Items have moved without explanation.

There have been mysterious sightings of people who then vanish without a trace.

Students, faculty, and staff have reported hoofbeats, drums playing, calls for help, and even singing – sometimes in French.

Is Herstmonceux Castle haunted? It’s a question that has surfaced now and again, particularly around this time of year.

“I have seen and felt things in certain part of the castle so, yes, I do believe the BISC to be haunted,” says Andy Dalli, who has worked at the BISC as a security officer for the past 16 years and has captured a few ghostly figures on his digital camera. “I think I am lucky to work here and I believe the spirits are silent allies in my job.”

The castle was donated to Queen’s in the 1990s by the Bader family, and it was around this time that Doug Littlejohn, a former tour operator at the castle, began collecting ghost stories. He asked residents and visitors to write out their spooky encounters on pieces of paper which he saved in the castle’s archives. Though Mr. Littlejohn has since passed on, and stories are no longer being formally collected, the legends persist.

By his count, five ghosts call the castle home: Grace Naylor, known as the Grey Lady, who was the daughter of an 18th century owner of the castle and passed away on site; Bethia Hare, also the daughter of an 18th century owner, who has been seen in a long white dress leading a deer on a leash; Roger de Tournay, a 13th century soldier who rides a ghostly horse around campus; Thomas Fiennes, who was hung in 1541 in a nearby town; and a boy known only as “The Headless Drummer”. Other sightings have included a horse and a blonde rider, a clergyman, a woodcutter, a woman wearing a long dress with a bonnet and occasionally appearing with a baby, and a woman who hangs around the driveway. Reports of the castle being haunted go back to at least the 18th century.

While the sightings are harder to explain, the ‘ghost sounds’ may not be. Shelley Katz, a Musician in Residence at the BISC, believes the ‘sad, moaning voices’ coming from the ballroom on dark and stormy nights may actually be caused by the building itself. “The ballroom is constructed in an unusual fashion that has some particularly resonant low frequencies,” Dr. Katz says. “If the room has no chairs at all, and if one is standing in a particular location, a stamp in the room will resonate and ring like a bell. On dark stormy nights, if some of the windows are left open, the wind blowing past the windows will ‘play' the room like a flute, producing wailing and moaning sounds, at very low frequencies.”

Minor pranks, frights, and inconveniences aside, over the years it seems that the ghosts and the regularly changing inhabitants of the castle have learned to co-exist.

“In seminar six, I would unlock it, go out and get the cleaning things, and go back, and by the time I got back it would be locked again…the only way I could get in was to knock on the door and say “Come on Grace, I have to get in!”,” reported Aideene, one of the hospitality staff, of a shift in 1996. “I have never had any trouble after that.”

Most at the BISC aren’t bothered by the long-standing myths – and the stories can even be a source of amusement. “On one occasion, I took my students to the crypt where they read aloud passages of the novel The Castle of Otranto,” recalls Professor Peter Lowe, who teaches English and who, along with Professor Shannon Smith, devised the crypt visit for students in ENGL100. “During the reading, there was a distinct knocking from the coffin located in the crypt which spooked faculty and students alike. It turned out to be the Operations Director Sandy Montgomery who had used the occasion to play his own trick on the students by lying in the coffin and knocking repeatedly upon it. To say it added atmosphere to the experience would be an understatement.”

The Bader International Study Centre, located at Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England, offers a dynamic educational experience, combining a historic campus centered around a 15th-century castle with small class sizes and Queen’s world-class faculty and programs. The BISC was founded in 1993 thanks to a generous donation by Queen’s alumni Drs. Alfred and Isabel Bader. Learn more about the BISC at www.queensu.ca/bisc.