Travel Related

[DavidM]

On my recent visit to the Costwolds region of England outside of London, I had the pleasure of spending a night in Thornbury Castle, a castle with a rich history that now serves as a hotel. King Henry VIII stayed there in 1533 with his then-wife Anne Boleyn in an effort to avoid the plague as it made its way around the country. On my visit, I was fortunate enough to stay in the castle's Henry VIII suite (see photos). Although it wasn't the same room he occupied during his stay nearly five centuries earlier, it certainly looked like a royal bedchamber with its draped four-poster bed, large sitting and dining spaces, working fireplace, massive closet and decadent bathroom.

The castle reportedly is home to at least one resident ghost—and likely more, given its long and rich history. Now I consider myself a firm fence-sitter where belief in the paranormal goes, but I did have a "situation" the night I stayed there that was...odd.

Following a late dinner, I headed up to my room, as I had an early flight to catch the next morning. Opening the door with its antique cast iron key, I immediately noticed that my bed had been turned down for the night, and the warm glow of the fireplace cast dancing shadows throughout the room. I was planning to review some notes and double check my morning itinerary before heading to bed, so I clicked on the light switch beside the door, which was a knob that you push in to turn on, then turn to adjust brightness.

The lights went on, then immediately dimmed. Since it had worked just fine a few hours earlier, I tried to turn the knob to give more light, but it was already turned all the way to the right. Undeterred, I turned it to the left until the lights essentially went out, then all the way back to the right. The lights came back strong, and this time stayed bright. But just as I began to walk away, they dimmed again. I checked the knob to see if it was turning on its own, but it was still all the way to the right. I pushed it to turn it off, then again to turn it on. As before, the lights went on then immediately dimmed.

Had it not worked perfectly earlier in the evening, I would have thought nothing of it. But being in an old castle...in a large, barely lit room...having had a glass of wine earlier to relax...and being all by myself in this setting, my mind set off on its own, taking the express train to the only "logical" explanation it would accept:

The room was haunted.

I gave up on the light switch, not wishing to engage in a battle of wits with my ghostly visitor (or was I the visitor?), and made a beeline to the closet, where to my great relief the lights worked just fine. Frequently looking over my shoulder, I changed into my pajamas, washed up and brushed my teeth, and headed back to the bedroom, determined to dispel my newfound belief in the paranormal. I tried the light switch once again, and this time the lights just came on dim. Giving up on it, I turned the switch off and went over to the bed, where the nightlights in the canopy above had been lit by housekeeping when they turned the bed down.

I am sure it was just my imagination playing tricks on me, but as I stood by the side of the bed, taking the chocolates from the pillow (mmm...a snack for the morning!) and placing them on the nightstand, I felt a brush across the top of my bare right foot.

A brush from a ghost's wispy hand? A light breeze from the netherworld? Or was it simply my overactive imagination, which at this hour had gone into nutsy cuckoo overdrive?

Exhausted by the day and on the edge of sanity by the situation in my room, I quickly slipped under the covers, reluctantly turned off the bed's nightlights, and lay there for several minutes wondering what could possibly happen next. As I drifted off to sleep, I reverted to the 6-year-old version of myself, convinced I wasn't going to get out of that bed unless the room was on fire.

When my phone alarm woke me at 5 the next morning, it was still dark outside, but my mind was refreshed and not as engrossed in the events that occurred several hours earlier. To reassure myself, I immediately went to the much-discussed light switch and pushed it in...

The lights went on at full brightness and stayed on.

Hmm....

I'm sure there is an explanation well-rooted in science and logic for what happened that night, but good luck convincing me of it. Let's just say I'm still sitting on the "ghosts—real or not?" fence, but now I'm leaning a good deal more to one side.

I'd love to hear others' vacation ghost stories, especially from those who were non-believers beforehand.

[FlowerGirl]

I, too, am on the fence regarding hauntings, esp.. when there seems little reason for it. However, my fiance' and I first visited the St. Francis Inn in St. Augustine in 1999. Beautiful little BnB, had a lovely time, went home. We had gone back a few times since, but in 2003 we started noticing a presence in our condo. Both being "logical" people, we never mentioned any happenings to the other, until we both "saw" a little girl peeping her head around the corner at us; however, we were in different rooms and at different times, but saw the same thing. This was just the beginning, with far too many occurrences to chronicle (LARGE floating orbs, innumerable electrical problems, terrifying nightmares, drawers opening on their own - just to name a few). Most bizarre was that when we even imagined that it could possibly be a ghost, we were both hit with the same name at the same time, and blurted it out simultaneously - Lydia. What was happening? We didn't have an answer. Then we saw a show on the Travel Channel about America's most haunted inns. Well, up popped St. Francis Inn, supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young servant girl named... Lilly. Hmmm... close.  We looked at each other sideways, then just laughed it off. However, on our next visit to St. Augustine in 2005, we drove past the St. Francis, opened all doors and windows to the car and ordered her out. "Time to go, Lilly - you're home now!" we shouted, looking (and feeling) utterly ridiculous in the middle of the street. Well, the next few years were uneventful, until just this past year (we went to St. Augustine again for Christmas 2008). Again, happenings too numerous to mention, but it's exactly as if Lilly has come back home with us. I went to the St. Francis Inn web site just recently and looked up Lilly's story - sure enough, we had stayed in "Lilly's Room" our first time at the inn. Is she still with us? Don't know, but if so, I DO wish she'd be a little more productive. I'd be much happier to come home and find the laundry done and dishes washed than my drawers pulled open and keys strewn about the house... Anyone have a "direct line" to Lilly? She obviously doesn't listen to us...