Speaker 1: Welcome back. This is part two of my interview with Amy,
Speaker 1: recorded on location last September. In part one, we explored
Speaker 1: the long and often brutal history of Dudley Castle and
Speaker 1: the people who once walked its halls and beautiful grounds.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we hear about more experiences, from strange
Speaker 1: encounters and ongoing activity to the moments that make even
Speaker 1: seasoned investigators stop and take notice. We dig deeper into
Speaker 1: the ghosts and legends most closely associated with the castle
Speaker 1: and the phenomena that continues to be reported by staff
Speaker 1: and visitors alike. Now I Part one set the scene.
Speaker 1: Part two is where the hauntings truly.
Speaker 2: Begin during the firing seventeen fifteen. Now, there's lots of
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories as to why that fire happened. Okay. One
Speaker 2: of them is that there was flower being stored too
Speaker 2: close to open fires and combusting set the place light.
Speaker 2: Another theory was it was coen forgers who had got
Speaker 2: in at the bottom end of the castle and they
Speaker 2: were smelting, using the pantry fireplace to smelt down metal
Speaker 2: to make coinage.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's my theory, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2: Because after the fire, and the family had left. The
Speaker 2: family had left the castle. They'd gone to Himley, or
Speaker 2: they were living at Imly, or they rented their parts
Speaker 2: of the castle to local people. Rooms were left. There
Speaker 2: was no sort of maintenance left up here. They were
Speaker 2: just laying You could come and walk through any time.
Speaker 1: Security, no security.
Speaker 2: These coins forgers they reckon got in. Also, there was
Speaker 2: a guy known locally as Castle Jacob, and Castle Jacob
Speaker 2: was actually a hermit or a tramp, and he was
Speaker 2: well known for being in and around the castle. It
Speaker 2: turns out he was actually using a tunnel from underneath
Speaker 2: the gates the warden's arch that run into the little
Speaker 2: round building right in the corner of the of the
Speaker 2: sampit the wood what they called the east watched. He
Speaker 2: was using that to come and go. He was actually
Speaker 2: living there for five years with nobody knowing he was there.
Speaker 2: And he set up a little cobbling business and go
Speaker 2: down into the tower, pick people's shoes up, take them
Speaker 2: back men, take them back and get payment for it.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew.
Speaker 2: Nobody knew. The other theory was he was actually part
Speaker 2: of this this purging plot. So the fire happened. Nobody
Speaker 2: knew why the fire happened, it was seen eight miles
Speaker 2: away in the middle. On the twenty fourth of July,
Speaker 2: it was seen eight miles away in the center of Birmingham,
Speaker 2: massive fire. Malten lead in the roof, lead run down
Speaker 2: and you'll see the black marking under the chapel window
Speaker 2: when we go outside, and that is a score of
Speaker 2: the fire. So the whole area was it looked like
Speaker 2: a volcano going up. Nobody came up to put the
Speaker 2: fire out. Yeah, because there was a rumor gunpowder was
Speaker 2: being stored up here. You ain't going to come if
Speaker 2: there's gunpowder. So it was actually put out by the
Speaker 2: rain three days later. He burned three days and three
Speaker 2: nights and that's recorded in the local parish registers. Earler
Speaker 2: Dudley was just like, oh, well, this burned and let's
Speaker 2: leave it. You know, it's whatever. And then about thirty
Speaker 2: four years later, in seventeen eighty four, he just suddenly
Speaker 2: decided he wanted to do a bit of a clean up,
Speaker 2: so he sent his men up here and they discovered
Speaker 2: a skeleton in the kitchen area. Around this skeleton was
Speaker 2: crucibles ice metal, which proves the coin for forge theory,
Speaker 2: and there is an article in the Barrows Worcester Journal
Speaker 2: in November seventeen eighty four talking about this, talking about
Speaker 2: the Skelington, talking about the base metal in the crucibll.
Speaker 1: This was really found, yet really found.
Speaker 2: Its documented. It is said that the Earl of Dudley
Speaker 2: kept well, he kept the skeleton because they were Georgia.
Speaker 2: They were weird. As I teld to you earlier, they
Speaker 2: kept the skeleton as a souvenir of the fire. So
Speaker 2: he never was buried. And we have quite an angry
Speaker 2: spirit that can push, pod and poke, and he gets
Speaker 2: really close to you. I've experienced it. It stinks. It's
Speaker 2: like whiskey and body and mixed together. It gets wrong.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And when I was doing ghosts nights back in the day,
Speaker 2: I used to I used to say there is a
Speaker 2: particular smell. You will smell it. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: tell you what it is. And people would smell.
Speaker 1: It and they would confess.
Speaker 2: That. And he's known to push and people. I mean
Speaker 2: I was sent up for a first daid in November.
Speaker 2: I mean it was dead. There was nobody here, pardon
Speaker 2: there was nobody here. A lady was walking through castle
Speaker 2: creatures and said she was pushed over. There was nobody
Speaker 2: else in there, So.
Speaker 1: You're talking big polty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he is known to We think the mediums
Speaker 2: have picked up on him and said he is angry.
Speaker 2: He's very angry because he never got Christian burial that
Speaker 2: he deserved it. He thought he deserved. We don't know
Speaker 2: what happened to this girling. I was just about the
Speaker 2: Earl of Dudley took it. We having to clue what
Speaker 2: happened to it.
Speaker 1: That is that is absolutely chilling. Investigations, countless investigations here
Speaker 1: has there been any any planning evidence?
