Chillingham Castle

OVERVIEW

A medieval castle in the north of Northumberland, fortified in 1344 and the seat of the Greys and later the Earls of Tankerville until the 1980s, when Sir Humphry Wakefield, married into the Grey family, bought the derelict building and restored it. It keeps its dungeon and torture chamber on show, runs late-night ghost tours and lets apartments; the Chillingham wild cattle graze the park.

HISTORY

Edward I stayed here in 1298 on his way to fight Wallace; the castle was a garrison through the border wars and a Jacobean and Victorian house after. The Blue Boy's story is that in the 1920s the bones of a boy and fragments of blue cloth were found in a wall of the Pink Room, and the cries and the blue light stopped when they were buried.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The Blue or Radiant Boy in the Pink Room; Lady Mary Berkeley, deserted by her husband in the 1680s, on the stairs; a figure in the pantry; voices in the chapel. Most Haunted and a stream of YouTube investigators have filmed here, and in 2024 one filmed human bones in a box in the dungeon. The owner tells the stories and has an interest in them.

VISITING

Seasonal daytime opening, ticketed; evening ghost tours by booking; apartments to let.