The ruins of Old Wardour Castle stand in a romantic lakeside setting.
The Castle was built in 1393 by Lord Lovell. The building is hexagon shaped with two towers. One of the towers is now in ruin but the other fortunately is not. There is a spiral staircase leading you right up to the very top of the tower. There are a few rooms leading off from the staircase. From the top of the castle you can see the stunning views of the surrounding countryside.
This is my most favourite place I have ever visited.
This is also the place where we have experienced what could be the most possible paranormal activity we have encountered.
Wardour is a magical place. It is beautiful there as the sun rises and its as equally wonderful as the sun goes down, and at night it just takes on a whole new meaning.
It was a really dark night that night in 1995 and as we didn't think to take a torch, all we had to light the way was one cigarette lighter so as you can imagine, we didn't get to see much of the castle!
However we went back a few days later and we had a good look around. It was a beautiful summer morning and we were really excited to have finally seen the castle in all its glory. It stood there looking tall and magnificent - almost like a painting. We explored every inch of the castle and it was great being the only ones there. There was so much to see, so many little rooms everywhere and staircases leading to yet more rooms. The spiral staircase in the non ruined tower was amazing. After that successful visit we visited Wardour quite a lot.
The night we had a possible paranormal experience was also during 1995. It was night time and that night I had taken my video camera with me. The light that I had with my camera was really bright - it lit up the whole of the castle grounds.
We headed over to the grotto which is opposite the main entrance into the castle. A couple of the boys went off on their own to look about. Some of the people who came with us had not been there before so they were eager to look around and explore for themselves. We walked around the grotto and then headed over to the castle. As we did we noticed a bright light shining from the window of one of the towers.
We didn't think about it much at the time as we just thought it was our friends.
It wasn't until later it dawned on me. The light we had seen was coming from the ruined tower! It was on the third floor and there is no access to that part of the castle. There is a gate preventing you from climbing up the ruins (there is no staircase in the ruin) which has a sturdy padlock on it.
As I said at the time it didn't occur to us so we carried on exploring the castle.
We found our friends who had wandered off. We all walked up the spiral staircase into the second room, leading off from the stairs. I was first into the room and I put my camera light on and filmed everyone walking in. Just as the last person came into the room one of my friends told me to turn off the light which I instantly did.
Then he told us somebody was walking round the bottom of the castle with a torch. I leaned out of the window to have a look and sure enough I could see the light shining from the bottom. I decided to hold my light outside of the window and turn it on to see who was downstairs. My light was powerful and lit up the whole ground. there was no one there - not even a light! There was only a few of us that saw that and when we said what we had seen to the others they just disbelieved us and laughed.
By this time I was getting a bit scared and that's was when I really started to think about the other light we had seen earlier in the tower, and then it dawned on me that there was no way up to where we had seen the light.
By now I was thinking it was time we should get going.
As we walked back to the car, the few of us who had seen things tried to rationalise what had happened.
I always try to find a logical explanation when strange things happen. I don't automatically assume it is paranormal activity.
We got back to the gate and back to our cars. My car was parked closest to the gate. The front of my car was about a foot from it.
We sat in the car getting ready to go when somebody in my car said "look" and in the distance ahead of us was the light again. I quickly put the high beam on in my car which lit up the grounds but again we could see nothing.
This time though I thought that if it was somebody they may have had time to actually move out of the way. But what made the situation worse was that I had to actually get out of my car, lift my bonnet and manually attach my radiator fan. It had been broken for a while and I had it fixed straight to my battery so it was continually on. At first I wasn't going to do it and thought I would be ok without it. But the others in the car told me not to risk it. Two of the people in the car were the ones that had see the light at the bottom of the castle. They told me to just get out and run and do it and that is what I did! I jumped out looking towards the castle and could not see anything.
I put up my bonnet and connected the fan. Then as I dropped the bonnet I could see a light reflecting off of my windscreen and it wasn't from inside the car. The weird thing was that it wasn't getting any brighter behind me. I pushed the bonnet shut and ran back into the car. When I looked out into the grounds again the light had gone. I asked who had seen it and everyone in my car said that they did. My friend that was sat in the middle at the back said it was shining straight into her eyes.
It was definitely time to go! I was just waiting for my friend who was parked right behind me to start to move. He finally started to back up so I started my engine. As I went to turn my lights on, the light was back but this time it was so close it was almost as if it was being held through the bars of the gate! We were petrified!! I put my car lights on and as soon as they came on the light went. It never faded out - it just stopped. There was no way that anybody could have moved out of the way in that time! I reversed my car and wheel spun off in front of my friend and drove like the wind!
We all discussed it later and none of us could say what they thought it actually was. We all saw the same thing and we all couldn't say what it was. Was it paranormal or was there an explanation? Well if there was a logical explanation I really don't know what it was!!
Years after this happened I met someone who had also been to Old Wardour Castle. Before I could tell them about my encounter there they told me their story. They had also seen a light at the castle when they had been walking around. They had seen it in the distance, not as close as we did. Even so their story sounded so very similar to mine.
Another time, more recently in 2006, we visited the castle again late at night. There were only four of us this time and we decided to try and call out. We went up to one of the rooms off of the spiral staircase. We sat round in a circle and I started to call out. I asked if there was anybody there and if there was could they make a noise. We all tried calling out but nothing happened. We stopped for a while and decided we would try again in a bit. We waited for about twenty minutes and we tried again. I called out again and carried on calling out for approximately five minutes but nothing happened.
We sat silent for about a minute and then from behind us coming from the staircase we heard a loud deep groan. I jumped out of my skin and my friend who was sat next to me almost jumped onto my lap! We sat and said nothing for a second and then we all started talking at once "What was that?" I tried calling out again after that but we heard nothing. We finally gave up and went home.
I have been to Wardour before and after these occasions and have yet to see or hear anything else. But I will keep visiting until I do!
Check out our Return to Wardour for our most recent investigation
