Scotney Castle's Dripping Man

Lurking just south-east of the quaint little Kentish village of Lamberhurst, the ruins of Scotney Old Castle are the remains of an ancient moated manor house situated on an island in the middle of a small lake. The lake is surrounded by sloping woodlands, and it is only (relatively) recently that another manor house known as Scotney New Castle, or simply Scotney Castle, has been built to replace the much older structure. As would be expected from a place with all the history of Scotney Castle, it has more than its fair share of ghost stories. There is one in particular that I would like to talk about today…

## The Legend

Before a man named Edward Hussey built the New Castle in 1843. the illustrious estate was owned by the Darrell family for over 350 years. There are a few fun stories about the antics of this family which you can read about over on the Wikipedia page if you so desire. Arthur Darrell (most information about him comes from fellow paranormal blogs, and so I tried to find a source that wasn’t) was once the owner of the castle, and he was said to be a smuggler. It is alleged that a revenue man found out his grave secret, and that Arthur then felt that he had no choice but to murder the man and dump his body in the castle’s moat. After this heinous action, he elected to fake his own death by appearing to have died abroad. During his funeral, a tall stranger dressed in a black cloak said to one of the mourners - ‘*That is me they think they are burying!*’ before leaving the event, never to be seen again. Was this figure Arthur Darrell, wanting to leave and start a new life of crime elsewhere? The rumour that his coffin was dug up by the sexton in 1924 only to be found filled with stones would suggest so.

So what does this all have to do with a ‘*dripping man*’ as the title might suggest? Well, shocked visitors to the castle have claimed to see the apparition of a dripping wet man covered in pondweed clamber out of the moat and stagger towards the castle’s front door, hammering on the door in what could be assumed to be an attempt to exact revenge on Arthur. This figure is obviously regarded as the spirit of the murdered revenue officer.

## 'It's Not A Real Person'

Another interesting footnote about this place is a story that a teacher at my college told me. Obviously, due to its hearsay nature, I have been unable to find any online sources or verify what he said to me - but I see no reason for him to lie to me. He claims to have some German friends who visited Britain as tourists, and decided to frequent Scotney Castle. It was there that they saw what appeared to be a man drowning in the moat, and were flabbergasted that no-one seemed to be doing anything about it. ‘*You British are so heartless!*’ he said they said. Eventually some people from the National Trust had to come down to calm these people down, explaining the legend of the dripping ghost after no actual drowning victim was found. Apparently this happens a lot, and the National Trust have had to issue a warning about attempting to save the life of a drowning man in the moat - ‘*Although it’s always good to be careful, bear in mind that it’s not always a real person*’.

## Source

http://eerieplace.com/haunted-scotney-castle-lamberhurst/