Chillingham is a fine, austere, square-edged Mediaeval Castle surrounded by idyllic woodland and beautifully-kept formal gardens. It has been owned by the Earls Grey since the 12th Century.

Delve deeper and the place lives up to its name: concealed in the bowels of the castle are a dungeon decorated in prisoners' ancient carved graffiti and a torture chamber, which still contains its original iron maiden, rack, thumb screws and other nightmarish implements.

The castle’s history is one of bloody deeds, momentous battles and tragic stories, it has seen many royal visitors, withstood the Northumberland border feuds and been besieged on several occasions.

Possibly as a direct result of its chequered history Chillingham is now regarded as the most haunted castle in England. It boasts reports of at least six ghosts, which have attracted a great deal of media attention, plus the visitations described by Lady Tankerville, who lived there in the 1920s and believed she had seen the castle in a vision before she knew of its existence.

The 'official' ghosts are described as a haunted portrait of Lady Mary Berkeley, who lingers in search of her cheating husband, the white lady of the pantry, who is said to have been poisoned, a creeping shadow in the bedroom attributed to a long-dead suicide and voices in the library. The drunken revelry of the castle guards is also allegedly re-enacted in the courtyard at night, and the bones of a small child were found in the 1920s, bricked into a thick wall said to regularly swallow up the ghost of an eerily glowing 'Blue Boy' after his nightly wanderings.

It is possible to stay overnight in the tapestry-hung bed chambers, and hold functions there in the richly-decorated banquet rooms.

Read more about this.

Written by  larapiegeler.

Add comment

Comments, reviews and questions