Chillingham Castle

By the 1200s the border with Scotland was a dangerous place, and a monastery at Chillingham was converted into a fortified manor of a single tower and curtain wall. The Grey family have been here ever since: the castle has passed down one continuous bloodline since 1246. In 1298 King Edward I based himself here on his march north against William Wallace, and the fine Gothic window in the castle was installed for that royal visit.

In 1344 Sir Thomas Grey, one of the first Knights of the Garter, was granted a licence to crenellate, and the curtain wall grew into a quadrangle with walls some ten feet thick. The Greys prospered on the wars, went on to become Earls of Tankerville, and gave the castle its dungeon and torture chamber, which still holds the racks, chains and spiked devices that visitors file past today. The most famous personal tragedy belongs to Lady Mary Berkeley, wife of Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville. He ran off with her younger sister Henrietta and never returned to Chillingham; Mary is said to have wandered the castle pining for him until she died in 1719.

The twentieth century was less kind. Lady Leonora Tankerville, an American who married the Earl in 1895, lived here in the 1920s and wrote a 1925 pamphlet on the castle's strange happenings that was commended by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After that the house drifted towards ruin until 1982, when it was bought by Sir Humphry Wakefield, 2nd Baronet, whose wife Catherine descends from the Greys of Chillingham. Sir Humphry restored the castle room by room and opened it to the public, and it is his family who still run the ghost tours today.

The written record starts with Lady Leonora Tankerville, whose 1925 pamphlet described the Blue Boy's midnight cries, the halo of light by the bed and the initials and tally-marks scratched into the dungeon walls by prisoners counting off their days. Her account of the castle's ghosts was reportedly commended by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a keen spiritualist, which gave Chillingham an early place in the ghost-story canon.

Television arrived in 2002, when Chillingham became the second-ever episode of Most Haunted. During a lights-out session an unexplained hissing noise was heard and caught on camera, sending the crew running and leaving presenter Yvette Fielding in tears. Medium Derek Acorah said he sensed a crying boy, then appeared to become distressed, shouting "leave me alone" and "they left me here". Producer Karl Beattie reported unexplained bangs and what sounded like footsteps in the torture chamber, all caught on audio, and said he saw a white box move by itself in a storeroom that had once formed part of the chamber. The programme also claimed muffled voices on its chapel recordings. Sceptics have long pointed out that Most Haunted's investigations were made for entertainment and that Acorah's later career was dogged by allegations of fakery, so these are best enjoyed as good television rather than evidence.

The current owner, Sir Humphry Wakefield, tells his own stories with a twinkle: the blue flash at the edge of the Pink Room door, the bones found between the walls, guests who ask to change rooms. The castle itself says it "boasts some of the highest levels of paranormal activity in the country", and the visitor-book claims run to footsteps in empty corridors, cold spots on the stairs, doors that open on their own and photographs with unexplained figures. Ghost-hunt groups who hire the castle overnight report the usual crop of knocks, whistles and unexplained voices on their recorders. None of it has been independently verified, which is rather the point of going to find out for yourself.

Chillingham Castle sits in its own park near the village of Chillingham, between Alnwick and Wooler in north Northumberland (postcode NE66 5NP). The castle, grounds and tearoom open to the public for the main season, roughly from late March or Easter until the start of November, and close for the winter; check the castle's website for current days and hours. Inside you can see the state rooms, the Great Hall, the chapel, the dungeon and the notorious torture chamber, then walk the Italian garden, lakes and woodland. Be warned that the tearoom and toilets are reached by spiral stone steps with a rope handrail, and much of the castle is not step-free. The famous Chillingham wild cattle, the only truly wild herd in the world, live in the adjoining park and are visited on separate guided tours.

Ghost tours run year-round in the evenings for over-16s, and hands-on ghost hunts for over-18s, with private tours available for groups of ten or more. Best of all, you can sleep here: the castle has eight self-catering apartments in the castle and its historic Coaching Rooms, from the two-person Guard Room to the Coaching Rooms for seven, with the Grey Apartment and Tower Apartment among the favourites of ghost-seekers. Alnwick and Wooler have plenty of further hotels, inns and cottages within a twenty-minute drive.