East Sussex
13th April 2007 : 10pm to 1am
Arrival
Once again because of the vast area which this covers we did not do an initial walk around. I had never been here before either. I went out with my one of my paranormal groups - PIGS for this one (link on the links page - funny enough!) One of the others had been around here before and researched some of the history, so I was given a few different ghost stories to try and establish which ones were false and which were true.
Open Field
Beside the castle rounds, heading towards the sea, is a large open field. On entering the field I became very aware of this being a very busy area. There were people coming and going all over the place, mainly people who would have lived in the area. I did feel at one point that it would have been a beach with sand on it and the sea would have come up a lot closer to the castle. I have since discovered that the castle was pretty much surrounded by the sea.
I was drawn towards a tree which struck me from the other side of the field, but so as not to cut out a section of the tour, we carried on around the edge of the field. As we approached the tree again I wanted to swagger as if drunk, I was picking up on smuggling activity and felt that ships would have come in nearby, with goods being taken across this area and in through a gate in the the churchyard, and quite possibly taken into the church via a doorway and then down a flight of steps. When we went to look around the churchyard later on in the evening we discovered that there was in fact a gate from the churchyard onto the field and also this pathway lead to a doorway into the church. Where the doorway inside the church goes I do not know as we did not have access to the church itself.
Beside the Castle
As we approached the Castle from the direction of West Ham, another local village. I was drawn very much to a lady who appeared to have jumped from one of the towers of the castle. The lady had on a long ankle length full dress in a sort of mucky blue colour, with white lace. I felt that she had jumped rather than being pushed. As went into the castle grounds (not within the castle - as we did not have this access) we went down a dip to the right as you face the castle gate. Down here I became very aware of a female presence. All the group felt as if something or someone had joined us. The air seemed to change in some way. The others trying to take photos or to record for EVP but all the batteries in cameras, recorders and torches drained within about a minute. We had just one camera left working.
Castle Walls
There was nothing to report around the castle walls, but we did get a strange red light on one of the photos - see gallery.
Castle Entrance
As we were stood on the bridge which you cross to get into the castle itself, we were watching the ducks below without much else going on. I then heard someone's footsteps walking across the gateway within the castle itself. It just seemed so natural at first that I didn't take any notice, and then it suddenly dawned upon me, there shouldn't be anyone within the castle walls. At this same point another member of the group also had heard the noise and recognised it as being something unusual. Who was the person within the castle?
Conclusion
This was a really fun evening. We did manage to catch a couple of things on camera, feel a presence and also hear some footsteps. I look very much forward to returning here again, especially as it is one of our locations for our newly formed Ghost Tours UK investigations.