Private Castle Argyll 

Built by the Campbell's of Knockbuie in the eighteenth century, this was Castle was renamed in the mid-nineteenth century, when a new castellated front was added, designed by J.T. Rochead whose works include the Wallace Monument near Stirling. From 1873 until the nineteen forties it belonged to the Lloyd family, who were related to the former Campbell owners. The estate was then sold to the Forestry Commission, who sold the house to the Holiday Fellowship. Later it became a hotel for a few years before it was bought by the present owner's father in 1974. Since 1997 the Castle has been open as a bed & breakfast where guests are invited to share the peace and beauty of this idyllic spot near Loch Fyne.

Team: -
Billy :-Clairaudient/clairvoyant medium
Tracey :-Investigator/Video camera
Stevie :-Investigator/experiments manager
Ralph :-Investigator/electronics engineer
David :-Investigator/Digital video camera
Billy :-Investigator/Digital stills camera
Richard:-Investigator/Video camera
Heather:-Investigator/Stills camera
Lisa :-Investigator/Voice recorder
Alex :-Investigator/Team co-ordinator
Nick :-Stirling University Film crew
Jennifer:-Stirling University Film crew
Felix :-Stirling University film crew
Six of us arrived at Inveraray, some three hours ahead of schedule.

 

As the Castle is only a short drive away, we decided to have a walk around this quaint Scottish town.
We had a look at several restaurants and eventually decided to eat at the Royal Burgh Cafe.
The fayre was excellent and the staff were warm and very friendly. (See Footnote)

 

After our meal, we headed out to the castle.
Our medium, Bill, and his wife Tracey, arrived at the Castle a short time after us.
On entering the Castle, the owner,  greeted us with real zest and warmth.
He escorted us on a tour of this exquisite and astounding Castle.

 

When the remainder of the team arrived, we decided on the strategy for the investigation.
A documentary film crew from Stirling University interviewed our West of Scotland Organiser, Stevie.

When the interview was concluded, we checked our baseline readings and set up our experiments, movement activated cameras, remote sound detectors and infra red alarms.

Before our medium Bill started his walkthrough, the owner introduced his wife to the team. She is a very charming lady, showed a real interest in what we were doing and wished us well.

 

8.30PM

Our medium Bill starts his walkthrough.
We had just left the base room and were on the main staircase when David drew our attention to the fact the morning room door had just closed on its own. The door is not on a spring, so we could not understand this.

Alex opens the door to the position it had been in all evening and gives it a hard push. The door does not close. The main entrance door to the Castle is opened and closed. The morning room door still does not close. The kitchen door is then opened and closed. The morning room door still does not close on its own, so we are at a loss to the reason it closed on its own.

 

We go upstairs and enter the drawing room. Bill asks if there were any draughts detected in this room during the baseline readings. No draughts were detected. Bill says he feels "short of breath". David says he felt a pain in his stomach when doing the baseline readings earlier.

Bill feels a draught moving back and forward in front of him. He "sees" an elderly man standing in the far right hand corner of the drawingroom. The man's name is Angus Campbell. Angus is in visitation. He died here in 1929 of a heart attack.
[In 1929 the house belonged to the Lloyd family. Of course they could have had guests called Campbell, or could have rented it to people of that name.]

Bill "sees" Angus stagger to the door of the drawingroom and collapse. Bill also sees a maid running along the corridor shouting "Mr. Campbell, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Campbell!". The maid's name is Sonia.

Our medium the sees the maid and two men carry Mr. Campbell downstairs. He passed away before they reached the bottom of the stairs. Angus is quite content now.
We go out into the corridor. Bill senses someone standing between him and Heather and he also sees a small black labrador dog running around.
Bill then sees three ladies dressed in black walk up and down part of the staircase and along the landing.
Alex cannot see the ladies but does sense definite movement on the stairs.

During the baseline readings, Alex saw a lady dressed in what he can only describe as an elaborate ballgown, standing on the staircase.

Bill says there was nothing allowed to go on here for a very long time after the death of Angus.

 

At the end of the corridor Bill senses a lady sitting in a chair crying. Bill says she was the wife of Angus and she died of a broken heart. Bill also sees a lady walking around in a long flowing cream dress.
David picks up the name Josephine.
Bill now feels he wants to go back in time.
He sees a young child in the drawingroom. The child, a girl, is seen by Bill coming out of a door in the drawingroom on the far side of the landing from where we are standing. There is no floor at the far side where Bill sees the girl walking. The date is 1764. We go back into the drawingroom and discover a door at the far side of the room. On opening the door, we discover it is bricked up.