Speaker 2: Vs EVP is one of my favorite things ever because
Speaker 2: there's sometimes when you get the intelligent answers when you're
Speaker 2: asking questions. It's recorded and then you play it back
Speaker 2: and it's given an intelligent answer. I've heard that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was doing a ghost it was it was during
Speaker 2: COVID actually, and there was only six of us, and
Speaker 2: it was Jane Harris helped my houses haunted. She was
Speaker 2: here and a couple of others and they were under
Speaker 2: a group called HD Paranormal at the time. And I
Speaker 2: did some e vps in down in the Creatures and
Speaker 2: one of the hosts. Craig said, do you know anybody here?
Speaker 2: And it's clear as day of the name Amy. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: clearest Day come back. They recorded it and it was
Speaker 2: like Amy. I was like, oh my god, wow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So EVPs are one of my favorite. We did it
Speaker 2: all lady. It was all ladies in here, uh seance
Speaker 2: all the science. It was like watch and wait. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was just females. The males are gone and
Speaker 2: we did EVPs and there was males voices being picked up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they were saying names like James and things like that,
Speaker 2: and names that you couldn't associate with the Castle.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, EVPs are, yeah, one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2: And vps.
Speaker 1: Again, you've been here for how long ago, twenty three
Speaker 1: years now, twenty three years. You've seen people come and go.
Speaker 1: You've obviously got very close friends here. What's the most
Speaker 1: chilling would you say, an unexplainable experience that you or
Speaker 1: any other member of the Castle and the zoological team
Speaker 1: past or present, that they've ever had, that you've ever had.
Speaker 2: My most chilling one was back in the sixty seventies
Speaker 2: they used to challenge young keepers to spend the night
Speaker 2: in here, in here, I mean, this room doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2: I can sit quite comfortably in here three o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning on my own, in the dark. It doesn't
Speaker 2: bother me.
Speaker 1: Missus the chapel under cross this, as you said to me,
Speaker 1: this was probably a more like a critic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but back in the day this used to be
Speaker 2: house the aquarium here, Yeah, it was there was part
Speaker 2: it was part of the aquarium. And things used to
Speaker 2: happen in here. Things like doors would be open, keepers
Speaker 2: are going lock the doors, go out and come back
Speaker 2: and the doors will be open when they come in.
Speaker 2: The front door would be open, or something like that.
Speaker 2: Lots of old spots, lots of cotspots, things like that,
Speaker 2: things that couldn't explain, filters turned off when they shouldn't
Speaker 2: have been, and things like that. And they used to
Speaker 2: challenge young keepers when the keeper. This is local law
Speaker 2: that when the new keepers started, they used to challenge
Speaker 2: them to stay here in this room. Three keepers young
Speaker 2: keepers decided to take up the challenge. Next morning they
Speaker 2: were found in the bar down at the back, sleeping
Speaker 2: on the high bales. So the then came out with
Speaker 2: the zoo goes, what the hell are you doing on
Speaker 2: the you're supposed to be sleeping in the undercroft and
Speaker 2: the when we were sleeping in the undercross until we
Speaker 2: had all the chanting coming from the back of the room,
Speaker 2: we went outside and there was a figure walking down
Speaker 2: the key steps. So then we decided to sleep again.
Speaker 1: Chant So that ties in again with bunks. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a well known story of the chanting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We've Adrian Akadas who have stayed in this building complaining
Speaker 2: that they've been kept up all night by the chanting
Speaker 2: coming from the back. Wow. But like I say, that
Speaker 2: would have been the way into this room. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that down into the back.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that the hauntings are residual energy from
Speaker 1: the past or intelligent entities or something else entirely? And
Speaker 1: we are going to lead into something that we've chatting.
Speaker 2: Them both, Okay, I mean the little girl that I've seen, I.
Speaker 1: Explained, would you would you go into that side? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I have spoke about this on another podcast. But I've
Speaker 2: started doing ghost nights about well twenty three years ago,
Speaker 2: and one of the very first I did was with
Speaker 2: the group called Flight Nights. Okay, and there was about
Speaker 2: seven of us in this room.
Speaker 1: Can I just say. And I'm not doing this because
Speaker 1: the microphones are switched on, and I'm not doing this
Speaker 1: because we're doing a podcast. But I have just gone
Speaker 1: absolutely freezing cold right here. I don't normally I'm not joking.
Speaker 1: I don't normally get this, but I'm serious. I've just
Speaker 1: pulled my sleeves down.
Speaker 2: Because I'm talking about them.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, but I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not usually affected by the cold.
Speaker 2: If you're sort of in this room, the more you
Speaker 2: can be talking like we're talking, you're ignoring them.
Speaker 1: I'm just moving over to grab something. This is this
Speaker 1: is kind of live as we're doing it. We're not
Speaker 1: going to cut I'm just going to get this rugged
Speaker 1: out because that's a bit strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was. If you sort of tend to be
Speaker 2: talking about them but not calling or trying to interact
Speaker 2: with them, they do tend to do things right, Okay,
Speaker 2: And that sounds weird, but it's true. Many times I've
Speaker 2: been doing things in here, even I've not been talking.
