SCENES wiped from memory cards and mobile phones ringing while switched off... sound like moments from a spooky movie?

They were just a couple of the odd happenings said to have gone on when a psychological thriller was being filmed at Annesley Hall in Notts.

The Stone is about five paranormal investigators who arrive at the historic hall, where Lord Byron courted the lovely Mary Chaworth, to seek out the mysteries of life after death.

The regretful spirit of the great Romantic poet is said to haunt Annesley, where he bade farewell to Mary and later wrote: "Had I married Miss Chaworth, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different."

Writer and director of The Stone, Philip Gardiner said: "I've done plenty of research into the area of the paranormal, but I never came to any kind of belief in ghosts.

"It was OK having one or two things happen, but during the week, the events just built to a point where you just think to yourself, 'what's going on here?'"

Some of the cast, at the hall between August 14 and 21, held seances.

Mr Gardiner said: "Some folk will say that we made it all up for publicity, but the facts are that I couldn't control all the cast and crew nor make those things happen to electrical equipment. I certainly wouldn't have wiped a perfectly good scene."

Corjan De Raaf, who plays a researcher in the film and wrote its title song, said: "I was freaked out when my iPod started playing in the middle of the night without me having touched it.

"I also took photos on scene and noticed a floating torso in one of them. It could have been a play of light but combined with everything else it makes it a bit weird."

Members of the Byron Society have held ghost walks at the hall as part of the International Byron Festival. Society chairman Ken Purslow said: "A lot of people have said they have seen and heard things."

Nottingham actor and historian Ade Andrews, who features as an apparition of Lord Byron in publicity shots for The Stone, said: "I take all of that with a pinch of salt but I am aware that the history and romance of the place makes it easy for people to come up with these sorts of stories."

The Stone is due to be released in 2011.

For more information visit www.thestonefilm.com

Ghostly tales at Annesley Hall

A FORMER worker at Annesley Hall says the film-makers aren't the

first people to have been spooked after visiting the historic building.

Dick Starr, a member of Newstead Abbey Byron Society, said he

himself saw ghostly figures while working at the hall as a handyman in

the 1960s.

Mr Starr, 67, of Underwood, said: "I have seen lots of

things up there. I've seen the ghostly figure of a maid who hanged

herself. Me and six others also spotted the ghost of a monk in the old

churchyard.

"I've also taken no end of pictures at the hall with ghostly faces in them [that] weren't there when I took the photos.

"They say Annesley Hall is one of the most haunted places in the country – and I tend to agree with that."

Mr Starr helped the film crew carry out a seance on set.

He

has also led ghost walks around the site as part of the International

Byron Festival and investigated paranormal activity with TV show Most

Haunted.