Dunstanburgh Castle

LOCATION: DUNSTAN, NORTHUMBERLAND 

NUMBER OF ALLEGED GHOSTS:3 
THE EARL OF LANCASTER 
SIR GUY THE SEEKER 
AN UNKNOWN LADY

Photo - JPTUK

Visit this place at night its seriously creepy and desolate. Take suitable footware and be prepared to walk a couple of miles. Beware of the cows.

We had spent a week roughing it on the Northumberland coast in the last weeks of September 06. Ok not entirely true. We spent a week in complete luxury in our newly purchased mobile home, not quite a ghost hunting winnebago but it will suffice, it does come in handy on long spooky jaunts. The evening was drawing in and we decided to pay Dunstanburgh Castle a visit. The castle looked near but it would be a 4 mile walk there and back. We had to walk across two farmers fields and down a long country lane that was never ending until we reached the coastline, a golf course ran alongside it. The castle looked fantastic in the distance, sitting there on the basalt above the sea, it looked like something from a children’s fairytale. As we walked nearer the castle it seemed to be getting further away, a strange optical illusion. We had to pass some cows on the way to the top, we had no option but to walk past them, they just gave us a brief look but we were slightly nervous of our bovine audience, especially with having the dog with us, so we clambered the very steep slope above them to avoid a stampede, but they just ignored us and carried on chewing.
We had passed a young couple on our accent, she was wearing very high heeled sandals, ridiculous footwear for that terrain, she precariously planned her route, personally I thought she was crazy. We eventually reached the entrance to the castle, we were disappointed that it was shut and bolted. The English heritage sign on the gate said “The castle will shut at 5.30pm” we looked at our watch it was 6.05pm. The entrance fee for adults was £2.70 !! What a cheeky admission price English heritage, its only a ruin I shouted ! Been brave and slightly naughty, I climbed over the gate and took a look around whilst my partner and the dog waited for me outside. The whole castle had an electric fence around it, I wasn’t sure if that was to keep unsuspecting visitors out our to keep the cattle in. I walked under the stone archway into the gatehouse half expecting a security guard to jump up behind me, but no one was there to welcome me in, not even the ghost of Sir Guy the Seeker. The place was deserted and desolate, the ticket office was bolted and by the time I’d walked past the ticket office there was nothing else to see apart from a large field and a lone tower in the distance, I was still moaning to myself about the outlandish price to get in to see a field ! I decide to jog to the tower, I had a quick look around and jogged back. The gatehouse was creepy, I stuck my head around this dark L shaped corridor that led to nowhere and noticed a figure looking around the wall, when all of a sudden this creepy howl came circling around me, the wind howled around the place making really strange noises through the holes in the walls. I convinced myself the figure was just my imagination going wild, I was spooked, so I legged it out of there. By the time we got back it was dark.

Jules field trips - Sutton Scarsdale Hall

SUTTON SCARSDALE HALL


Location: Chesterfield, England

Built: 1724 AD

History: Sutton Scarsdale Hall is North of Derby, you can reach it via the M1 motorway, where you will see it opposite Bolsover Castle on the other side of the hill. There is a footpath that leads you right from the Hall to the castle, but be prepared to walk 4 miles. This now skeletal ruin was built in 1724 by Smith of Warwick and it is an 18th century remodelling of an earlier house. It used to be one of Derbyshire finest houses in its heyday similarly matched to Chatsworth House. The remaining artefacts from the building now reside in a Philadelphia and Los Angeles museums.

Ghostly manifestations: The White Lady.

*Ghostly anomalies: Sutton Scarsdale Hall has the reputation to be a very haunted house, witnesses have seen disembodied floating body parts, footfall and strange tobacco smells, sometimes unexplained screams. Moving shadows have also been captured in the cellar area by paranormal investigators* text pinched by RG
SP

Some of the weirdest things have been seen in the cellar area. This area is cordoned off to the public, there is a small aperture where you can see into, but it has a substantial iron grill over it. Apparently there are tunnels that run from these cellars. There has been talk of some dreadful act that took place in the cellar. This is the main area of all the accounted paranormal activity. Shadows have been seen whilst filming in the cellar too, I managed to put my night shot camera in but I didnt see anything.