Speaker 2: I've been talking about them, but not to them. They'll
Speaker 2: be carrying me label. But the like I was saying
Speaker 2: fright nights was and there were seven of us in here,
Speaker 2: and it's in a little circle, and it was quite
Speaker 2: strange because it was I was a complete and not
Speaker 2: a skeptic. I said to you, you couldn't tell me
Speaker 2: that there was a thing called ghost. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: got an interest because of what my mom had told
Speaker 2: me early.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we are looking at we are looking at
Speaker 1: the MF meter right now, and please Amy, just double
Speaker 1: check what I do. There is no power There is
Speaker 1: no power source anywhere here now, and I am not
Speaker 1: kidding you. There is there is no power source anywhere
Speaker 1: near this. Wow. That is that is really strange. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: so you've look at that. You've also mentioned the name,
Speaker 1: but we're going to go into that right now as
Speaker 1: you go through your experience.
Speaker 2: Right So, like I say, you can tell me there
Speaker 2: was sort of ghost or anything. We were in a
Speaker 2: circle and we saw flashes of light, little like flashes
Speaker 2: of light, and I was like, what the helve that?
Speaker 2: And next thing we know, little girl about five six
Speaker 2: years old. She got dirty blonde to light brown hair,
Speaker 2: little white dress on but I'll never forget does she
Speaker 2: got no shoes on, and we're all seven of us
Speaker 2: took her out asked what we'd seen. We all said
Speaker 2: the same thing. Then about fifty fifteen years later, the
Speaker 2: last grotto, because I look after the grotto during Christmas.
Speaker 2: The last grotto we did, which is in the building
Speaker 2: next door to this, we were. I come in six
Speaker 2: six thirty in the morning, walked in, and the buildings
Speaker 2: strange because to get the back set of lights on
Speaker 2: you have to walk. You put the first set of
Speaker 2: lights on, but then you have to walk through a
Speaker 2: darkened passage to get to the next set of lights.
Speaker 2: And I was walking through and there's a ramp that
Speaker 2: goes up into the back back room and she was
Speaker 2: walking the same little girl, no shoes, white dress, smoking
Speaker 2: up the ramp. And then last year in the grotto,
Speaker 2: I walked in again. It was about about seven o'clock
Speaker 2: in the morning, and she was in the bats. She
Speaker 2: was behind the bats. We've been told by mediums her
Speaker 2: name's Ellie, and that she was here sometimes sometime in
Speaker 2: the thirteen maybe thirteen fourteen hundreds, probably a servant. We've
Speaker 2: got no record records of our but she's known for
Speaker 2: poultgeist activity because she will move the things and she
Speaker 2: is very, very attracted to lights and she will move
Speaker 2: the lights up and down.
Speaker 1: So when you saw her, was she solid?
Speaker 2: Yep, so solid if you want.
Speaker 1: To me now, I mean we both just sat here
Speaker 1: and you've seen this. I've got an ef me to
Speaker 1: just registering and clock in a way. There is literally
Speaker 1: hardly any reading there I have just you might have
Speaker 1: heard my camera clicking off and I've been taking a
Speaker 1: few fat This thing has been this thing has been
Speaker 1: going mad. Literally at the time that I'll pull my
Speaker 1: sleeves down because I've got really, really cold, and anybody
Speaker 1: who knows me knows that I'm not.
Speaker 2: Really But you said earlier about you got an EMF
Speaker 2: meet with you. She's a that she knows the flight
Speaker 2: more than one times three times there, but she will
Speaker 2: respond respond. When we're doing ghost nights, she will respond
Speaker 2: and she uses lights. I mean Christmas. She'll move things
Speaker 2: in the grotto like Teddy Bears and back in the
Speaker 2: eighties and nineties where are batting closure is that was
Speaker 2: actually a castle gift gift shop and things of move
Speaker 2: in there. The Teddy Bears had moved. I'll told you
Speaker 2: the story of the big key racking that went right
Speaker 2: across the what's it? And my friend who worked right
Speaker 2: across the building. There was no wind in there, It
Speaker 2: just went across. That was a story that was mentioned
Speaker 2: on Most Haunted when they did the Live here this
Speaker 2: also and my friend who used to work in them,
Speaker 2: or I should say friends or Memento, he used to
Speaker 2: work in there, J Cooper, and he'd done a display
Speaker 2: of jams and the whole lot was took off a
Speaker 2: shelf and placed on the floor. The building was lot.
Speaker 2: There was nobody in there, and you've been in there.
Speaker 2: Flagstones if they fell the smash, yeah.
Speaker 1: No damage at all. I want to talk about something
Speaker 1: that we spoke about earlier, and this fascinated me straight
Speaker 1: away because you mentioned it in the historical aspect before
Speaker 1: we even started. Then I've got you to speak about
Speaker 1: it again. But we interviewed Richard Foedix a while ago
Speaker 1: and he spoke about the stone tape theory, which you
Speaker 1: are a very very big believeryh Yeah, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: something to me that absolutely blew me away, which was
Speaker 1: I did not realize the water source because we were
Speaker 1: talking about silica water. You storm data on microchips and stuff.
Speaker 1: I had no idea about the water source. And when
Speaker 1: you said that to me. That was big kind of
Speaker 1: Eureka moment. So that is why you would say that
Speaker 1: this is probably a very very strong proponent.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I really believe in that. I spoke to
Speaker 2: other people don't believe it. But I'm a massive fan
Speaker 2: of the stone tak theory because there is nothing more
Speaker 2: natural in this world than this stone. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: this stone. I mean behind you. We've got one of
Speaker 2: the stones from the Priory. That stone dates for eleven hundred.
Speaker 1: And I've seen this stone by the way, and it's
Speaker 1: got an ingredient.
