Newark Castle Nottinghamshire

Class : Under Long Term Investigation (LTI)

Investigating Since : 2003

Set in the centre of Newark-Upon-Trent in Nottinghamshire, the remains of Newark Castle sits eerily on the backs of the river Trent and provides NGRIT with much to research and study after many years investigating this magnificent and paranormally active site.

Sitting at an intersection between the Fosse Way, the Great North Road and River Trent, the site was a strategic stronghold and has been occupied since Saxon times, when it was home of a fortified manor until 1073 when the Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Bloet, built a motte & bailey fortress. Fifty years later Bishop Alexander the Magnificent turned the fortress into a fully stone structure before more major reconstruction in the late 1200’s made further improvements, including the riverside curtain wall – the only part of the castle which remains intact to this day.

Newark Castle has played its part in Britain’s history - withstanding five sieges during the Baronial & Civil Wars, where it was an important Royalist stronghold until its surrender 1646 upon command of King Charles I.

The castle also housed many royal visitors. King John himself died an agonising death at the castle on 19th October 1216 – believed my many to have been poisoned on instructions of the Pope.

The castle then went into the hands of King John’s former Captains Robert de Gaughy, much to the displeasure of the new King, Henry III who besieged the castle for over a week before de Gaughy agreed to leave.

In the mid-1500’s the castle went into private ownership with many important figures living there.

After the Civil War, the Parliamentarians were ordered to destroy the castle but due to a plague breaking out in Newark, the orders weren’t fully carried out, although locals took what stone from the remaining structure they could to build houses in the town itself and nearby villages.

 The castle remains & grounds were passed through various owners until the lands were sold off in 1836. In 1885, William Gilstrap completed work on a library on the castle grounds and is still in use today as the Gilstrap Heritage Centre.

Four rooms still remain intact today, along with four accessible dungeons, and each has its own dark secrets. The atmospheric Undercroft is said to have been used for the purposes of black magic from the 1750’s until the early 1900’s and the dark, oppressive dungeons housed the legendary Knights Templar. The room where King John is believed to have died also saw the suicide of a castle range in the early 1900’s.

NGRIT-UK are proud and privileged to be Newark Castle official paranormal investigators.

Over the many years NGRIT-UK have been investigating and studying the strange activity at Newark castle, they have built a fascinating database of events which still puzzle, shock and captivate its members.

Including stones and candles being thrown, voices, trigger objects moving, banging, equipment being moved, coins being thrown and cameras being moved / turned off.