Here is an experience from one of our readers at Castle Fraser in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire. The events had quite an effect on her and have been on her mind ever since:

"I visited Castle Fraser about 6 or 7 years ago.  We were there to help my boyfriends mum who had a stall (she made and sold long capes) at the ‘Gathering of the Frasers’.

Here is an experience from one of our readers at Castle Fraser in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire. The events had quite an effect on her and have been on her mind ever since:

"I visited Castle Fraser about 6 or 7 years ago.  We were there to help my boyfriends mum who had a stall (she made and sold long capes) at the ‘Gathering of the Frasers’.

I had never heard of the Castle or of the Gathering before, but went along to help out and keep her company.  In the afternoon, we decided to go and do one of the tours around the castle.  There were so many people, people from all over the world.  People who claimed to be connected to the Castle through blood lines, they were invited to sign a register/book to say they visited and how they believed to be connected.

During the tour, we were taken up a narrow stone flight of stairs.  There was a section of the stair case that was covered or replaced by wood, this really caught my attention (I don’t know why) and annoyed me for some reason, annoyed me that much that I kept going on about it (to my boyfriends and those immediately behind me annoyance).  Throughout the tour, there were ‘decking’ areas shaped like a T for you to view in rooms but you were not allowed to touch anything.  Just before entering one of the rooms I began to feel strange, I wasn’t upset or scared – just ‘gutted’, a large ‘gulp of air, sighing, gutted feeling’ came over me and I didn’t want to go in to the room.  As the tour was a ‘one way’ system, it was difficult for me to back away, I really didn’t want to go into the room.  The feeling was quite overwhelming.  I ended up causing a bit of a blockage as I tried to let people past so I didn’t have to go too far in, I just didn’t want to (needless to say, a few people were not happy with me!).  When trying to hurry through, all I noticed in the room was a smallish (teenager) size 4 poster bed and a painting on the wall, a young girl with her hair in ringlets.

The feeling took me by surprise but had no idea why and didn’t really think much of it until the tour was finished.  I put it down to becoming unwell and just didn’t put two and two together.

When the tour finished, the guide gave the group a chance to ask questions.  An American man asked what ghost stories or strange happenings were associated with the castle.

The guide went on to describe a murder and began with, “I don’t know if anyone noticed the stair case that was stone that had a section that was covered in wood leading to one of the bedrooms, the bedroom with the child size 4 poster bed” – This is when my boyfriend and I just looked at each other (me in absolute horror!).  I didn’t quite get the whole story as I was quite freaked out, but it goes along the lines of:  The girl whose bedroom it was, was a young girl who had been murdered and her body dragged down the stairs and no matter how often or hard they tried to clean the stairs, the blood kept coming back.  So the section of stairs was covered in wood!

This experience took me by surprise, I tried to think if an explanation but I couldn’t, there isn’t one.  I have never been to the Castle before, never spoke about the castle before, have no particular interest in Castles – we were just bored that day and decided to go on a tour, it was all last minute so did not even get any literature.

A follow on from this story is, about a year later.  I was at a dance when a lady there took me to the side and said to me that she had a gift and hoped that I would not negatively react to what she was about to tell me.  She told me that there was a young girl following me around, a young girl with a pink period style dress and ringlets – although I didn’t talk much of the experience in the castle as soon as she started to describe the young girl – I knew who she was describing!  The lady that spoke to me knew nothing of my experience."