The Ghost stories of Lumley Castle

Lumley Castle: ‘tis on a night like this, that the ghosts walk.....

In India’s 2011 tour to England, before the first of the five One Day International matches, at Chester-le-Street, Rahul Dravid had a question for the team director: "Are we going to stay at the Castle," he asked. There was a relief on his face when the reply came in negative.

You can understand the extent of it when someone like Dravid who has faced the likes of Shoaib Akthar and Brett Lee head on is spooked about the mere thought of staying at a hotel called Lumley Castle. He, however, is by no stretch of the imagination the first and only player to be unnerved about it. Another player slept on the floor of a teammate’s room, and others left the hotel altogether.

History of Lumley Castle

A relatively old picture of the Castle

Lumley Castle was built way back in the 14th century at Chester-le-Street in the North of England, near the city of Durham. It is named after its creator, the legendary Sir Ralph Lumley, who entertained the idea of converting his family manor into a castle in 1389 after returning from the wars in Scotland. However, after he was implicated in a scheme to overthrow Henry IV, he was put in a dungeon and ultimately executed, forfeiting his property to the Earl of Somerset. In 1421, though, the ownership of the Castle fell back to Sir Lumley's grandson, Thomas.

The Haunted Story

The castle is one of the most haunted and eerie place in Durham county. Legend proclaims that it is haunted by the ghost of Lily Lumley, Sir Ralph's wife, who was allegedly pushed into a well in the castle grounds by two priests for rejecting the Catholic faith, with only the moonlight to guide them in the unholy act. Aware that they would be in trouble, the priests told Sir Ralph that she left him to become a nun. Even today, her ghost is ‘seen’ floating up from the well and through walls of the castle.

The Stories and what the victims had to say

Jimmy Adams

The first incident at Lumley involving a cricket player happened way back at the turn of the millennium. The West Indian touring party had parked their bus here before the ODI at Chester-le-Street. However, the stay of a few players, three of them in fact, was cut short as they chickened out before the night ended and stayed elsewhere at their own expense.

“There were a few funny goings-on,” said Jimmy Adams, the then West-Indian captain, “but we put them down to Franklyn Rose running around under a bedsheet.” Jimmy, who was one of the three to check out, might have let this off as a joke or a one-off incident, but the things that were to come tell a completely different story.

Harsha Bhogle

What better way to account for Harsha’s story about the 2002 tour to England than in his own words?

Not much to say after the video. Harsha Bhogle just could not stand the hotel and was anxious to get the hell out of dodge. The most creepy aspect of Lumley? There are no locks on the doors at all. Anyone can enter and leave as they please. Bhogle and Navjot Singh Sidhu decided to take advantage of that, but the plan went horribly, horribly wrong.

Paul Collingwood

Collingwood recalls the night he tried to spend at Lumley. “It (Lumley Castle) felt really spooky. My wife and I stayed there, and we went home at about 02:50 in the morning. We asked ourselves, 'Why are we staying here when we are 20 miles from home?'. You had to walk through cupboards to get to the bathroom. It is a lovely hotel, but it is spooky. We snuck away and packed our bags. We went home and got a decent night's sleep."

The more you think of it, you feel there to be a case here.

Bangladesh and Shane Watson

Shane Watson confident during day time at Lumley 2005.

Perhaps, it is Watson who bought Lumley into the limelight, way back in 2005. However, a lesser known story, reported by the Telegraph, is about the Bangladeshi team in Lumley a week before the fateful Watto incident.

Already frightened enough that they decided to spend the night three in a room, the Bangladeshis were scared out of their wits when they caught a glimpse of a white figure outside their windows, accompanied by the ghostly sound of a child crying. However, the captain Habibul Bashar, akin to Scooby Doo, calmly walked towards the ‘ghost’ and unmasked fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza armed with a bedsheet and tape recorder.

What was the end of the Bangladeshi episode was the start of a very torrid time for the Australians as they went on to lose the Ashes after 16 years and also lost an ODI to Bangladesh. Blame it on the ghosts? Maybe, but ask Shane Watson. The burly, brute of an athlete was so scared to a bone that he spent a night in Brett Lee’s room on his floor, curled up like a baby!

Later on, he did accept that he did not see anything and was wound up massively by the bus driver, which led him to be scared out of his wits. "I didn't see anything, but it was a very spooky sort of place and it definitely freaked me out - things that probably aren't there but some people believe are there," Watson said a touch sheepishly to Cricinfo. "People go there to actually see the ghosts.

Is the ghost of Lady Lumley haunting the castle? One can never know for sure, but a couple of things it is certain to provide are immense speculation and sledging fodder. We leave you with this immensely hilarious video of Darren Gough and Shane Watson. Sleep well today, for the ghosts of the past have been exorcized.