Speaker 2: It was the key stone for the priory. You know,
Speaker 2: you sat on a limestone reach you've got water under.
Speaker 2: It's got to be there's got to be a reason
Speaker 2: that places like this have hauntings. And I'm a big,
Speaker 2: fat fan of the stone type theory. That energy is recorded,
Speaker 2: like you saying data something Matt triggers it to reply.
Speaker 2: That's what the Green Lady is, hundred percent. She never interacts,
Speaker 2: you see her. She does well, it does and goes.
Speaker 1: It's very very strange that the grand Lady doesn't interact.
Speaker 1: But the little girl, the.
Speaker 2: Little girl, I think she's an intelligence. Richard Felix actually
Speaker 2: put this really well when he was here at Dudley Castle,
Speaker 2: and he's one of the things I've stuck with in
Speaker 2: my head. You'll never hear of a caveman haunted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he spoke about, Yes, you're nearly here.
Speaker 2: Of a caveman haunting. Why religion and there was no
Speaker 2: fear yet, there was no fear. People didn't think about
Speaker 2: purgatory and things like that. As you move through time,
Speaker 2: religion comes about. People are scared to death if they've
Speaker 2: done something wrong. And I think people some people or
Speaker 2: stay their spirits ut move and they stay stay where
Speaker 2: they are. Maybe it's because they loved loved a place,
Speaker 2: or maybe it is that fear that something is got
Speaker 2: those legs. Yeah, stone tape. Something's triggered that to play,
Speaker 2: and I mean that's that's the coffin guys from thirteen
Speaker 2: twenty one.
Speaker 1: There was a fascinating sighting that you spoke to me
Speaker 1: earlier about that and that involved who it was. Did
Speaker 1: we not record this, I'm not sure about it.
Speaker 2: So back in just after these coffins were because these
Speaker 2: coffins were actually the big one was don down at
Speaker 2: Dudley Priory. Smaller one was phoned to local church, but
Speaker 2: both coffins were then housed in Priory Hall. Priory Hall
Speaker 2: then got turned in the nineties into the Registry Office marriages,
Speaker 2: births and deaths. It was this I did. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a really good thing to have two coffins when you're
Speaker 2: going to register a marriage or a birth, so they
Speaker 2: decided to bring the coffins up to here. The big
Speaker 2: coffin we believe belonged to John Dey Summery, who was
Speaker 2: one of the Barons of Dudley. He actually built finished
Speaker 2: the building the keep back in the thirteen hundreds. Now,
Speaker 2: when these coffins were first moved up here, this room
Speaker 2: was different. You could actually come in here every single
Speaker 2: day to watch a little film about the history of
Speaker 2: the castle. And a cleaner was sent up after a
Speaker 2: busy bank holiday Monday, and she was covering away, hoovering away,
Speaker 2: suddenly looked up to the bottom end of the coffin
Speaker 2: and saw two legs with riding boots on. Now she
Speaker 2: was quite used to the then castle keeper coming in
Speaker 2: in costume, so she just thought it's him, and she
Speaker 2: was like morning. Adrian then looked up a bit further
Speaker 2: and there was nothing above the legs.
Speaker 1: His legs were sold.
Speaker 2: There was solid in her now her she made a
Speaker 2: bit of a force. Her sister, who was cleaning as well,
Speaker 2: came in and said, what on earth going on? And
Speaker 2: she says, there's two legs in the coffin. There's two
Speaker 2: legs in the coffin. She took her sister down to
Speaker 2: calm down, down to the restaurant. They sent people up
Speaker 2: to have a look when she recounted this story of
Speaker 2: what had gone on, and they can't find anything in
Speaker 2: this room. You can see this room. There's not a
Speaker 2: lot of places you can hide. There was nothing in
Speaker 2: this room. Those legs. Something's triggered that to play. And
Speaker 2: I think that was stone tape theory. I think that
Speaker 2: and I heard that. So it's one of the things
Speaker 2: that got me into all the paranormal around the castle.
Speaker 2: I was always into the history, but this is one
Speaker 2: of the things because that lady was through marriage related
Speaker 2: to my mom, and my mom told me the story
Speaker 2: because her mom, MYNN, had said to her, you'll never
Speaker 2: guess what's happened to Dudley Castle. And she recounted the story.
Speaker 2: But that's one hundred percent would have been a stone tape.
Speaker 1: Well, we covered the bit that I was going to
Speaker 1: talk to you about Richard Felix in the stone Tack theory,
Speaker 1: but you mentioned something to me before we started recording,
Speaker 1: and these are the wonderful nuggets that as a podcast,
Speaker 1: a show like this, you are after these kinds of
Speaker 1: things all the time. And you mentioned an absolute blinder
Speaker 1: earlier on and it just goes to show that it's
Speaker 1: not just people that can appear as ghosts, but it's
Speaker 1: also animals. Would you kindly tell us about the sighting
Speaker 1: that happened obviously a long time ago with a specific animal.
Speaker 2: Okay, so very first curator head zoo keeper Dudley Castle,
Speaker 2: was a guy called Harry Hatch and he actually lived
Speaker 2: on in the little Cottage which is just down the way,
Speaker 2: and he raised loads of animals and hundred loads by far,
Speaker 2: though his favorite was a cheetah. He was called Sylvia
Speaker 2: and took her everywhere we didn't. They actually appeared on
Speaker 2: Blue Peter back in the early days of Blue Peter,
Speaker 2: and she bit his hand live on her and I've
Speaker 2: tried to get as I said to you, I've tried
Speaker 2: to get the footage, but apparently it was live, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't recording. However, Sylvia was his favorite, and he
Speaker 2: used to walker exercises in the castle courtyard and we've
Speaker 2: got pictures. We've got pictures of local dignitaries coming and
Speaker 2: stroking and things like that. I'll let you have.
