A hauntingly scary night at Oxford Castle

If you take one thing away from a night of cavorting around Oxford Castle with Haunted Happenings, it’ll be this: you’ll never be afraid of the dark again.

Picture this. A gaggle – or whatever the collective noun is (a botherance?) – of hyped-up ghost hunters, clutching sweaty hands in the pitch-black crypt at 3am. The silence is oppressive. Then someone’s stomach rumbles.

Funny how contagious the atmosphere can be. For my part, my heart was going like the clappers. I felt sick, scared and generally a bit of a jelly.

Then again, the tea and coffee had been free all night.

This is Haunted Happenings, a company dedicated to scaring the pants off the mildly impressionable at ‘active’ sites around the country, including Oxford Castle, Drayton Manor and the abandoned Newsham Park Hospital in Liverpool.

As I found out one chilly October night, if you can fork out the £68 they’re pretty good at it too.

Our evening starts at 8pm sharp in Oxford Castle Unlocked’s Cafe 1071. It’s warmly lit. There are Bourbon biscuits. So far, so un-sinister.

But Carolyn, a psychic medium and guide for the evening, warns: “I’ve been a bit scared in Oxford Castle. It’s going to be very dark and creepy. When you get the activity going, it’s one of the best.

“We have had some really strange things happen down there.”

Fellow hosts Vicky and Jill are cheery souls. The latter, who is “absolutely addicted” to ghost hunting, warns of the “paranormal giggles” and “paranormal tourettes” – from screaming to swearing to punching your neighbour in the unmentionables in the dark – that may ensue.

We are treated to a whirlwind tour of the castle. This includes the classic tale of Empress Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror, some grisly detail on the sanitation systems within the cells and eerie tales in the crypt of cadavers packaged up and sent to Oxford University.

Then our group of 30 is split into three and packed off to a series of activities.

First up it’s the ouija board. Who knew ‘Ouija’ just meant ‘Yes yes’? To underscore the point that they’re not scary things, Vicky produces an ‘angel board’ – a carbon copy of the ouija board featuring a garish pink fairy – and asks again who’ll have a go. Good tactic, but I said ‘Yes yes’ too soon. It was excruciatingly awkward.

Similarly, moving tables – ostensibly done by spirits but with your hands resting on the top – left our group in paroxysms of self-conscious laughter. Down in the crypt, though, it was a different story.

Using EMF (electromagnetic field) readers and flickering torches, we stood for what felt like aeons in the dark, feeling pools of cold air shift around us and waiting for a sign. Occasionally one of the devices would flare in response to a voice and I would have a coronary.

It was decided that, while the crypt was mostly a benign space, the draughty corridor leading to it was a god-forsaken hell hole.

One participant spontaneously burst into tears there. Others practically ran through.

Finally, using a ‘ghost radio’, we checked for sounds being made at normally-inaudible frequencies. After a bit of wrangling and some indistinguishable hoots we all distinctly heard the word ‘blood’. That was it. I was done.

Throughout the evening you couldn’t fault the hosts themselves, who – whether you’re a downright sceptic, a bit malleable like myself or a believer – made sure the evening was light-hearted and fun.

If the spirits themselves weren’t keen to stir, having free rein to race around the castle, clamber up the tower, stand at the top at 2am and then hole up in the crypt again, was worth every penny.

Oxford Castle was a prison until 1996. Now it’s a playground.

JOIN IN
The next Haunted Happenings events at Oxford Castle will take place tomorrow and Sunday. 
For more information or to book, call 07837 845912 or visit hauntedhappenings.co.uk