[The Castle owner has kindly provided us with the following information with regards to this door.
The door is not built up, in the sense that it formerly led somewhere. It is placed there to give symmetry to the room by visually balancing the entrance doorway. I do not know why it is hinged, as usually such doors were fixed. The drawing room and staircase are part of the additions to the older building which were made around 1848, and are therefore occupying space which was outside the original building.]

On the landing at the top of the main staircase, Bill finds what he thinks is the vortex the spirits use here.
Up a short staircase, Bill wants us to open a cupboard door. In the cupboard, Bill sees a lady who says her name is Miss Proudfoot. No further information on her.

We go to bedroom one. Bill picks up on a William Cracknell. William did not die here, but spent his vacations here. 1992 is the date given by Bill.
He visits here because he was very happy here. This bedroom is now a lot colder than it was earlier, despite the heater being on. Alex finds a hotspot in the room. Witnessed by various team members. Bill senses 1920s dancing in this room.
We had a movement activated camera in this room. The camera "captured" several presences here.
[There is no record of a Mr. William Cracknell having stayed at Minard Castle at that date.]

 

We go into bedroom number two.

Bill sees this room as a nursery. He sees two cots in the room and a single bed where the nursemaid slept. Bill also sees toys in the room including a rocking horse. He says the ensuite bathroom should not be there.
[The two bathrooms were formed in the late 1960s or early 1970s by dividing off part of Room 2.]

He sees a lady. She has a long nose, sharp facial features, high cheekbones and red hair worn in a bun. Elspeth Moore is her name. Bill sees her as a school mistress. She is English. The year is 1911.
Bill sees cows walking past the bedroom window. Date 1941.
Stevie is getting a constant reading of one on the EMF meter. There was no EMF response on the baseline readings.
Alex sees someone sitting on the bed near the door. Bill sees an indentation on the bed. No information as to who this may be.
We go back down the short staircase to the main landing. Alex notices the drawingroom light is now back on. No one is in the drawing room. Bill again sees the three ladies walking on the main staircase.

On the large landing area at the top of the main staircase, the temperature changes from 17 degrees to 13 degrees.
We go back into the drawingroom. Bill feels someone touch his head.
Bill picks up on a Doctor Peter Coulter. He was the Campbell family doctor. Dr. Coulter is laughing, saying he made a lot of money from the Campbells, who were hypochondriacs. Stevie lets out a loud yell. The EMF meter suddenly jumps to three point five.
Bill says no matter what the Dr. treated the family for, they were never satisfied. The Dr. says they were very silly to pay him that money for nothing.

Alex senses a small child standing beside him. Bill then senses the lady Alex saw on the stairs earlier. She says she has been seen once. She says she is going to superimpose her face on the wall beside a large mirror. Photos are inconclusive.
As we are leaving the room, Alex draws Bill's attention to the mirror. When looking at the corridor through the mirror, Bill sees a shadowy figure sitting in a chair in the hall. The chair Bill and Alex both see is not the chair which is actually there at present.
We hear a noise coming from downstairs. David asks if anyone else heard a whining noise. Several members of the team agree with this. There is a dog on the premises, so this may account for the noise.
[The Castle owner has informed us Rory may bark but does not whine.]

 

We go to the inner landing.

This is quite an active room. Alex had earlier sensed a man by the name of Charles looking at the books in this room.
Bill picks up on the fact something happened during World War Two in this building. He sees someone who was being hidden here. He sees the man as a prisoner although he does not see the Castle as a prisoner of war camp.
[The castle owner will let us know if he finds any information on this.]

There are several swirling draughts going around this room.
[Very likely in view of its configuration!]
Lisa feels it cold at one spot and warm just a few feet further on.
Bill says there was more than one incident here during the war and definitely senses a German presence.
Ralph draws our attention to smudges on some of the books in the glass fronted bookcase. The marks are more pronounced than during the baseline readings.
[The castle owner thinks they are fingerprints from the last time the books were handled.]

 

Charles is playing havoc with the camera batteries, putting them up and down.

We go into the conservatory.

Bill sees a man with a withered left arm. Ralph feels someone tug his camera strap.
The man Bill sees was a gamekeeper here. He tells Bill, despite his arm he was "bloody good" at his job. He is also deaf in his left ear. Bill gets the date 1901.
Richard sees a figure go down the stairs.

We go back into the inner landing.

David gets excited. He says he has a moving orb on camera. He is very excited about this. Video playback reveals it is a light reflection.

We decide to have a break.

During the break, the castle owner and his wife had a look at some of the digital photographs we took on the first walkthrough.