Speaker 1: One to see it.
Speaker 2: When when he comes time to put her in an enclosure,
Speaker 2: wouldn't capture in the cottage and like exercises up here.
Speaker 2: And then when she died, she was actually buried next
Speaker 2: to the cottage. She's in the garden area, just to
Speaker 2: the side of the cottage. And but what my very
Speaker 2: first goes it was my very It was a group
Speaker 2: called Evy Evenings. They were doing one of their first
Speaker 2: up here and I took the group down to do
Speaker 2: a history tour, gone down to the cottage and I'd
Speaker 2: left the medium and the main host in the grounds
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, I come belt him down
Speaker 2: and I'm like, one, are your big cats is out?
Speaker 2: We've just seen a big cat running through the middle
Speaker 2: of the and I don't think so. So on the
Speaker 2: phone to my boss like I'm like boss, and he
Speaker 2: was like, right, I'm coming on, So you come on.
Speaker 2: Checked all the the enclosures, nothing, nothing, nothing, unlocked, nothing everywhere,
Speaker 2: and he goes comes up to me and I was
Speaker 2: told him what had happened, and he goes, Oh, it's
Speaker 2: Harry's cat.
Speaker 1: Harry's cat.
Speaker 2: And he goes Harry's cat, Harry's cat. He says he's
Speaker 2: been seen before running around the courtyard.
Speaker 1: Stn't take I just find that amazing. Again the beep,
Speaker 1: just to let you all know it was the the
Speaker 1: emf me to switch in itself off. That wasn't anything
Speaker 1: doing it. That is just that that story absolutely encapsulates
Speaker 1: everything about this place. It's not just people, it's not
Speaker 1: just going back hundreds and hundreds of years. You've even
Speaker 1: got a cheetah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean this all the stories people have often
Speaker 2: heard where the old elephant houses. Have you because you
Speaker 2: back in the day that the elephants with the chain
Speaker 2: and people have heard the chain. Wow, I had elephants
Speaker 2: since two thousand and three, but I'd hear the chain.
Speaker 2: That's been reported many times. And the reptile House. I
Speaker 2: can tell you a good one about the Reptile House
Speaker 2: because I was doing a ghost one of the towards
Speaker 2: the end of before I retired from Goes Tonight and
Speaker 2: there was a group up here, new group, and they
Speaker 2: come on. The hosts come on a little bit before
Speaker 2: to get a feel for the place and set some
Speaker 2: stuff up because I wanted to put like a drum
Speaker 2: where the drummer boy archwrails and things like that. And
Speaker 2: I was in the castle and bloke medium from the
Speaker 2: group conting goes, is anybody working in there? And I
Speaker 2: went where he was there? I went all the ref tilers,
Speaker 2: the sum be because there's only me on site. Anyway,
Speaker 2: he says, because I've just seen a man standing by
Speaker 2: that first enclosure. Through the main door, you could see
Speaker 2: the first thing. So I've just seen a man. And
Speaker 2: I went, now there's nobody on and he went, now
Speaker 2: I've definitely seen a man. So again on my phone,
Speaker 2: I'm like, boss, are you medding anything? Of you come
Speaker 2: on to Medica and thin and he was like no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm sating on the setty. He says. My wife's the
Speaker 2: way I'm looking after the kids. And I went all right,
Speaker 2: he said good and check. He said good and check.
Speaker 2: So I went down and checked the back door. Back
Speaker 2: door was locked, everything, nothing disturbed. So I phoned the
Speaker 2: header section, the reptile header section, because she lived at
Speaker 2: the time, just outside and I was like, you're not
Speaker 2: on site, are you? And I went no, I said,
Speaker 2: you're not in the reptile.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm at home. And he says, anger, and I'll come
Speaker 2: up with the keys so we could walk through. And
Speaker 2: so we went and went through, walked through. Nothing there
Speaker 2: at all, but one of them monitor lizards was like
Speaker 2: up the glass, which was quite rare because she was like,
Speaker 2: that's rare for him to do that like that. And
Speaker 2: she came in to speak to the medium and I says,
Speaker 2: can you tell me what you saw? Mad and green
Speaker 2: buld head. That's why I thought it was my boss,
Speaker 2: because he's man and green old head keeper. And I
Speaker 2: was like, there's nobody in there. I tell you there's
Speaker 2: nobody in there, because he was standing looking in the
Speaker 2: first enclosure, and I went, okay. A couple of weeks
Speaker 2: before this had happened, she was working late. They were
Speaker 2: really doing the floor, so they were standing in the floor.
Speaker 2: There was her, her husband, one of as the head
Speaker 2: of the gardens, and one of her one of her
Speaker 2: junior keepers. Was all working late. She thought it was then,
Speaker 2: but then the two of them were outside. The two
Speaker 2: lads were outside in the quarantine area, which is completely outside,
Speaker 2: and she'd been staying in the floor and she felt
Speaker 2: someone clab on the back of her a T shirt.