During the latter half of the 1960's Sutton Hall was the centre of a ghostly enigma. A Bolsover man and his son reported seeing a ghostly apparition early in the morning moving between the church of St. Marys and the hall, the 'white lady' was seen gliding through the churchyard without legs, wearing a white hood with slits for eyes and crying like a baby or sobbing like a woman.

When interviewed the vicar of Saint Marys church, the Reverend Stanley Hare said, "It flies through the bushes and makes very weird noises at night and could very well frighten anybody".

The sounds of echoing footfalls have been reported coming from this shell of a former grand hall, and strange floating lights seen after dark.

Black Dicks Temple, Near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire - monument ruin

Beaumonts Bolt

http://www.kirkburtonparishwalks.co.uk/Grange%20Mo...pdf

Update: 13 January 2013. 
I was invited by PARANORMAL ENCOUNTERS (founder Agent Rob) a newly set up paranormal team in West Yorkshire to join them at Black Dick's Temple, earlier I said I couldn't make it, but later managed to get up there, apparently scaring the crap out of them as I turned up by surprise, they wondered who I was. 

You could see the temple all lit up from over a mile away, I was very impressed, all very professional, they had a generator running a laptop in a tent, with remote cameras and various other gadgets in abundance. The area they were investigating was locked off and they were viewing (recording) it remotely. 

Paranormal Encounters investigation - Black Dick's Tower

Many many years ago one of the team had seen a what they recalled was a full apparition, a man wearing tutor style clothes sat on a black horse, just looking at them, but later found no hoof marks. This prompted interest in the history of Whitley/Beaumont and the history of  Whitley Hall which was apparently near the site.  They are still reviewing the footage, although they admitted it was a little flat, other than the spikes they were getting from the electricity pylons nearby. But, earlier this week, a team member was up there alone and heard a very distinct growl in his ear.

On a freezing cold but sunny Sunday morning we decided to pay Black Dick’s Temple a visit which is situated in Hopton near Mirfield. The stone folly overlooks Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. You can see for miles in a 180 degree direction. As we walked up to the building. My husband told me that his grandfather used to be a look-out here in the Second World War; he was an enemy plane spotter at the temple, he and his family used to live in the area, but he said that he had never actually seen the building up close. As we looked around we were quite taken a back by the big hole in the centre of the temple where a floor used to be.  I precariously perched on the edge and sat taking EVP’s. The recordings didn’t come out very well for some reason so I couldn’t tell if I had caught any EVP’s or not. I waved my EMF meter about and I was about to get excited as I was getting some very high readings, but then I spotted the over head pylons.

Black Dick was born in 1574 ('Black Dick of the North' was a nickname given to him by King James I) or Sir Richard Beaumont is known to haunt the temple, he was the first cousin of Elizabeth I.  He was well known for his criminal activities, he was a gambler, a bad debtor and a highwayman who was involved in piracy to pay off his depts.
When Richard Beaumont found out one of his young servant girl  employees had got pregnant he murdered her, he was the one who got her pregnant! He was thought to have been killed in a tunnel near Huddersfield whilst in a duel in 1631.

To this day people report seeing the spectre of Black Dick most commonly on July 5th, on the day in which he died.

This is a photograph which was recently taken by Ryedale Ghost Hunters in North Yorkshire, it was taken during a glass divination session at the Hare & Hounds at Staxton. A black object appeared over Becky's eye which they couldn't explain. On close examination, they thought it appeared to be underneath her glasses. 

It was only a standard sized pocket camera and they didn't understand or know how to adjust the ISO settings on it. The room was almost dark with a lit candle nearby. 

It did look rather weird, I threw in a few suggestions of my own ....

The flash on the camera (ISO settings) was too fast for the pupil to close.

The seance was carried out in the dark therefore the pupils would be fully open, when the flash is fired it doesn't give the pupil time to close (eye retraction speed) apparently it can occur in just one eye.

The black shape above her eye may well be a shadow from her glasses frame, you can see a hole from what looks like a shadow from the nose pad.

Conclusion: Dilated pupil

Any other ideas?