While looking at the photographs, David and Heather hear an alarm go off from upstairs.
Taking one of the video cameras, they go to investigate.
In bedroom two, the radio alarm clock is going haywire.
The clock, which is mains operated, is changing by itself. It changes from the actual time, to 7, then 11 L 1, then 7 = 7, then 12.06, then 12 L, then 1 L 7. The clock seems to be changing every time David asks it to. The clock cannot be seen changing with the naked eye. It changes again to 75. 11 L 7, seems to be the clock's favourite number. Once the clock stops changing, we resume our break.

After the break, we decide to have a vigil in the bedroom which is accessed via the inner landing.
Three nightshot cameras and one ordinary camcorder are used for this vigil.

Once everyone is settled, Alex asks for any spirits present to do something everyone can see or hear.

Right away, there are three bangs, like someone knocking on a wall. The cameras are switched to nightshot and the room light put off.
Alex once again asks the spirits to make themselves known. There appears to be a glow around Stevie's left hand.

Bill senses three children in the room. "Two boys, Jeffrey and James, and a girl by the name of Lucy." They are playing in the room. One is standing on Stevie's left hand, one in front of Stevie and one has just gone into the cupboard behind Stevie.
Bill sees the children doing somersaults in the middle of the room. There are three orbs on camera in the room.
Alex asks the children's ages. They tell us, Jeffrey nine, James seven and Lucy four.
We are joined at this point by the spirit of the lady Alex saw on the stairs earlier. She tells Bill her name is Elizabeth.

 

We have two types of EMF meter with us, one emits sound, the other a sequence of lights. Stevie asks the children to "light up" one of the EMF meters. The children oblige on command on several occasions.
Another series of tapping is heard. This time the tapping is not picked up by the video cameras.
Alex asks Jeffrey/James if they could leave a handprint in the flour experiment we have set up just outside the room, or to at least move the flour in some way. After a few minutes, Bill asks Alex to explain more clearly to the children what he wants them to do, as Jeffrey is outside the building looking for a "flower". Stevie tells the children it is the flour for making bread, which is on a tray in the inner landing.

James tells Bill, Lucy had an accident when they were playing hide and seek. She fell down the main staircase and shattered the right side of her head. James blames himself for this as the game was his idea.
Jeffrey, James and Lucy are all in visitation. Elizabeth is grounded here. She says she cannot move on as she is the one who found Lucy on the stairs "in pieces" and the shock of this is preventing her from moving on.
James changes the video display on one of the cameras from PAL to NTSC. He changes it back to PAL after a few minutes.
Someone is heard walking on the main staircase.
Although nothing more of importance happened on this vigil, it is worth noting, at various points in this vigil and in response to direct questioning, several "orbs" were recorded on video moving around the room.

We decide to have a break.

Back in the drawing room. Bill picks up a direct connection to Royalty here. Bill is not sure if the connection is with the Castle, the present owners or the owners father.

Once again, the morning room door decides to close of its own accord.

We go down to the reception hall. At the far left of the reception hall is an arched armchair. Bill sits in this chair.
Stevie senses the presence of a very important American military person. Possibly a general.

Bill senses a very important German presence here. There is rumour that the Castle was used by the Military for a specific purpose during World War II. Bill feels the German is the spirit of Rudolf Hess.
[The castle owner has no information on this but will let us know if anything is found.]

Bill senses another two German presences here. One by the name of Martin, the other name sounds like Rothman or Grossman. They are both double agents, working for both the Allies and the Germans. Rothman? is particularly pleased with himself as with information supplied by him to the Allies, he was the one responsible for sending a British bombing sortie to their deaths. He tells Bill, 31 planes left for the raid, a mixture of bombers and escorts, but only three came back.
The Germans "spies" are in competition with each other to see who can give Germany the best information. Rothman? always gives the best information, which of course upsets Martin.
We decide to have a break. When moving to the baseroom, Alex sees someone standing at the top of the main staircase. The team go to investigate. but nothing is found.

 

We go into the inner landing.

 

There is a definite presence here, but we cannot make out who or what it is. Stevie's EMF meter is registering activity at the large bookcase in this room.
There is an EMF meter reading of four around Lisa here.
Movement of one of the crystals is registered.
We continue our break.

After the break, we go back to the chair in the reception hall Bill was sitting in earlier. Bill says the spirit wants to communicate through Stevie. Stevie sits in the chair and tries to relax.
The spirit tries to communicate through Stevie, but as Stevie is too nervous, it just doesn't happen.
A small cross (captured on video) appears near the bottom of Stevie's left leg.

The German, Martin, tries to communicate through Bill but without success.

