Rockingham Castle is a former royal castle and hunting lodge. The site on which the castle stands has been used since the Iron Age and Roman period, as well as by the Saxons, Normans and Tudors. Today the castle remains the private home of the Saunders-Watson family, but is open to the public at certain times.

 

According to Jones, when the author Charles Dickens visited the castle in 1849, he claimed he came face-to-face with the "ghost" of one of his literary creations - that of Lady Deadlock from Bleak House. This maybe nothing more than the creation of Dickens own mind.

 

Brooks recounts the tale of the rash Lord Zouch, who killed his own sister believing her to be a young man attempting to take his wife. In truth, his sister had escaped from a nunnery and was dressed as a man. This doomed Lord Zouch to appear as a ghost on the anniversary of his terrible dead following his own death.