Chillingham Castle and the Radiant Boy

 A-Z Challenge 2012 C

Chillingham Castle and the Radiant Boy

Chillingham Castle is so serene in this picture from Morris’s Country Seats (1880)

Chillingham Castle (1880)

With a name like Chillingham the castle just has to be haunted, doesn’t it?

Chillingham Castle in England’s Northumberland is claimed to be the most haunted in Britain. This 12^th century stronghold was stormed by the Grey family in 1246. In 1298 Edward I stayed at the stronghold on his way to battle the Scots. Chillingham became a castle in 1344 after Edward III granted a licence for it to be crenellated. It remained in the Grey’s possession until in 1933 the last descendants, then the Tankervilles, moved out. In 1983 the ruin was taken over by Sir Humphrey Wakefield whose wife is a member of the Grey family. Visitors can explore the castle and its grounds, restored by the Wakefields, and may even stay overnight to experience for themselves its twisting stone stairways, echoing corridors and creepy dark dungeons.

Chillingham Castle - 2005

The most famous of Chillingham’s ghosts is that of the Radiant Boy. The boy, dressed in blue, found documents intended to help the Spanish defeat the English during the time of the Spanish Armada. The boy’s body was found during 1920’s restoration work along, with fragments of blue cloth, where he had been walled up alive. His finger boned had been worn down where he had tried to scratch his way out.

Sometimes on the stroke of midnight you can hear his heart rending cries of agony and fear. The centre of the cries always emanate from the castle’s Pink room. The noises are usually traced to a spot near a passage cut through a ten-foot wall. As the wails die away, a bright halo of light sometimes appears around an old four poster bed; anybody sleeping in the bed would see the figure of a young boy dressed in blue, approaching them.

For more about castles you may like to follow Hilary’s B - Balmoral Castle, Scotland

Attributions:

• Chillingham Castle in Northumberland from Morris’s County Seats (1880) – public domain.
• Chillingham Castle; By Glen Bowman; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.