Tutbury Castle's medieval remains occupy a position 100 feet above the Dove Valley overlooking, to the north, the River Dove.

Within the inner bailey is a well and the remains of the Norman Chapel, with a motte surmounted by a folly in the south-west corner. To the east of the inner bailey are two outer baileys.

Nine members comprised our visiting group and we met under a cloudless blue sky on one of the hottest days of the year, a day which, significantly, was to end with a full moon.

The highlight of our dowsing was when, as a group, we gathered in the Great Hall. Here, dowsing indications were mixed, with some spirit and energy presence detected; others felt a more neutral ambience.

The transition to the King's Chamber was a complete contrast; it was impossible to avoid the emotionally charged atmosphere created by a highly dysfunctional and long-dead but spiritually active family.

Because of the nature of the findings in the King's Chamber, the consensus of everyone present was that the "ghostly" family had much to unite them and that they should be left alone to find solace in their apparent complex and disturbed relationships.

One member was disconcerted to realise that what she took to be the approach of a fellow dowser was, in fact, a 10th century soldier intent, amiably, on drawing water from the well.

Indications of a Priest Hole were dowsed in the Great Chamber. Steve, the castle's video maker, was Dave Johnson's faithful shadow throughout.

Dowsing below ground structures, strong indications were received of a man-made conduit taking water from the leet off the River Dove to the well, of a tunnel from near the Great Hall on a circuitous route south toward the Leopard pub and also of a small pavilion sited in the south-east outer bailey.

The day was unsurpassable, the weather and dowsing possibilities unmatched. Quite uniquely, our experiences in the King's Chamber generated a similarity of response seldom, if ever, met previously.