Chillingham Castle: Investigating 'Britain's most haunted castle'
Chillingham Castle is often called Britain's most haunted castle. Here's the real history behind Northumberland's eerie stone fortress – and its ghostly reputation.
Image: Chillingham Castle | stock.adobe.com
Do you believe in ghosts? There are many reportedly haunted buildings across Britain, but how much truth is there to the spooky tales associated with them? Could there really be restless spirits roaming these places, or is it all just folklore and wishful thinking?
Where would be the best place to test either hypothesis? We know one strong candidate: Chillingham Castle. This stone stronghold deep in the Northumberland countryside dates back to the 12th century and is often hailed as the most haunted castle in Britain.
Does Chillingham Castle really warrant this title? Has its eerie image been purposefully exaggerated by the powers that be just to boost tourist numbers? Is Chillingham Castle haunted at all? In search of the stubbornly elusive answers to these questions, we at Sky HISTORY decided to do some of our own ghosthunting…
The history of Chillingham Castle
William the Conqueror subdued England in 1066. However, he and other English kings after the Norman conquest still had to contend with another threat further north. Back then, not only were England and Scotland entirely separate countries, they were frequently at each other’s throats.
So, in the late 12th century, the monastery in the Northumberland settlement of Chillingham was upgraded to a castle. It would be put to good use, too. In 1297, Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace attacked Chillingham during a raid on English soil. Not willing to take that lying down, English king Edward I adopted the castle as a base to strike back at the marauding Scots in 1298.
Upon the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, the Scottish king James VI was seen as her natural successor. On his way south to take the English throne, James stopped for a short stay at Chillingham Castle. With England and Scotland now sharing the same monarch, the castle lost its previous relevance as a fortress. Over the next few centuries, it would take on more elements of a humble manor house.
Who first called Chillingham Castle ‘haunted’?
We can’t be certain, but the now-popular image of Chillingham Castle as haunted appears to have first come about in the early 20th century. After getting hitched to the castle’s then-custodian the Earl of Tankerville in 1895, Lady Leonora Tankerville was reportedly spooked by her new home. This inspired her to put pen to paper about her experiences.
It was ‘something of a golden age for ghost stories,’ historian Eleanor Janega points out. During the Victorian and Edwardian eras, ‘people became increasingly interested in the paranormal, seances, and finding different ways of interacting with the dead.’ So, should we really class Chillingham Castle as ‘haunted’ if it owes this reputation to just one person?
Except that it doesn’t. One time, the castle’s current owner Sir Humphry Wakefield had arranged for a priest to eradicate ghosts from the property. The following morning, this same priest reportedly admitted defeat, telling Sir Humphrey that there were simply too many ghosts there for him to deal with.
Which ‘ghosts’ supposedly haunt Chillingham Castle?
The spectres at Chillingham are said to number in the dozens. Some, though, have taken on a distinct fame of their own. One example is the ‘Blue Boy’, who could often be heard wailing in the castle’s ’Pink Room’ until the early 20th century. That’s when a child’s bones were found behind a wall of the castle and subsequently transferred to a proper grave. However, Chillingham visitors have claimed to still see peculiar blue flashes or orbs.
There’s also the tragic story of Lady Mary Berkeley, who died in 1719. Married to one of the many successive Lords Grey to inherit Chillingham Castle, she fell into despair after her husband’s affair with her sister. Alleged telltale signs of Lady Mary’s continued ghostly presence at the castle include an inexplicable floral scent and the rustling sound of a dress.
Historically, one footman guarding Chillingham Castle’s ‘inner pantry’ once came across a woman there begging for water. He was about to oblige, only to realise that, as he was locked in the room, no-one else should have been able to get in! The female apparition in white is thought to still linger in the pantry to this day. In any case, this ghost story – like others to come out of the castle – appears impossible to definitively verify.
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