Atmospheric Places in Norfolk and Suffolk

WEETING CASTLE

The Ice House, Weeting Castle

Weeting Castle - Suffolk, Weeting Castle is a 12th-century ruin with a three-story-high tower it is not a castle but actually a fortified manor house. Many paranormal investigations have taken place here, but there isn't much to go on.

Weeting Castle

An Apache Gunship takes us by surprise, amazing!!!

Enjoying Weeting Castle



CASTLE ACRE CASTLE

Castle Acre Castle, Norfolk, interesting historical ruin you don't have to pay to get into. Castle Acre Priory is just up the road.

Castle Acre Castle Norfolk

THE GEORGE HOTEL, SWAFFHAM

Does a gay ghost reside at the George Hotel? - Swaffham, Norfolk

Paranormal Database
Green Lady

Location: Swaffham - George Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: Little is known about the history of the phantom woman in green spotted at the hotel over the years. She is sometimes seen holding a pan, though her manifestations are normally limited to tapping people on their shoulders or backs or appearing as a fleeting shadow from the corner of an eye.

Ledston Hall, Secret Haunts of West Yorkshire

Whilst driving around the Castleford countryside looking for a nice location to walk our dog I spotted in the distance a forboding building looming out of the trees, I thought I had spotted this great pile before whilst on our travels, again it caught my eye. 

Ledston Hall

"

"Ledston Hall" featured in the television show "Most Haunted Live!" on 27 October 2007 and was given the name "Wheler Priory" for security reasons at the time (Wheler being the surname of the last family owning the hall).

The first building on the site of the Hall was originally a Chapel built by the monks from Pontefract Priory, reputed to have been built in the 12 Century. The Hall as we know it today was built over a period of time in the 16th and 17th Century. The then landscaped gardens and terraces were added over a period of time but now these have been changed  to make maintenance more viable. Not a lot is known of the actual history of Ledston Hall. It is known though, that in the 16th Century a maid at the Hall called Mary Pannell  made a potion for the ill son of the house, she was later accused of witchcraft because the potion mixed to rub on the body was mistakenly given to the young boy to drink, by the boys Mother, this proved fatal to her son and Mary was sent to York on trial for witchcraft, she was found guilty and brought back the area where she was burned to death on a nearby hill still known today as Mary Pannell Hill where her ghost is reputed to have been seen in more recent times.

Watch more here

Whitby

http://www.whitbyonline.co.uk

 

HDR photo by Jules

We recently visited Whitby for a few days, we were staying at low moor in our van just 4 miles up the moor and got eaten alive by Midges after the heatwave there, then the incessant downpours due to the jet stream. We went on the famous 'Whitby Ghost Walk'

The Screaming Tunnel - Whitby Ghost Walk

it was quite entertaining and funny, if you see a man running around Whitby in the middle of the night wearing a pair of striped pajamas, its a ghost! ;) If you've never visited Whitby it's a place to add to your bucket (and spade) list. 

About Whitby

Whitby is a quaint picturesque seaside town and once international port in the English county of North Yorkshire. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, The ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the earliest English poet, lived. The fishing port emerged during the Middle Ages and developed important herring and whaling fleets and was where Captain Cook learned seamanship. Tourism started in Whitby in Georgian times and developed with the coming of the railway in 1839. Tourist interest is enhanced by its location surrounded by the high ground of the North York Moors national park and heritage coastline and by association with the horror novel Dracula. Jet and alum were mined locally, and Whitby jet, which was mined by the Romans and Victorians became fashionable during the 19th century.

Captain Cook

Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby - http://www.cookmuseumwhitby.co.uk/

Myths, Legends and Hauntings

http://www.amazon.com/Draculas-Whitby-Ian-Thompson/dp/1445602881

Dracula Whitby Experience - http://www.draculaexperience.co.uk/experience.html

St. Mary's Churchyard - Photo by Jules

St Mary’s churchyard a large hearse with four jet-black horses would appear beside the grave at night, ready to take him away. A group of ghostly mourners would appear from the coach and remove the body from its grave. The spectral coach, lit by burning torches and driven by a headless phantom coachman shrouded in a black cloak, would then gallop away at speed and plummet over the cliffs into the sea.

