Hylton Castle

Craigavon Road
Hylton Castle Estate
Sunderland
SR5 3PA
Tyne and Wear

History

Originally built in 1072 the original wooden building was home to the Hilton family until Sir William Hilton, sometime within the end of the 14th Century and within the first ten years of the 15th Century, built the present stone castle.

The castle is now owned and protected by the English Heritage.

Paranormal Activity

This ancient castle is famous for its legend of the Cauld Lad and there are at least three stories explaining the ghostly apparition. One was that of a young retainer who was discovered by the young heiress’s father courting his daughter and was subsequently killed and now walks the castle. Local historians however believe the ghostly apparition that haunts this castle is explained from a story dating back to 1609. Lord of Hylton had given orders that his horse be prepared by a certain time in order that he could make an important journey. Angered by the delay he visited the stable and found the stable boy asleep. The furious Lord drew his sword and decapitated Roger Skelton, the boy in question. To hide his crime he threw the corpse into a pond and put about a story to cover up what he had done. When the remains were finally discovered Lord Hylton was tried and acquitted of murder. The Coroner’s report from the Chester Ward at Hylton on the 3rd July 1609 showed that a witness supported Robert Hylton of Hylton, describing him as a gentleman, saying; “when he swore that whilst using a scythe during mowing he accidentally struck Roger Skelton with the point of the scythe on his right thigh, causing a mortal wound one inch long and two inches broad from which the youth died within the hour.” And thus Bishop William Jameson granted a free pardon for manslaughter on the 6th of September 1609 and the legend of the Cauld Lad was founded.

The castle itself isn’t the only area that is haunted though. The ghostly apparition is said to also appear as a boatman on the Hylton Ferry, where he would accept fares but would leave passengers stranded in the centre of the river and items are often rearranged and displaced in the kitchen. Even today visitors have claimed to hear the unearthly cries of the ghost. One such visitor reported this; “I heard loud bangs coming from inside and I can't think of any logical explanation for that, it certainly wasn't my imagination. Perhaps The Cauld Lad was trying to give me a fright. I heard a voice say, "go" when I was in the woods”.

Brougham Hall

Penrith
Cumbria

History

Brougham Hall dates back to over 500 years ago and were dubbed by the Victorians as the ‘Windsor of the North’ with its long association with royalty. King George V was a regular guest as well as King Edward VII. The Hall is currently under going restoration but is open to the public with very few ‘no go’ areas.

Paranormal Activity

TV’s Most Haunted, upon investigating Brougham Hall, have captured some ‘spectacular phenomena’ when invited by manager of the Old Smokehouse at the hall, Neil Harrison. Neil himself has claimed to witness glasses being smashed, taps turning themselves on and ghosts appearing.

Carlisle Castle

Carlisle
Cumbria

History

A working fortress dating back over nine centuries, Carlisle Castle has been the site of an important Roman fortress even before the medieval castle was built. The oldest part of the castle is the keep which was built around the 12th Century by King Henry I of England and completed by Kind David I of Scotland as is a reminder that the castle was once a frontier fortress for the Anglo-Scottish border.

The castle was eventually overwhelmed by Cumberland’s Hanoverian army as it became the last English fortress to suffer a siege. Visitors can today still see the famous ‘licking stones’, which were supposedly licked for life-giving moisture, in the keep’s basement where Jacobite garrison were imprisoned. Visitors can also see the carvings on the keep’s second floor, which were cut around 1480.

Mary Queen of Scots was once imprisoned here in 1567 to 1568 and the castle has remained it’s military history, becoming the headquarters of the Border Regiment until 1959.

Paranormal Activity

It is rumoured that Carlisle Castle is stalked by a ghostly woman and in 1823, a soldier was apparently so frightened when he encountered her that he bayoneted the apparition, impaling the wall behind it. He is alleged to have fainted and died of shock the following day. Three year earlier, a woman clothed in tartan was supposedly discovered bricked up on the staircase in the Captain’s Tower. She was holding a young child and her costume was said to date back to Elizabethan times.

In more recent years, the alarms at the castle’s King’s Own Border Regiment museum were reportedly set off three nights in a row in 1992. An apparition moving under an arch between the exhibition and the gift shop area was rumoured to be the culprit.