Muncaster Castle

Muncaster
Ravenglass
CA18 1RQ
West Cumbria

History

Muncaster Castle has remained a family lived in home since 1208 by the Pennington Family and is famous for its stories of a court jester, Tom Skelton, who worked at the castle in the 16th Century as well as its links to Shakespeare. Sitting romantically on the Western Lake District the castle is now host to private weddings, functions and parties as well as being a hotel for visitors to the area.

Paranormal Activity

Muncaster Castle is said to be one of Britain’s most haunted places with many of its haunted tales being from its resident spirit Tom the court jester. Although rarely seen he is often known to play tricks on visitors to Muncaster. Visitors have often complained of disturbed nights when staying in The Tapestry Room, with the sound of footsteps outside the room and seeing the door handle turn but upon the door opening no one has been there. A child is frequently heard crying towards the window end of the Tapestry Room and sometimes a lady can be heard singing as if comforting a sick child. Visitors have also felt temperature drops in this room.

Other spooky goings on concern the ‘Muncaster Boggle’ or White Lady who haunts the gardens and roadways around Muncaster. She is often said to be the ghost of Mary Bragg, a young girl who was murdered in the early 1800s on the road near the Main Gate.

If you wish to experience the haunted castle for yourself, Muncaster offer overnight ghost sits. Please visit their website for more information.

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.