Tutbury Castle - February 2005

Five of us (Amanda, Evan, Ros, Min and myself) and Amanda's friend Gary were among the twenty visitors to Tutbury Castle on an overnight run by the P.I.R.T. group. The evening started off with a few minutes delay before a guy who was in armour from the waist down drove up to open the gates to the castle complex (turns out he'd rushed over from a re-enactment at Lichfield). Immediately we entered the Great Hall in the main building the most 'sensitive' amongst us, Amanda, felt that one of the other guests had been there before, which she hadn't. At almost the same time Gary took a most unusual photo that had a person in it in which the back of her head appears to be transparent. This puzzled us at first but now seems to be down to a double exposure. After getting settled in the visitors split into three groups (with ourselves being one group) to explore three different areas of the castle, the Great Hall/ King's Chamber, the Dungeon and the Undercroft. We started off in the Great Hall/King's Chamber and visited it with the PIRT medium (Steve), who seemed a bit more down-la-earth than most, not making ludicrous claims about his powers. Little was experienced here though Amanda felt unable to sit in part of the King's Chamber and Min believed she saw a mist by the door similar to what the medium later said he saw (but hardly good evidence). A visit to the 'dungeon' and its gruesome torture equipment led to Amanda feeling that I looked particularly at home in a particular corner, which another sensitive had previously said (unbeknownst to Amanda) was were a presence was. Min also felt there was something odd about the position of the door and a row of stones in the wall this building had several uses over the years, including being the castle entrance at one time. We also visited the unroofed Undercroft in the rain where we stayed for a while with Amanda picking up on Lyn (the organiser) having something stood next to her - other than that it was just wet though Richard, a castle historian, kept us entertained with his stories about the castle and odd things he had experienced.

We were now free to occupy the rest of our stay as we wanted and most of us made visits to sit in the dark in the supposedly active King's Chamber. Nothing much seemed to be happening there at all though when I was in the room just with Amanda I did feel a lot more uneasy at times, which Amanda felt coincided with there being some presence there. Also both of us heard a mysterious noise like a loud sigh, but with it being a wet, windy evening this could easily have been some effect of the wind. After this several of us spent some time there all without experiencing a thing. On a previous visit we all observed mysterious cold-spots, and a sudden dark shadow scared a visitor to tears, so this visit was quiet by comparison.

The EMF meter and infrared thermometer failed to pick up anything odd on what was for most of us, except Amanda, a quiet night. Unusual battery drain, normal at Tutbury, only affected Min's video camera which suddenly expired, also her still camera developed a fault. No other unusual images reported - usual 'orbs' of dust and moisture droplets, but nothing else of interest.  In summary Tutbury remains a fascinating place to explore but there was little evidence of anything paranormal for most of us, other than what Amanda picked up on.

A second visit to Tutbury Castle was made in 2007 read the report here.