Dalhousie Castle

The Ramsays held the lands of Dalhousie from the 13th century, and the foundations and vaulted cellars of the present castle date from that era. William Ramsay of Dalhousie put his seal to the Ragman Roll of 1296, swearing homage to Edward I of England, and then to the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, which suggests a family that knew how to survive. The main L-plan keep is thought to date from around 1450.

The most famous Ramsay came between those dates. Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie was one of the leading Scottish commanders of the wars against England in the 1330s and 1340s, and in 1342 he was seized by his rival Sir William Douglas, the "Knight of Liddesdale", carried off to Hermitage Castle in the Borders and locked in a dungeon to starve. He died there, and the story became one of the grimmest in Scottish chivalry. Three centuries later the castle changed hands briefly by force: Oliver Cromwell besieged and took Dalhousie in the mid-17th century (accounts give 1648 or the 1650s) and used it as a base for his Lowland campaign.

The Ramsays became Earls of Dalhousie in 1633 and held on to the castle until the 1970s, which is said to be the longest continuous ownership of any castle in Scotland by a single family. It was converted into a hotel in the 1970s, and today it has 36 bedrooms, 29 in the castle itself and seven in the Lodge in the grounds, with the old dungeon serving as the restaurant and a spa on the lower floor. The family's history is told in a booklet the hotel produces, and its ghosts on a tour it runs for guests.

Dalhousie's ghosts have the advantage of a witness pool that changes every night. Guests have reported feeling a sudden chill or seeing shadowy figures while climbing the staircase to their rooms, and the Grey Lady is described consistently: a young woman in grey, seen standing on the battlements or in the dungeon, who does not move or speak and fades as you approach. Reports of tapping on doors and shoulders, and of a figure seated on the end of the bed, have been repeated by enough separate guests to become the hotel's standard story.

The hotel does not shy away from any of this. Its long-serving steward and piper, Andrew Sharp, put his own sighting of the Grey Lady on the stairs into a flyer for guests, the hotel has published ghost-story videos, and it runs regular ghost tours in which the resident spirits and the unpleasant histories behind them are explained in full. Travel writers who have stayed have described the castle's haunted room and the dungeon dinner as the highlights of the visit, and it appears routinely in lists of the most haunted hotels in the UK.

A fair sceptic would point out that the Lady Catherine story exists in at least two incompatible versions, that no contemporary record of her has been produced, and that a castle hotel has every commercial reason to keep a Grey Lady on the books. None of that stops guests asking for the haunted rooms, and the hotel is happy to oblige.

Dalhousie Castle is a hotel and spa near Bonnyrigg in Midlothian, about eight miles south of Edinburgh city centre and easily reached by car or taxi; there is parking in the grounds. Unlike most castles in this guide it is open all year, and the best way to see it is to stay: there are 36 bedrooms, 29 of them in the castle itself, including historically themed suites and four-poster rooms in the towers, and seven more in the Lodge in the grounds. Dinner is served in the vaulted Dungeon Restaurant, there is an Aqueous Spa on the lower floor, and the hotel offers falconry and archery on the lawns above the River South Esk.

The hotel runs ghost tours for guests, telling the stories of Lady Catherine and Sir Alexander Ramsay and taking visitors into the dungeon; check with the hotel for current dates and whether the tour is bookable by non-residents. Being a 13th-century castle it has winding stone stairs and few lifts, so ask about ground-floor or Lodge rooms if steps are a problem. Edinburgh is close enough for a day at the castle and Greyfriars, with a haunted bed to come back to.