The Alnwick Castle Vampire is a vampire that castle in Northumberland is a county famous for its medieval castles. Not least amongst them is the thousand-year old Alnwick Castle. Seat of the legendary Percy family – the original Kings in the North – and now the home of Duke of Northumberland. Although its modern fame lies more with Black Adder, Harry Potter and the famous Alnwick Gardens, it also has a more unexpected connection. Alnwick Castle is purported to have spawned its own vampire.
Description[]
The strange tale of the hunchback vampire that stalked the grounds of the castle bringing terror and disease in its wake, was most famously recorded by a medieval chronicler named William de Newburgh. Newburgh wrote his Historia rerum Anglicarum in the late twelfth century primarily as a work of ‘serious’ history. He was quite proud of his research, and not above a little professional bitchiness -particularly about the work of fellow medieval historian – Geoffrey of Monmouth, dreadful fellow(!). Nevertheless, de Newburgh was adept at adding a bit of local colour and even a supernatural twist to spice up his narrative.
Introducing the subject of revenants and vampire-like creatures, he manages to sound both archly aloof to the whole idea, whilst simultaneously seeming to claim that the eye-witness evidence supported the veracity of such claims.
Despite de Newburgh’s implication that he used apparently reliable testimony there is little evidence of the Alnwick vampire other than local legends.
An early version of the tale says that the creature was the revenant of ‘the Lord of the Estate’ who lived underground and only came out to wreak mayhem and violence on the local peasantry. His reign of terror was finally stopped when the locals, no doubt wielding pitchforks, dug him up and burned his festering corpse.
William de Newburgh elaborated on the tale and added a few more vampire-like attributes.
In de Newburgh’s version the vampire is demoted, and the lord of the estate becomes instead a mere retainer of the lord (perhaps de Newburgh did not want to annoy the powerful de Vescy family who owned Alnwick at that time); the creature is seen prowling the estate Post Mortem looking for trouble. The energetic corpse took to paying less than welcome house calls, bringing sickness and plague in his wake. The villagers barricaded themselves in to their homes once night fell.
Then on Palm Sunday, the priest, seized with a Van Helsing-like zeal, enrolled a pitchfork wielding mob (every village should have one) and successfully uncovered the lair of the unruly cadaver. Upon striking the putrescent body with a spade, blood gushed out, seeming to prove that the rogue rotter had been feasting on the blood of the living. Staked with a spade and burned at the margins of the village (cross roads maybe?), the curse was lifted, the plague ended and everyone lived happily ever after….(well except for the serfs, they probably still had a pretty rubbish time).