo as “when you get a buzz for it, you want to do it again”.

“It is hard to pinpoint this place,” the Tunbridge Wells resident says.

“Normally, we come away with answers or nothing, but here you get glimpses.”

Before I did my first-ever paranormal investigation, I had preconceived opinions of the types of people who do these events and perhaps the fakery that comes with it.

But this has been eye-opening and changed my perception of why people do these.

Wanting to see if there is life after death is harmless and what is clear at Ghostly Encounters is they want to ensure their guests are given the means to investigate.

Despite not walking away as a believer, I had a lot of fun and I would take part in an investigation again.