Sudeley Castle

Our visit to the Costwolds yielded some interesting results.

Sudeley Castle is a beautiful country estate located in the small Gloucestershire village of Winchcombe. It has a significant history, including being the last home and final resting place of Katherine Parr, sixth wife of King Henry VIII. Katherine's tomb can be found within the castle's chapel.

Our evening began in the Orangery, a large greenhouse type structure that was accessed through impressive iron-studded oak doors from the castle coach house.

The lights were off, but it was apparant that multiple electrical systems including a noisy water cooler and a portable air conditioner had been left switched on in the room. The hosts and staff did their best to subdue these, but they remained active during the vigil.

The hosts led us in a ceremony to "ground and protect" ourselves. This involved everyone joining hands in a circle to take part in a guided meditation. Lots of references to growing roots and finding light to bring up and over ourselves to protect the group. It seemed like it would be a comforting ritual for believers, or anyone who felt they could be harmed by taking part in the evening's events, tales of "something following them home" come to mind.

Following the grounding the host distributed some standard ghost hunting equipment around the circle; this included a number of K2 EMF meters, some cat balls and a couple of temperature sensing spike pucks. Once the equipment had been positioned on the floor to the host's satisfaction, the introductions began. She instructed us all to speak our name, say hello to the spirits of the Castle and ask a question if we had one, or say "pass." The host made an annoucement to all that were present, living or otherwise that we meant no harm and were to be respectful and thankful to the spirits of the castle for their efforts during our time there that evening.

The 15 minutes standing still during the ceremony had affected one participant and they pulled up a chair to the circle so that they could sit down during the vigil. Unfortunately, the floor in the Orangery, being old, was of fairly rickety construction and it was very easy for the now sitting participant to set off the motion activated cat ball near me just by moving on their chair. The narrow legs of the chair on the floorboards amplified their movements and caused much flashing of the ball. Of course, this was deemed by some to be spirit activity, let's not let rational thought get in the way of belief!

The vigil in the Orangery ended abruptly, in my opinion the atmosphere in this room was flat, the relative modernity of the settting and the number of participants made it difficult to get the guests to engage with the experience and take part.

The host seemed mildly put out by the lack of call outs by her guests and so called an end to the starting vigil and instructed her team to get groups of 11 guests together to start early with their first locations.

The teams then rotated through 5 different locations in the castle, each guided by a host from the event, starting at a different place with 30 minutes allocated for each vigil. After first vigil, (which had an extended time due to the initial flop of the Orangery), a comfort break with the host providing tea, coffee, biscuits and crisps was taken before continuing through the other locations.

The ruins and gardens

The ruins of the banqueting hall seemed promising for an investigation, being one of the oldest parts of the estate. Unfortunately I missed this one, but from the guests that did manage to hold a vigil here it sounded like nothing really happened. This seemed to be a difficult area to isolate, as it was in the middle of the paths that groups were walking to get to the other locations, leading to outside noise and torch lights.

The dungeon

Despite such a compelling name, the dungeon was a bust for me. The vigil was held in one of the vaulted rooms below the dungeon tower. These rooms had been used to store coal and supplies for the castle. The room was small and too cramped for the whole group to be able to take part in the investigation. Not much activity was seen in this space, and the host quickly moved us on to the next location.

The library

Part of the castle rooms, still in use by the family currently occupying Sudeley. The staircase in the corridor approaching the library has had sightings of a lady in green, looking out of the first floor window. Our vigil in this area had very little activity and nothing was picked up by the SLS camera set up by the hosts in the well of the staircase; at least nothing that couldn't be explained as a false positive due to light reflections and the angles of the bannisters.

The chapel

I found this the most atmospheric area of the castle, I would put this down to the elaborate gothic stone and wood carvings which decorated the entire building and having a former Queen of England's tomb within a few metres of where I was sitting. We witnessed multiple K2 meters flashing in certain areas, a cat ball activated at the base of Katherine's tomb. The cat ball can be explained by a couple of guests standing near by who may have unknowingly moved enough to set it off.

One guest in particular appeared to be the source or conduit for activity; while walking around the chapel their K2 meter would begin to flash amber or red, and two other guests would then hold their meters next to the one flashing and these would also activate. All three meters would continue flashing for around ten seconds and then all stop at the same time. This happened randomly while the group was talking, and not in response to any call outs or questions.

I am skeptical; the sporadic nature of the activity, centred around one guest, not in a particular location or in response to anything would fit with the meter being triggered by that person's phone or smart watch. For me this is confirmed by the other two guests' meters also activating when brought close to the source of the EMF, and all three meters ceasing activity at the same time. The conduit guest denied having their phone switched on, but this was not checked and confirmed. They were not asked if they had a smart watch or anything else in their bag (which was across their body and only centremeters from the K2 meter) which may be emitting EMF.

The kennels and tithe barn

The ruins of the barn were a long walk away from the other locations, I felt we didn't have much time here, as soon as we had set up the equipment it was pretty much time to leave. This location was very quiet, due to the distance from anything else, and I would have liked more time to investigate here.

Other than the chapel, I'm not sure the areas we visited as part of the event were the best choice for an investigation. I overheard the staff telling the host that they had experienced the most activity in the kitchens, and others had seen and heard things in exhibition rooms or offices that were not open to our event.

I also felt that 30 minutes in each location was not really enough to carry out any real investigations, especially as most of the areas were spread out around the estate and it sometimes took over 10 minutes to collect up all the kit and herd the group to walk over to the next location.

Sudeley Castle is a beautiful location, and I intend to return when they reopen for visitors next year; this time in the daylight and when it's a bit warmer to enjoy the gardens.

Overall, it was a good night for seeing a beautiful estate outside of it being open to the general public, but nothing we witnessed could be described as paranormal.

I remain unconvinced there's anything more out there than just the wind.

-Crow