Donnington Castle Investigation Report

Donnington Castle is a ruined medieval castle, situated in the small village of Donnington, just north of the town of Newbury in the English county of Berkshire. It was built by Richard Abberbury The Elder, under a licence granted by King Richard II in 1386 AD.

It has seen many English wars, and was besieged several times during the English Civil War. All that remains of the castle today is the substantial four towered gatehouse, and the surrounding earthworks.

Ghosts of Donnington Castle

In the 1990's a white dog was seen running down the hill from the castle towards the woods where it vanished into the air.

The gatehouse is home to the ghostly figure of a guard who appears in solid form and suddenly vanishes. A ghostly re-enactment of a Civil War skirmish has also been witnessed in nearby Love Lane.

The ghostly form of 'the Green Lady' (thought to be Lady Hoby) has also been seen by the castle gates. The ghost is said to ask visitors why the gates are closed, before suddenly disappearing.

A few years ago a group of young campers witnessed the horrifying sight of an apparition of an elderly Royalist soldier with a young woman in a headlock, pulling her hair. Alarmed by this vision, one of the campers bravely shouted out at the Royalist cavalier to "leave her alone". The phantom soldier then growled loudly and carried on pulling his victim's hair. When the startled group approached the apparition, the soldier stood back, and let out another almighty growl and both figures completely vanished.

Location Images

The gatehouse

Donnington Castle

Part of the ruins of the castle

The forest

Investigation Outline

We arrived at the location at around 19.00 and made our way to the castle via an uphill path. We took with us a few items of equipment to record our initial readings before setting up for the night.

The castle is beautiful and seems lost in the middle of Berkshire. The ruins have been well preserved by English Heritage, and the day was still very warm and bright.

The forest surrounds the West side of the castle and is quite deep and thick with foliage. See aerial map below: (Drag the screen slightly left to see the forest and castle.)

View Larger Map

This location seems to be a favourite spot for dog walkers and young people. There were a handful of people still admiring the building, but they soon left and we were alone to conduct the first part of the investigation.

I divided the team up into three groups. Rob Powell and Matt Watkins partnered up, John Bedford, Steve Sweet and wife Debbie were in one group, and Sheena Prew and I made up the third.

We located ourselves on the North, East, and West sides of the castle ruins and took temperature, and EMF base readings using K2 meters, TriField meters, and IR laser thermometers. The readings are shown in table 1 above.

Short EVP's were conducted by two of the team, but due to traffic noise, and wildlife sounds those recordings are not deemed as appropriate evidence.

On the West side of the castle, Sheena and I began conducting an EVP experiment and opened ourselves up to the atmosphere that seemed to haunt the ruins of this location.

We were both standing against a stone wall, when Sheena suddenly felt very sick and fell to her knees.

Here is Sheena's account of this experience:

"...Barri was taking photos while I was using the K2 meter to check the wall for EMF spikes. There were no spikes on the K2 meter at this time. While I was stood in the corner of the gatehouse wall, I started to feel very sick, dizzy and felt as though the inside of my stomach was being twisted, so I knelt on the floor still leaning against the wall..."

"...Barri asked if there were any spirits present to move away and stop affecting me, nothing happened, and I continued to feel sick. The K2 meter did not show any signs of EMF activity, so Barri told me to move away from the wall. I went and sat on part of the earthworks, and within a couple of seconds the sickness, dizziness and the feelings in my stomach had gone..."

"...I went back to the wall to try and account for the cause of this sudden feeling, and within just a few seconds of returning to the same spot at the wall, the feelings had returned and I began heaving. As soon as I moved away from the wall the feelings again subsided within seconds..."

I reconvened the team, and wanted to test the theory that there was some sort of invisible energy located at this point that was able to physically affect Sheena.

I asked the others to stand against the wall and explain to me any feelings they had. Rob did not feel anything and seemed totally unaffected. Matt also felt sick and described a psychic impression of a woman meeting a violent end at that very spot. He described a sensation that affected his throat and he was also overcome with sickness.

Here is Matt Watkins Psychic perspective:

"...Debs and I both felt as though we wanted to cry, and I sensed a female energy about us. It felt like there was a sense of helplessness surrounding her energy, and I had the impression of a male (soldier) grabbing her from behind around her chest area and throat and throwing her to the floor where she was violently murdered. The sickness people were feeling was the strong emotion of anxiety surrounding her death...”

Myself and Steve Sweet decided to stand there to see if we were also going to be affected. After a few minutes, it appeared that we were not experiencing any physiological changes, and I commented that I felt nothing. Immediately having said that, I felt very sick and light headed. It was a sensation similar to motion sickness, and I moved away from the wall. The feelings went within seconds, and I was lost for words.

Maybe this experiment was spoilt by the power of suggestion, or maybe there were very low frequencies that several of us seemed more sensitive too than others that resided at this point. We however lacked the scientific equipment to check for this theory, and decided to make our way down the forest to erect out tents and gather the rest of our kit.

The Forest

This area is rumoured to be haunted by the spirit of an elderly royalist soldier, and also a white dog has been seen running into the tree line from the direction of the castle.

The forest was very dense, and unfortunately for us, full of mosquitoes that were breeding in the bogs and streams surrounding us.

The feeling in this area was very different to that of the castle grounds. It was not yet dark, but many of us felt like we were being watched intently and followed as we made our way through to a suitable clearing.

After successfully putting up two tents and gathering some fire wood, we made our way back to the castle and began the investigation.

It was around 21.40 and dusk was upon us. The castle looked very eerie now, and the sky was a clear purple colour.

The teams were once again positioned around the castle and we began conducting EVP's and EMF tests.

To be continued:

	Inside Castle Gate	Outside Castle Gate	Forest
Time	19.30	19.30	20.15
EMF Reading	1 mG	1 mG	1 mG
Temp	20 C	22 C	19 C