From the soaring grandeur of Arundel Castle to the brooding ruins of Ludlow Castle, England’s long and illustrious history has been immersed in death, ambition, greed, treachery, and betrayal. Its castle walls have witnessed centuries of tragedy and bloodshed and the tormented and anguished wails of the forlorn dead still echo through the dark corridors, cells and rooms. It is, indeed, ripe with ghosts and stories of the supernatural.
But what is it that we are dealing with here? Let us have a look at a classic-style haunting. For instance, many people in England have reported seeing Roman soldiers marching by, although only from the waist up which suggests that these ghosts are marching along, not on an existing path, but one that existed many years in the past. This makes perfect sense and a great example of this sort of ghost is seen in the well-known tale of Harry Martindale, an apprentice plumber who, in 1953, was installing a heating system in the cellars of the Treasurer’s House in York when he witnessed the ghosts of Roman centurions. He heard a horn in the distance and then a dishevelled Roman soldier on a horse emerged from the brick wall. This soldier was followed by others, all looking dejected and tired, carrying swords and spears. They appeared from the knees up, which suggests that they were walking on a road that was buried below them. It was later confirmed that an old Roman road was located fifteen inches below the cellar.
After this bizarre procession had passed, Martindale made a hasty escape from the cellar and sat at the top of the stairs quite bewildered, when an old curator saw him and asked if he’d seen the Roman soldiers.
Although Martindale’s experience is rare—most people will spend their entire lives without seeing a ghost—a large percentage of the population believe that ghosts, in various forms, exist.
Throughout this book we have accepted that normal people genuinely see things that they believe are of a supernatural origin. However, as we have also seen, these ghostly occurrences do not always follow the same pattern, in fact, so different are these patterns that it is logical to assume that there are one or more types of ghosts, or one or more types of hauntings. And so it seems for our castle-ghosts of England. Whereas some are full apparitions, other are reported as nothing more than feelings, or wispy spots of mist, or even disembodied voices.
But where does this leave us? Are we any closer to understanding the phenomena that is a ghost? Does this apparent abundance of ghosts occur due to the rich and ancient history of the place? Why is it that some places that have suffered war, death, and disease are haunted whereas other places that have equally seen the same are not haunted? Why do some people see ghosts whereas others do not? And more to the point, how is it that so many people with no connection to each other and over such a length of time report similar ghostly happenings at the same places?
Surely all these witnesses cannot be lying and have simply invented their stories, even though these stories are almost exactly the same and occur over a period of years, if not decades. Does this legitimize their experiences and prove that ghosts do exist?
Or is it a case of us looking in the wrong direction? Is it possible that some people are predisposed to seeing ghosts? Are the imaginary friends of our childhood really imaginary, or are they in facts ghosts, entities that we as adults have somehow lost the ability to see?
And what of places that seem to convey a certain feeling, a certain depressing or ominous feeling? Without doubt everyone reading this book would have visited such a place, whether it be a morgue, a cemetery, an ancient battlefield or a dark, ruined castle. Who among us cannot say that they have walked into a room or wandered along a lonely road at night and felt the hairs on the back of their necks rise and their heart beat faster? Is this an evolutionary response to a once real threat but now lost in the mists of time, a lost human-sense, one that seems to have been abandoned in this new and maddeningly fast modern world?
Ghosts and the supernatural seem to have become more important in this modern world where spirituality appears to have been traded for technology. From new agers to reborn neo-pagan beliefs, people appear to be embracing a new interest in their quest for the truth about the unknown, much like the Victorian age of spiritualism. Witness popular television and one will be bombarded with programs based on the supernatural and ghosts. And yet, one must ask, why is this so? Do we yearn for something more in our lives, something to suggest that maybe there is life after death? And is it possible that ghosts provide this link? A link to our past?
Over the years I have spoken to many educated, sober, and erudite people from all walks of life. And they have told me stories, some slightly unbelievable, others less so, and yet one thing rings true with all of these reports; so many people tell me that they have witnessed something they cannot explain except to suggest that there is some sort of supernatural element to it. They have no reason to make these tales up, as there is no monetary gain or even fleeting fame. One could say that some of these people are deliberately misleading and one certainly cannot discount this. However, not everyone I speak to could be so wilfully and blatantly lying.
And this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that even if a certain, small percentage of people are making up stories for whatever reason, then we are still left with the sobering fact that there are so many untold reports that simply cannot be explained. And if we are to take this further, how is it that so many people over decades, even centuries, and with no connection to each other, continually report seeing the same thing at the same place?
I am often asked whether or not I believe in ghosts. This is a given as I have seen what I consider to be a ghost, not once, but three times. The first being a monk-like figure in a room in the Dragon Inn in Montgomery, Wales; the second, a strange encounter with a small, frail, ghostly woman dressed in brown in the Hellfire Caves in Buckinghamshire, and the third, which was also witnessed by my sister, a fleeting glimpse of a Victorian lady in a white dress who walked past an open door and disappeared. Having said this, I am highly sceptical about a number of reports; after all, how many white ladies, green ladies, and blue ladies can one believe exist? And as such, I have simply presented the stories as I have heard or read them, and so one needs to take it with a grain of salt, even though it has been written in good faith. Ghosts, for whatever reason, seem to integral to all societies over all ages and cultures.
From ruins of ancient Norman structures to the grandeur of restored castles that daily see thousands and thousands of visitors, stories of ghosts abound. And although sceptics may sneer, in these places ghosts are very real. They haunt the ivy-clad ruins of the monasteries and moss-encrusted tombstones of medieval churches. They are the creaks and groans and half-heard whispers in the night and footsteps that scrape upon old wooden staircases. They are the eerie, spine-tingling tapping of fingers on glass and the clanking of chains in neglected dungeons. They are the mysterious hooded figures that haunt our dreams, the headless horsemen who appear out of the cold, swirling mist of the moors.
And with that thought, I shall leave you to your imagination.