Dover Castle and its headless drummer boy

If you visit Dover Castle, you might hear the faint sound of drumming.

According to legend, the fortress known as "the key to England", due to its strategic defense spot, is haunted by both King Charles I and a child - the headless drummer boy.

Gavin Wright, visitor assistant for English Heritage at the Kent site, said the story was that a young drummer boy was sent to collect soldiers' wages and murdered by robbers on his way back to the castle, with his head never being found.

"Sometimes it seems to be that he is seen, but more usually heard, before times of great threat or drama," Wright said.

The story goes that drumming is heard before the outbreak of war, including the First and Second World Wars, according to Wright.

He said some people link the alleged hauntings at Dover Castle to the Stone Tape Theory, which suggests materials can absorb energy from interesting or traumatic events and replay them.

The visitor assistant admitted he was "a little bit scathing about some of the stories you hear".

But he told Secret Kent: "I can understand how places as inspiring and really atmospheric as Dover Castle... it would be surprising if we didn't really from time to time have echoes of what has happened in the past.

Wright said some visitors to the site also had "experiences" with King Charles I, who "from time to time is seen walking across the audience chamber in the Great Tower".

The only English monarch to have been tried and executed for high treason in 1649, King Charles I met his wife Henrietta Maria at Dover Castle.

However, although the king was publicly beheaded, "on this occasion he does, of course, have his head and that's because of course the position of headless ghost at Dover Castle is already taken," Wright confirmed.

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