Blackness Castle
Brief History
Blackness Castle is a fortress protecting the main port of the Royal Burgh Of Linlithgow, which was one of the main Scottish residences.
Built on the site of an earlier fort by Sir George Crichton in the 1440's, the castle was only privately owned for a handful of years until the year 1453, when it was passed to James II of Scotland and has been a part of crown property ever since.
The castle has a unique shape with it being roughly boat shaped, which is how it got its name "the ship that never sailed", with the two towers at either end of the castle often referred to as the stem and stern towers.
The only time in its life that the castle failed to repel an attack was when Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland and attacked the castle during the year 1650, though it was fully repaired within a few years.
Today the castle is still owned by the crown but is open to the public all year round and maintained by the organisation Historic Scotland and is listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Is Blackness Castle Haunted
Just the name Blackness Castle seems to be enough to make people think this place is haunted, and with its spooky appearance with the waves from the firth of fourth gently lapping against its walls it certainly does paint the picture of a typical haunted location.
However it takes a lot more than a dark appearance to get the reputation for being as haunted as this place is.
There are a few stories related to this castle which have made people come to believe it to be one of the most haunted places in the country. One such story comes from the 1990's when a woman and her two sons decided to climb the central tower during a visit. When at the top of the tower a knight appeared wearing a full suit of armour, with an angry expression on his face.
The woman proceeded to grab her two sons and make her way down the staircase as fast as possible, but to her horror the ghostly armour wearing apparition was in close pursuit. When she got to the bottom of the tower she was understandably in quite a state, as were her two sons, though there was no sign of the knight.
Another story tells of how a group of paranormal seeking fans booked one of the tower rooms to stay in over night on Halloween. Nothing happened until after dark and as soon as they lay down to sleep the noise's began. It started in the room above and sounded like objects being thrown and heavy furniture being dragged across the floor.
One of the group decided to investigate and went up to the room to see what was happening, but upon entering the space he saw nothing out of place, there were no objects on the floor and all of the furniture in the room appeared to have been in the same place for quite some time. When he returned to the rest of the group the noises started again.
These are probably the two most well known stories about the Blackness castle, though there are many other claims of things such as apparitions and strange sights and sounds around the whole of the castle. The only way to see if these stories have any truth in them would be to go there and see for yourself.