Castles Adventure

A NPR story was sent to me that I saved it to my Facebookm it is what got me thinking again about castles, and their mystery. I have loved the mystery of castles since i was a kid. Haunted stories on TV and then real documentaries and then today i have enjoyed ghost hunters international because of all the castles they visit in Europe, as well the regular series on there trips to haunted castles. If not to just see them, and almost tour them, as the show is doing their thing. Below is the NPR story link.

When A Man's Home Really Is His Castle : NPR
Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111365770&sc=fb&cc=fp
From whimsical to threatening, mock medieval castles are scattered throughout the U.S. They are monuments to wealth, theatricality, eccentricity and the Gothic revival in architecture. But what inspires people to build them?

A few haunted American castles

The Preston Castle
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Ghost_Adventures/Preston_Castle

Thornwood Castle
http://www.thornewoodcastle.com/
Ghosts
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WA-ThornewoodCastle.html

The Beardslee Castle
http://www.beardsleecastle.com/ghostpage.htm

Tour info http://www.muncaster.co.uk/owl-tours-schools

Muncaster Castle has acquired a reputation for being one of the most haunted houses in Britain, however this has only been since the 1990s, partly due to the investigations of Jason Braithwaite of Birmingham University into whether the alleged hauntings are down to environmental factors such as magnetic disturbances, and partly the drastic rebranding of the Muncaster Castle estates to tourists for more than merely its acclaimed gardens at the turn into the 21st Century in order to ensure it remained in Pennington hands (the financial situation was acute enough at one stage for them to admit in a BBC documentary that the estate was in danger of being sold as they could not afford much needed repairs to the roof).

Prior to the 21st Century, most ghost books that bothered to list Muncaster mentioned only two ghosts, that of Henry VI (who was sheltered at Muncaster after his defeat at the battle of Hexham) and the head carrying ghost of an apprentice carpenter who was decapitated whilst sleeping in the old stable block by jester Thomas Skelton (Tom The Fool) at the orders of Sir Ferdinand Pennington because of his love affair with his daughter Helwise.

However, visitors to the castle have long been informed by guides that as well as the above, the ghost of Skelton and the vengeful ghost in white of Mary Bragg - a foul-mouthed local girl who was murdered by being hanged from the Main Gate by drunken youths in the 19th Century after they'd kidnapped her for a joke: those responsible were never brought to justice. There were even tales that a lion shot by the last Lord Muncaster in Kenya, and whose skull is kept in the castle, was sometimes heard prowling (& gently growling) around at nightfall.

Guests may book a tour of the castle and an all-night vigil in a haunted bedroom known as the Tapestry Room, where guest reports of paranormal phenomena include: hearing footsteps, seeing the door open of its own accord, hearing a crying child (allegedly Margaret Susan Pennington, who died of screaming fits in the 19th Century) and/or a singing woman, having their digital cameras turn off and on inexplicably, feeling themselves patted, experiencing changes of room temperature, chest pains, and even being inexplicably tossed out of the bed.

official site
http://www.tutburycastle.com/

Tutbury Castle is a largely ruinous medieval castle at Tutbury, Staffordshire in the ownership of the Duchy of Lancaster. It is a Grade I listed building. The castle is currently leased by Lesley Smith, famous for appearing on the TV show Most Haunted.

Tutbury Castle became the headquarters of Henry de Ferrers and was the centre of the wapentake of Appletree, which included Duffield Frith. With his wife Bertha, he endowed Tutbury Priory with two manors in about 1080. It would seem that Tutbury at that time was a dependency of the Norman abbey of St Pierre%u2011sur%u2011Dives.

The castle was destroyed by Prince Edward in 1264 after the rebellion of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby. In 1269, after a further rebellion the lands were given to Edmund Crouchback and have remained part of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Apart from the 12th century chapel the ruins date from the 14th and 15th centuries when the castle was rebuilt. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned in the castle in the 16th century.

info collected from wikki and investigated other places