With Halloween around the corner, there are plenty of spooky activities focused on getting you geared up for the season.
If you’re looking for a seasonal day out, you needn’t look far, as right on your doorstep is one of the UK’s “most haunted” castles - but be warned, these ghosts have terrible pasts.
Berry Pomeroy Castle, near Totnes, dates back hundreds of years, and has long been rumoured to house ghosts and other paranormal happenings.
One of the most commonly reported ghosts sighted at the castle is the White Lady, said to be Mary Pomeroy.
Legend tells that Mary was imprisoned in the dungeon’s of St Margaret’s Tower in the castle by her sister, Eleanor, who was jealous of her beauty.
Mary starved to death in the dungeons, never released by her bitter sibling, and is said to now haunt the area where she died, sometimes waving at visitors to the site.
The Pomeroy family were the first inhabitants of the estate, originally owning a deer park on the site in 1207 and later building one of Britain’s last traditional family castles there in circa 1496.
In 1547, the castle was sold to Edward Seymour, who was Lord Protector of King Edward VI and 1st Duke of Somerset, and his family rebuilt it to be the mansion it is today.
The castle remains in the Seymour family, with the current owner being John Seymour, 19th Duke of Somerset. It is managed by English Heritage.
Another oft-mentioned ghost at the castle is the Blue Lady, who is said to have been the daughter of a Norman lord.
The Blue Lady’s story is a sad one - it is told that she was abused by her father, becoming pregnant with his child.
The legend has different endings. The first is that she strangled the child, unable to process the trauma that her father had inflicted upon her. The other states that the father strangled the child.
Now, visitors say that they have seen the Blue Lady beckoning to them for help. She lures them to her tower and gets them lost, and some say that those who follow the Blue Lady will fall to their death.
Other supernatural sightings reported at the castle include unexplained lights and a Cavalier soldier, as well as a lady in a grey dress.
English Heritage, who manage the site, say: “Within the 15th-century defences of the Pomeroy family castle, looms the dramatic ruined shell of its successor, the great Elizabethan mansion of the Seymours.
“Begun in around 1560 and ambitiously enlarged from around 1600, their mansion was intended to become the most spectacular house in Devon, a match for Longleat and Audley End.
“Never completed, and abandoned by 1700, it became the focus of blood-curdling ghost stories, recounted in the audio tour.”