Return to introduction or Go to next location The Ghosts of Tamworth Castle The castle is now owned by the Tamworth Borough Council and is open to the public throughout the year. Both workers at the castle and visitors still stand witness to the many strange happenings. Macabre footsteps and sounds like scraping furniture are heard coming from empty upstairs rooms; spectral mists appear out of nowhere, rooms suddenly become preternaturally cold, and shadowy figures glide along passageways. There have been reports of a phantom appearing in one of the windows, and recently a member of staff says she was hit in the face by an unseen force. When I visited the castle, one of the guides became flustered and said that she felt as if something had walked right through her while she was showing me the old kitchens. I later spoke to a visitor who said that on a previous visit she had seen a dark human shape walk through the wall in that exact spot. On the other side of the wall, outside the kitchen, there is a deep well; perhaps one of the ghosts met their end by falling into it.
In November 2003 the television series Most Haunted aired an episode from Tamworth Castle. I recently spoke to one of the production team who gave me an unofficial theory as to why the place might be so haunted: it may have something to do with the stonework, he believes. There is a theory known as the stone tape theory that holds that ghosts are psychic tape records of tragic events in the past which are in some way recorded into the crystalline structure of the brickwork. If the theory is right, then Tamworth Castle might be some kind of a gigantic computer matrix for recording tragedy. For anyone who’s brave enough to experience Tamworth Castle at its most eerie, and perhaps even getting a glimpse of the ghosts, the castle holds regular Ghost Search Suppers followed by a guided night-time ghost walk and vigil in the dark. DirectionsTamworth Castle is situated in the heart of Tamworth town centre in southern Staffordshire. LinksFriends of Tamworth Castle Website The haunting of Tamworth Castle The Tamworth Castle Ghost Photograph
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The 800-year-old Tamworth Castle is not only one of the best preserved and most visited medieval castles in England, it is also said to be the most haunted. It is reputedly the home of dozens of ghosts and the focus of repeated bouts of poltergeist activity. The two oldest traditional ghosts are the so-called White and Black Ladies. The White Lady is said to be the ghost of a medieval woman who threw herself from the battlements when she discovered her lover was dead; her ghost walks the battlements wailing and bemoaning her loss. The Black Lady is allegedly the spirit of a ninth-century nun called Editha who was abbess of the nearby Benedictine nunnery of Polesworth Abbey. It is said that Editha rose from her grave to terrorize the baron of Tamworth Castle when he threatened to close the nunnery in 1139. Apparently she never returned to her grave and continues to haunt a staircase and one of the bedrooms of the castle called the Lady’s Chamber. In 1949 a team of ghost hunters claimed to have photographed the Black Lady after a picture was taken of the staircase when strange noises were heard. The photograph shows what appears to be a hooded figure descending the stairs.