Chillingham Castle

"Putting the chill in Chillingham are a ‘spook’ (my new word for a group of ghosts), including the Blue Boy, whose screams some guests are said to hear emanating from a wall in the pink room (to up the goose-bump factor a child’s bones were discovered there in the 1920s). There’s also the ghost of Lady Mary; the white pantry ghost, a frail white lady begging for water; voices in the chapel (even when it’s empty) and eerie figures seen flitting around the courtyard at night. To make the most of this over-haunted escape, book a night in a four-poster and a place on one of the castle’s excellent ghost tours, which last two hours ‘depending on psychic activity’. Yikes."

"Chillingham Castle has a particularly gruesome history. Built over 800 years ago to stop the Scots from invading England, any unlucky captives were sent straight to the torture chamber located in the Castle dungeon. Legend has it a sadistic torturer, John Sage, took great pleasure in devising the most grisly methods of inflicting pain on his victims. Having tortured to death over 7,500 people, karma was restored when he was publicly hanged from a tree in the castle grounds in front of a large and fervent mob who took great pleasure in watching him die slowly as they literally cut chunks off him."