Tutbury Castle

OVERVIEW

A ruined medieval castle on a hill above the Dove in Staffordshire, owned by the Duchy of Lancaster and so by the King, and run as a visitor attraction by a tenant. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned here on four occasions between 1569 and 1585, in damp lodgings she complained of bitterly; Eleanor of Aquitaine and John of Gaunt are among its earlier residents. It was slighted after the Civil War.

HISTORY

Tutbury was a Norman lordship, a Lancastrian stronghold and one of the Crown's prisons for Mary before her move to Fotheringhay and execution in 1587. The castle's curator, the historian Lesley Smith, has kept and published the site's ghost accounts for two decades.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

'The Keeper', a man in full armour seen at the gate and heard shouting 'Get thee hence'; a White Lady in the tower; a boy and a girl; and Mary herself, who the castle says appeared on the South Tower in 2004 in front of some forty re-enactors. Most Haunted has filmed here. The castle runs its own ghost evenings and tells the stories itself.

VISITING

Seasonal opening, ticketed; ghost hunts and evening events by booking.