Gadgets engineer scares at castle

An episode of The Gadget Show featuring a segment filmed in Staffordshire hits the screens this month.

Presented by Wolverhampton’s Suzi Perry, the “haunting” item was shot on location at Tamworth Castle for a Halloween Special which will be broadcast on October 26 at 8pm on Channel 5.

For the filming, the Gadget Show turned Tamworth Castle into the ultimate gadget haunted house using the variety of very high-tech scares, all designed to trick celebrity, Liz McLarnon, into thinking she’d had a paranormal experience.

They asked her to visit Tamworth Castle under the cover-story that they were filming a test with ghost hunting gadgets. The former Atomic Kitten had no idea of the shocks that lay in store as she made her way around the rooms of the castle with Suzi Perry.

A secret second crew was with fellow presenter Ortis Deeley in the guard room, triggering the scares.

With the assistance of automation specialists, e-home automation, the Gadget Show rigged up the castle with infrasonic sound, low frequency sound below 20HZ, and electromagnetism – a fluctuating electromagnetic field. They also set up an advanced air-con system to silently drastically cool the air, flickering lights, and a home-made hologram was created at the window of one of the rooms, giving the impression that the famous ghost of the ‘White Lady’ of Tamworth Castle was standing at the window.

Most of these effects were able to be triggered remotely by using an iphone or laptop from the control room.

Nic Hall, researcher for The Gadget Show, said: “Tamworth was absolutely the perfect location for us with its reputation as being one of the most haunted places in the Midlands.

“Liz was terrified before she even entered the first room. With us having to conceal vast swathes of people from Liz, the shoot was particularly hectic and everyone at the castle was simply brilliant and a real help in putting together a hugely successful piece of filming for us.”

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