IS THIS THE IMAGE OF A `GHOSTLY BOY` CAPTURED AT CARLISLE CASTLE?

A ghostly child thought to haunt Carlisle’s former archive centre may finally have been captured on film.

     Is this the face of a boy?

The thin little boy has often been spotted at the 80 year old building, hidden within the walls of Carlisle Castle. Standing in the doorway to an old caretaker’s flat, he is said to create a chill in the air.
The former army building, called Alma block, is soon to be the new site of Carlisle’s Border Regiment Museum. Earlier this month, surveyors sent a picture of what looked like the ghost to assistant curator Tony Goddard.
Mr Goddard, who has long been fascinated by the paranormal, said: “I’ve been saying all along there’s a little boy standing in the doorway. He looks drawn, he looks unwell. I believe he must have died from consumption.
“Then an independent person sends me a photo and there he is.”
Since he started working at Alma block in January, Tony has witnessed a catalogue of ghostly happenings. He’s seen shadowy figures and heard the sound of a piano coming from the empty upper floors.
He added: “They don’t make you feel afraid. There’s no sense that they’re trying to frighten you or they don’t want you there. Quite the opposite, in fact. Alma block was built by the regiment and obviously, we’re moving back in.”
And the spooks are just as obvious in the afternoon as in the dead of night.
“A popular misconception with ghosthunting is that it has to be dark,” he said. “They’re there all the time. But they don’t want to hurt you – they won’t do anything to you in death that they wouldn’t do in life.”
The block once provided a canteen and library rooms for soldiers of the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment. It became a storage site for the archive service in 1960, when rows of plastic racking were installed on most of the walls.
Once dismantled by Tony and his team, they revealed original fittings including a mahogany bar.
It’s not the first time that Carlisle Castle has generated ghost stories.
In 2009, the castle was investigated by Most Haunted team from Living TV.
Among the stories that brought them there was that of a ghostly woman who reputedly stalks the corridors.
It is claimed that in 1823, her apparition frightened a soldier so badly that he bayoneted it, impaling the wall behind it.
He is alleged to have then fainted and died of shock the following day.