Whitby Abbey - photo by Jules

Whitby Abbey. Set on a headland overlooking a seaside town Whitby Abbey inspired Bram Stoker to write his famous Dracula novels. Whitby Abbey is one of those atmospheric locations that just looks haunted.

Whitby Abbey in the haar - photo by Jules

Founded in 657 AD by the Anglo-Saxon King Oswy of Northumbria Whitby Abbey eventually succumbed to a bloody Viking raid in 867 AD and lay in ruins until the 11th Century when it was rebuilt by the Normans.

Now an impressive ruin again Whitby Abbey is said to be haunted by a nun whose body was allegedly found bricked up within the abbey walls. There have been several sightings of her staring out from the empty windows. 

The 199 Steps (Church Stairs)

The Church Stairs or the 199 Steps were originally made from wood, the earliest reference of there construction dates to around 1400.  The steps we see today are around 200 years old and they were completely renovated in 2005/06.  As you climb the stairs, you notice various landings where seating is available.  These landings were originally designed to assist the coffin bearers on there long journey to reach the cliff top graveyard.  In the past people have preferred to be carried up the steps rather than being taken via the ‘hearse road' Green Lane. 

In Bram Stokers novel Dracula after the shipwreck of the Demeter, Count Dracula climbs the 199 steps in the shape of a dog and takes refuge in a grave. Historical events recall a ship called the Demeter crashing on the rocks a few years before Stoker visited Whitby. 

 

 

When Cholera broke out during the 19th century, the dead were transported over the river to Tate Hill Pier. At night they were carried up to the top of the 199 steps.  During the hours of darkness, it is thought that the men carrying the diseased bodies, smoked clay pipes to ward off the infection.

Visitors today come from a far to climb the famous steps and even count them on the way up.  Some even debate as to whether there are in fact 199 or only 198 steps.  If you do decide to count the steps you will probably miss some great views across the harbour.

Bagdale Hall

Bagdale hall Situated just outside the centre of Whitby, is the oldest building in Whitby built in 1516. It is now a hotel said to be haunted by Browne Bushell, a former owner who was executed for piracy. He has been seen walking up the staircase, and has also been heard in the same place.

There has been other strange phenomena associated with the hall over the years, including poltergeist activity.

The legend of the Barguest has connection with Whitby not only within the pages of novel's such as Dracula and the Whitby Witches, although it's inspiration here is evident. The name most usually refers to a massive and monstrous black dog or lupine like creature with big sharp teeth and huge haunting eyes that prowls the local countryside and prays upon those which hear it's howls. Local folklore tells us that such a beast roams the North York Moors surrounding Whitby and that any poor soul that should hear the beast's chilling howl in the night will certainly be dead by dawn.

The Hand of Glory

Gruesome Tales The mummified severed human hand in Whitby Museum was discovered in the early twentieth century hidden on the wall of a thatched cottage in Castleton by a stonemason and local historian, Joseph Ford. He immediately identified it from popular stories of such objects as a "Hand of Glory". It was given to Whitby Museum in 1935 and is the only alleged Hand known to survive. A Hand of Glory was supposedly the carefully prepared and "pickled" right hand of a felon, cut off while the body still hung from the gallows and used by burglars to send sleepers in a house into a coma from which they were unable to wake. In one version the clenched hand is used as a candleholder for a candle incorporating human fat, but in another (consistent with the Whitby hand) the outstretched hand has its own fingers lit. In this case should one of the fingers refuse to light it is a sign that someone in the household remains awake. In either case the light cannot be extinguished by water or pinching but only by blood or "blue" (skimmed) milk - the usual method in the tales.

http://www.whitbymuseum.org.uk/collections/hogg.htm 

Other links

www.fallingfossteagarden.co.uk

Photo by Jules

Midge Hall - Falling Foss tea garden - We visited here on a particularly rainy afternoon, luckily the tea garden was all undercover. Amazing place, a must visit!

Also visit John Freemans art gallery, his work is amazing.  http://www.johnfreemanstudio.co.uk/artworks_nocturne.html

Us in Whitby

'Good ole Harburgh'