Speaker 2: So she was like she went outside to have a
Speaker 2: gut him. And I was like, we haven't been in
Speaker 2: the building, but it proper grabbed a shirt. Wow, So
Speaker 2: we think. I mean, there's been reports in there anyway
Speaker 2: of things like something called the key j angler when
Speaker 2: people are working in there December November, December, when the
Speaker 2: zoo is really really quiet. They can be working there
Speaker 2: on their own and I'll leave the keys jangling, so
Speaker 2: they ultimatically think it's a member of staff coming through,
Speaker 2: but it's not. There's nobody there.
Speaker 1: Are there any areas of the place that the public
Speaker 1: can't access and can you talk about some of those areas.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately today we're not going to be allowed in those
Speaker 1: areas down to health and safety. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: work going on and things like that. But yeah, could
Speaker 1: you talk about there.
Speaker 2: Is there's areas of the castle that aren't at the moment,
Speaker 2: I will say at the moment accessible because of health
Speaker 2: and safety. There's a problem with stone because of the
Speaker 2: way that and because of other issues. We've got a
Speaker 2: problem with some of the stones, particularly in the Sharrington
Speaker 2: Range coming down. Yeah, so they are locked off for
Speaker 2: that reason. The secret areas you're on about, I mean,
Speaker 2: we've got a lot of caverns underneath us and one
Speaker 2: of the places I would love love to go at
Speaker 2: the caverns that are underneath us, because one of them
Speaker 2: is called the World War Two Cavern and it's set
Speaker 2: out with offices underneath. That's standing at the bottom opposite
Speaker 2: where our camels are currently. During World War Two they
Speaker 2: used to run the ammunition train into it, but it's
Speaker 2: in offices and I'd love to get my get down there.
Speaker 2: There's also where the chair lift is. There is a
Speaker 2: cavern behind there. Unfortunately it's flooded, but i'd love to
Speaker 2: get in there. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously we can't get in. But do you have
Speaker 1: that access to getting them or is it a case
Speaker 1: of there is no access to get into them.
Speaker 2: There is access to get into them. The problem is
Speaker 2: there's a lot of bats. Because one of the caverns
Speaker 2: over at Reven's Less collapsed and the bats migrated down.
Speaker 2: The one behind the chair lift is actually flooded halfway through,
Speaker 2: so that's full of water. But the World War Two
Speaker 2: tunnel you can you can't and people do. I'd love
Speaker 2: to do a ghost walk down that is amazing.
Speaker 1: We spoke about tunnels.
Speaker 2: Tunnels, Yeah, well, the local legend is that there is
Speaker 2: a tunnel that runs from Dudley Castle down to Dudley Priory,
Speaker 2: which would be a heck of a tunnel. It would
Speaker 2: if it's been done, but it wouldn't. It will make
Speaker 2: sense because you would want an escape route down to
Speaker 2: the priory. That's never been discovered. Whether it's there or not,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Two tunnels that I do know are
Speaker 2: definitely here. There's a tunnel between the two barbicane at
Speaker 2: the front gate, so they'd have been used to move soldiers.
Speaker 2: That was discovered, That was rumored for many years, then
Speaker 2: discovered in the nineteen eighty nineteen ninety gigs. They found
Speaker 2: that tunnel. The other tunnel is where the water's arches
Speaker 2: and it's the one that Jacob would have used to
Speaker 2: move underneath to get to the wardens at the east
Speaker 2: watchtower at the in the sam Pit area. Now that
Speaker 2: unfortunately that has collapsed half way across because they put
Speaker 2: the stairs. It steps in in the nineteen hundreds, so
Speaker 2: that collapsed half way across. However, there is still a
Speaker 2: access and there is Felix, Yeah, which Felix Young. It
Speaker 2: is one of the Felix brothers. I think it's will
Speaker 2: actually went down and across and came back many years ago.
Speaker 1: You also mentioned earlier on that you literally bumped into
Speaker 1: something and you saw a door.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Back in there. There's a report about the
Speaker 2: castle from the from a guy called Harraldikespeare and on
Speaker 2: it there's something called the screen's passage and I really
Speaker 2: want to find out where this But there was work
Speaker 2: done in the eighties twelve and the what was the
Speaker 2: visitor to castle creatures and it was blocked off and
Speaker 2: I really wanted to find this, this Screen's passage. And
Speaker 2: they were doing some work in the platroom what we
Speaker 2: call the platroom now, and there was a door and
Speaker 2: never been through that door, and one of the guys
Speaker 2: went ive, got the curve you want to have a
Speaker 2: look and looked opens up and there's the screens faceted.
Speaker 2: Wow wow. But yeah, so that was this castle. The
Speaker 2: history on this castle is so immense and it never
Speaker 2: fails to surprise and you find something new out every day.
Speaker 1: That brings me to my next question. What originally drew
Speaker 1: you to this castle? And we spoke earlier about even
Speaker 1: you as a as a as a little as a teenager,
Speaker 1: both as a historian but also as a person who
Speaker 1: was such a vested interest in the paranormal. What draws
Speaker 1: you to this even even as a.
Speaker 2: Kiss grind in blood. I mean, I'm well known for
Speaker 2: upping the walls and gaining when I was a young
Speaker 2: star used to get into trouble for it all the time.
Speaker 2: Are you like every Dudley kid did. Yeah, he'd come
Speaker 2: out in one of the walls for three days. But
Speaker 2: I never went to the zoo. Always came to the castle.
