Extract from a letter written by

Julie Murdoch.

I remember the Castle door was as big as a small terraced house, absolutely massive with a great big knocker on the door. The people in the cars going past would be looking at us, because the noise we made when we knocked was that loud!

(Click onto picture to enlarge)

The caretaker's name was George, and he must have been about 65-70 then. He lived on his own in a house that was just inside the grounds of the castle and I remember he had it really nice, (for a man) his living room was large and nicely decorated. And it had a small back kitchen and one bedroom, I remember it was full of pictures of his wife, and there were lots of pictures of him when he was in the armed forces.

He was a very tall and frail man, but I got the impression he was very educated. I think he had been the caretaker for years and he had lots of books, which he said he had got from all over the world. His wife had died when she was about 50, and he had two grown up sons. I remember him saying one son he never sees and the other son he didn' t see that much of anymore.

His job was to keep an eye on the inside of the castle, not the grounds, which there were acres of. He used to tell us we could go and have a look round the inside of the castle, and we would go through a big arched wooden door, and up all sorts of winding stairs that seemed to go on and on for ever. George only ever showed us around the castle the once because he said the stairs were too much for him. They were not like the stairs we have, made of wood, the castle stairs were made of stone and they had tiny steps, very slim to place your feet on. It used to be very cold and dreary looking, with stone floors and walls and not decorated. No one ever cleaned the castle and it was full of cobwebs and eerie shadows, it's a wonder we never saw a ghost!

I remember that in each room the windows would be round and quite small and not much light would get in. Some of the rooms had bits of furniture in, but most of them were empty. In one room there was a large wooden chair (like a throne) and George said the Queen Mother had sat on it when she had visited the castle as a young lady.

The floors were full of birds feathers and I imagine there was quite a few broken windows, which the birds got in through. There was quite a few bathrooms, tiled in black and white, very old looking. There was no electricity in the castle itself (it had not been modernised for this) so if it were dark you would have to use a candle. I think George rarely went into the castle because he couldn't climb the stairs and at night it would be too dark to see anything.

I think George used to like us visiting him because he hardly saw anyone, and he said he got very lonely. A lady used to visit him once a week with his shopping and I think she was a relative. But we never got to see her. As you used to go through the castle door, there was a courtyard you used to have to walk across to get to George's house. He told us that many years ago all the coaches and horses would pass though the courtyard into the grounds of the castle when visiting. The coaches would come through the massive gates at the side of the castle. But they had not been used for years.

I remember when the Castle got knocked down, and it was sad really. but Rose and I were teenagers and had stopped going for about 6 months. We went over to have a look at men pulling the bricks down and this fella was putting large pieces of the castle stone into his boot. We asked him why was he doing that? And he said that it would be nice to keep and it had a lot of memories for him, that's all he told us. The stone that the Castle was built with was a lovely golden colour.

I also remember the farm at the side of the road that had cows and chickens and you could buy milk and eggs from there.

I used to think it was sad that in school we never got told anything about the castle's history.

Julie Murdoch 2000

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