 

We eventually break off the vigil and head back to bedroom number one to hold our third vigil of the evening.
When checking the cd experiment in this room, we find not only has it moved, but is moving as we are looking at it. (Captured on video cam.)

Alex "sees" a German U-boat coming up the Loch (which is a shipping lane.) The number on the U-boat is 971. On checking the records after the investigation, we discovered there was a U-boat with this number. The boat was sunk in the English Channel on the 24th of June 1944, after engaging HMS Eskimo and HMCS Hiata and a Czech reconnaissance aircraft.
All hands were rescued, except one who was lost when the ship went down, and one crew member who cannot be accounted for. This crew member, whose name is Grossman, turned up on another U-boat. Grossman is a name Bill picked up on earlier in the investigation. We cannot find any records of his place of birth, date of birth, or date of death. He just seemed to appear and vanish at will, during the war.

[The castle owner asks: "Wasn't there a TV programme about this, or something similar, some time in the last year or so?"

Paranormal Investigation Scotland will try to find out when this programme was transmitted and by what station. We feel the programme may shed some light on Mr. Grossman.]

 

Stevie picks up on the presence of a well spoken German male. The man will not give his name. His English is perfect. He tells Stevie he was not born in Germany.
He tells Stevie he is very ashamed of himself but he does not know why as he does not feel he has done anything wrong. The man is standing at the window looking out at Loch Fyne.
The man tells Stevie he just wants to go home. There have been too many lies told already. He just wants to be left alone to look out of his window.
The man suddenly breaks off communication and continues to look out of the window.

Alex hears sounds coming from bedroom two. It sounds like a party going on. He and David go to investigate. In the hallway outside the room, the rain is bouncing off the skylight window. Alex and David enter the room. They notice there is no sign of rain outside. The clock in this room starts playing its tricks again. David says, "If this is spirit making this happen can you make a noise for us?"
Although not heard at the time, on video playback four "knocks" are clearly heard. There is a slight pause between the first knock and the next three.

 

Back in bedroom one.

 

Bill "sees" a lady enter the room. She is walking quickly, taking what Bill describes as "dainty" steps. Her name is Lady Phoebe.

There are also two other male spirits here at this time, who were Lady Phoebe's suitors. They are talking about her and giggling. Lady Phoebe gives her surname as Mcallister. Bill gets the date 1880 something. Lady Phoebe says "Hello" and then leaves.

We make our way back to the drawing room.

The first thing we notice here is that the settee and the armchair nearest to the drawing room door have been moved. They are now closer to the fireplace. No team member had moved them.The video film on the main camera runs out after a few minutes. As David had not brought another cassette with him, we decided rather than have him go all the way to the baseroom for a replacement, we would just use the back-up camera.
After about an hour, we ended the vigil, as nothing of note was happening.

We had another break.

 

Bill and Alex go out of the Castle for a smoke. While outside, sleet starts to fall quite heavily.
As we had a long way to travel, we decide to end the investigation, rather than run the risk of getting snowed in.
Investigation ended 6.40AM.

Bill's conclusions

I considered Minard Castle to be a happy place with no unhappy spirits present. However I feel that there is an underlying secret that the building holds, although unfortunately I couldn't pin it down on our visit. I feel it relates to events during World War Two.
There is an event that is repeated over and over again in which three ladies in black replay the death of a Mr Campbell ( a previous owner, I think). [The Campbells owned the old house, not the part containing the drawingroom. The Lloyds, owners circa 1873 to 1946, were however related to the former Campbell owners of the old house.] I felt that these three ladies are not grounded, however they come in visitation regularly.
There are also the three children that we picked up on. They are in the main happy souls although one of them is a little mischievous but means no harm.
I thoroughly enjoyed our visit and would visit again if invited. Perhaps I may uncover the secret that the building holds.

Footnote:- Alex and wife Jane went back to the  castle a few weeks later to give the owner the footage and report of the investigation and to collect a camera one of the team members inadvertently left behind. We stopped off at the Royal Burgh Cafe for a bite to eat. While there Alex saw the spirit of an elderly lady sitting at a corner near the window. The lady was wearing a flower patterned head scarf and a blue speckled coat. She was enjoying a cup of tea. Alex felt this lady was a regular customer here who was in visitation.

Paranormal Investigation Scotland would like to thank the castle owner and his wife for allowing us the opportunity to conduct an investigation at exquisite castle .
                             We are indebted to the owner for his assistance in compiling the above report.

 

Report by Sandra

 

Comments Welcome       paranormalinscot@aol.com

 

Copyright-Paranormal Investigation Scotland 2022