Speaker 2: And the history on it is you would take two
Speaker 2: three layers of the history of this building off off it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it is just immense. It's like I say, I
Speaker 2: think he's walked through the courtyard. You're walking in the
Speaker 2: steps of history, you know, and as a historian. And
Speaker 2: the more you dig into the history of it, the
Speaker 2: more you love it, the more you find, the more
Speaker 2: you want to find more and more and more. I mean,
Speaker 2: like I said, you're probably one of the most underrated
Speaker 2: barons we had here d from the six when you
Speaker 2: look at his history and the people he was associated with,
Speaker 2: and he was here and he lived here, he was
Speaker 2: born here, he died here, and Dudley was such an
Speaker 2: amazing historical place that that's what attracts me. And I
Speaker 2: love learning, I love finding out about things, and this
Speaker 2: gives me the perfect opportunity. Like I said to you,
Speaker 2: you find something new every day about it and you
Speaker 2: do a little bit of dig in. I told you
Speaker 2: about Graham who was the medium. Yeah, and he said
Speaker 2: to me, I'm picking up on the name Gaunt, like
Speaker 2: John of Gorne, and there's no link between us and
Speaker 2: John of Gone, nothing at all. And I was like, right,
Speaker 2: okay it because I'm not changing it. It's gone. This
Speaker 2: is a medium that I really chose. And I was like, right,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a little bit of dig in.
Speaker 2: And he took me a load to dig through the
Speaker 2: history because a lot of the records, as I said
Speaker 2: to you, in Staffordshire. Yeah, so it took me a
Speaker 2: lot of digging. But one of the baroness's, her second husband,
Speaker 2: was Maurice de Gornet, the Gaunt connection, and I'm like
Speaker 2: that blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be talking about this. That is something that
Speaker 1: you have written. There aren't many people that are going
Speaker 1: to be able to dig down if the records are
Speaker 1: only held over there. They're only a select few people
Speaker 1: that are going to be able to get to that.
Speaker 2: And I mean that's what attracts me as as for
Speaker 2: the paranormal side, but also as a historian, because then
Speaker 2: I'm like, Oh, we've got a baroness who's got second husband,
Speaker 2: what's his family story? That's that's what I've I personally
Speaker 2: think you should do. You can't have a ghost story
Speaker 2: without backing it up with it. I know some people
Speaker 2: are different with me, but you can't have a true
Speaker 2: ghost story without a proper history link.
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly think Richard Felix would back you up.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there is absolutely no way. I mean
Speaker 2: I've said to you before, I've I've seen good mediums
Speaker 2: and I've seen a very very shocking medium and one
Speaker 2: of them tried to tell me Lady Jane Gray was
Speaker 2: haunting the courtyard. Mary Queen of Scott's was here and
Speaker 2: somebody was being you dispensed, the younger was being executed
Speaker 2: on the keep and I'm like Lady Jack. There is
Speaker 2: no written evidence to say that Lad Jane Gray ever
Speaker 2: come anywhere close to Dudley. Okay, her nearest place to
Speaker 2: here was Leicester, possibly Leicester, and even that's debated now
Speaker 2: that she was born at Leicester. Debating now that she
Speaker 2: was born in London, she wouldn't have come here. Mary
Speaker 2: queenis goes this was like inspected as a possible prison
Speaker 2: for her. It was a tup ray that I were
Speaker 2: thinking of moving her here. They did, and because the
Speaker 2: building was in too much of a disrepair it would
Speaker 2: have took too much A lot of big Catholic houses
Speaker 2: in the area as well, so they decided to move
Speaker 2: it to Chartley. Then she went to father in Way
Speaker 2: where she was executed, and you dispenser, Yes he did
Speaker 2: old the castle for about a year, but he was
Speaker 2: executed in Evesham. So this medium had obviously been on
Speaker 2: the internet going oh no, yeah, I'll make a story
Speaker 2: up about that now. But it's going to know. My
Speaker 2: thing about it is people are paying their order and
Speaker 2: cash to come on gas, to come on ghost walks.
Speaker 2: They deserve the real stories, of course, and if you
Speaker 2: can't back it up, I'll go toe to toe with
Speaker 2: anyone on the history of this place, anyone. But if
Speaker 2: you can't back that up with history, then you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, I don't believe it's true.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You know I've heard that. Like I said, I've heard
Speaker 2: some really really good I've had some really good mediums here,
Speaker 2: some real stellar mediums, and I've had some male shockers.
Speaker 2: And you know, I mean, I'm very much known to
Speaker 2: actually tell people I'm like now that day happened. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And like I said, I said to you earlier, I'll
Speaker 2: go toe to toe with anyone on the history of
Speaker 2: this place.
Speaker 1: It's from my point of view, sitting here with yourself
Speaker 1: in this environment, in this room, it's an absolute pleasure
Speaker 1: to have talked to someone with this much passion about
Speaker 1: where they work, not only because of where you know,
Speaker 1: where you work, but because of that history, because of
Speaker 1: these paranormal stories and the legend and the folklore, if
Speaker 1: you like, and all of these potential people that did
Speaker 1: come here, the importance, as you said, of who were
Speaker 1: walking the grounds of this place, these massive historical figures
Speaker 1: that were in Dudley. Yeah, I think you were actually
Speaker 1: mentioned to me a little bit earlier that Birmingham wasn't
Speaker 1: the place.
Speaker 2: No, no, I mean the Baron of Birmingham or the
Speaker 2: Birmingham had to do felt to the Baron of Dudley. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean Dudley was seen as I mean you're in
Speaker 2: central England, even more so than Birmingham central. You're in
Speaker 2: central England. This little place of ours was a powerhouse. Mean,
Speaker 2: we started the Industrial Resolutions, Newcoms engine was here, you know,
Speaker 2: we we were at the forefront. This place was and
Speaker 2: he is historically so important and people should know about
Speaker 2: its history. And like I said, Birmingham, Birmingham was like
Speaker 2: you know, I still thinking personally, but Dudley was central too.
Speaker 2: I mean we were you you could put anything, any
Speaker 2: major historical event event in England and somewhere along the
Speaker 2: line there'll be a connection here. Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 2: I said, John Sutton the sixth I mean brought the
Speaker 2: body of Henry the fifth home from France when he died.
Speaker 2: He saw eighty seven years of history from him from Dudley.
Speaker 2: He died, but was born here. He died here. He
Speaker 2: was a major figure, a diplomatic figure. I mean King's
Speaker 2: absolutely loved him. I mean Richard Richard the third, Henry
Speaker 2: the seventh, Henry the fifth, and he was close friends
Speaker 2: with Henry the sixth. You know, he was a grad
Speaker 2: stuard of England. He looked after the royal finances. He
Speaker 2: was a major person and he here, I mean even
Speaker 2: going back. There's a baron called William Percival and he
Speaker 2: had a son called Nicholas. And I've been doing a
Speaker 2: lot of digging on finding who Nicholas's mother was. And
Speaker 2: he turns out she's one of the biggest Irish legends
Speaker 2: in where he's de verd. She's one of the major
Speaker 2: Irish legends. After William died, Henry Henry the third arranged
Speaker 2: a marriage to one of the Irish magnate She was
Speaker 2: a second wife. He'd already got children. Her children kept
Speaker 2: her name for Dawn. She built Castle Larache over in Ireland.
Speaker 2: She was known to ride out in full armor, and
Speaker 2: when her second husband died, she refused to remarry and
Speaker 2: became a femdom, which means she was her own person.
Speaker 2: She was allowed to. Yeah, she was here, she was
Speaker 2: in this castle. She's one of the biggest Irish female legends.
Speaker 1: Strong Irish.
Speaker 2: At Dudley Castle, her first husband was William William Pursval
Speaker 2: the summary, I mean, how amazing is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, it is absolutely utterly fascinating. If you sat
Speaker 1: here right now, you've graced me personally, and you're going
Speaker 1: to be gracing all of our listeners, and you've it's
Speaker 1: been an absolute true people never visited Dudley Castle before yourself.
Speaker 1: What would you say to them? Why should that come
Speaker 1: to Dudley Castle?
Speaker 2: The history for the absolute history of this building. Other
Speaker 2: castles in this country they've got history. This has got.
Speaker 2: I mean this was probably one of the first castles
Speaker 2: that was converted to stone. I mean it was so important.
Speaker 2: It was known as the Castle in the Woods. It's
Speaker 2: got legend to it, it's got myth to it, it's
Speaker 2: got folklore to it. Come listen to what the history
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, even if you don't want to come,
Speaker 2: get the books out, read the books, because you'll be
Speaker 2: amazed at what has happened in this castle. Amazed and
Speaker 2: the links it's got. Like I said, possibly every historical
Speaker 2: evenge you can put some kind of link to here,
Speaker 2: especially with the barons. I mean the barons were I
Speaker 2: mean John Dee Sunray knighted with Edward the Second at
Speaker 2: the Feast of the Swans and dressed from the royal wardrobe.
Speaker 2: I mean, this man was up there. He was known
Speaker 2: as a true, true what's it of the king, a
Speaker 2: true supporter of the king, and he was here. He
Speaker 2: was here.
Speaker 1: Mean, so there you go. It's got everything, it's.
Speaker 2: Gone everything You've got us as well. You know, ninety
Speaker 2: years of Dudley's in two years time. I mean, you've
Speaker 2: got everything in and it's just a pleasure to explore it.
Speaker 2: And like I said to you, I learned something new
Speaker 2: every day every day. Very very very wise person said
Speaker 2: to me many years ago. He said, when you think
Speaker 2: you know everything, walk through the door and don't come back,
Speaker 2: because that's when you get complacent. And I've always by that,
Speaker 2: and I find something new way to every day.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely refreshing. We're going to call and we're going
Speaker 1: to call it close to this section of the interview,
Speaker 1: but we've got a real treat now because we're probably
Speaker 1: going to grab a quick coffee or something, and then
Speaker 1: Amy's going to actually tight me on a bit of
Speaker 1: a personal visit around some of these areas where some
Speaker 1: of these paranormal activities taken place, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a chat. It's going to
Speaker 1: be windy because it's blowing a gale outside at the moments,
Speaker 1: and we've got a bit of weird Weathermie. Yes, still
Speaker 1: mainly there to go, so we shall be back very soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, nobody. And that brings us to
Speaker 1: the end of part two, but there's still more to come.
Speaker 1: In part three, Amy takes me out on location around
Speaker 1: the castle itself and its grounds, visiting some of the
Speaker 1: areas where spirits and ghosts are sent to Rome. We
Speaker 1: also explore spaces rarely discussed and in some cases, rarely seen,
Speaker 1: as we step directly into the place where so many
Speaker 1: of these stories originate. Join me for Part three, where
Speaker 1: history and hauntings meet face to face.
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