I worked at Dudley Zoo from 1988-2000, and have spent many lonely nights up
on the Castle Hill site caring for sick animals. One night, a colleague and I were working in the tapir house at around midnight, as the tapir was quite sick.
As the night went on, we decided we needed to get in contact with the vet.
As there were no such things as mobile phones in the early 90's, I had to walk down to the nearest phone situated in the office at the bottom of the hill.
I opened up the office and dialled the vet’s number. As it was ringing out, I
could hear talking from the office next door.
Now this office is separated by a thin wall that is mostly frosted glass, so it’s not too hard to hear anybody in there, and you can see a little bit through the glass anyway, so I could see the lights weren’t on in there.
I shouted, “Hello? Anyone there?” But the talking just carried on. Then it got angrier, and changed to shouting.
I thought it might have been coming from the Fellows pub next door, but by this time the vet answered the phone.
The shouting was still going on as I put the phone down, and through the glass, I saw the coffee table tip over all by itself, as if someone had kicked it.
Then I panicked and legged it out of there. I ran back up to the tapir house, chain smoking as I went, and told my colleague what had happened, but she didn't believe a word I said.

It was my first month at Dudley Zoo and I was training in the Ape house, now the
orang-utan house, and when I was in the kitchen I could hear horses hooves moving around on the ground. Thinking nothing of it, I carried on working.
Three months later, I heard the noise again, so this time, curious to find out where the horses were, I poked my head through the door to look outside.
I saw nothing, but the noise was quieter outside, and louder in the kitchen!
So when my boss came down I told her about the noise, and she said, "You’re not the first person to say that!"
She said she’d never heard it herself, but several other staff members had, so we confronted the castle curator (who's name I can't remember) who went away and did some study and came back with an answer.
When the castle was active hundreds of years ago at the foot of the castle where the ape house is now, stood the Castle stables, so was full of horses!
Question answered!

Monkey House

The small monkey house was the place I spent most of my time, and there was
a certain cage that all keepers used to hate to clean. People often said they got a strange feeling when in this cage. I felt it myself, and new keepers used to come up to us and ask us if we would stay around while they were cleaning it. We never said anything to them about it unless they approached us first.
The public door to the corridor used to fling open when someone was cleaning this cage out, and we’d always go and have a look if anyone was there, but there never was. The door was a big heavy wooden thing, and it was never a windy day.
After a bit we started to realize that the spider monkeys in this cage used to stare at this door even when it was shut. In the end we got used to it. People thought we were all mad, but there were around 8 or 10 keepers who went through this.

Reptile house

We named this, “The key jangler”
When the reptile keeper was on his day off it was up to my colleague and I to lock up
the reptile house, which was usually around 5 or 6pm.
We would walk in through the “IN” door, and immediately lock that door behind us so no new visitors would follow us in.
Now as soon as anyone locked that door, they would clearly hear the sound of keys or even chains being rattled, coming from somewhere. It sounded very faint, but you would definitely hear it, without even trying to listen for it!
We then had to walk the length of the viewing corridor, all the way to the “OUT” door, checking there were no visitors left in there, and turning off the lights as you went.
Finally you’d walk out, locking the “OUT” door behind you, but you would still be able to hear the jangling noise even though it would be gettting fainter as you went along.
Several of us heard this, and after a while my colleague and I decided to check if someone was playing a joke! So I went in to lock up the reptile house early, at 4pm one evening when the Zoo was quieter, and my colleague waited outside to see if anyone was around playing a practical joke on us. I walked the corridor, locking the doors and turning off the lights as normal, and still heard the rattling noise, even with someone standing guard outside!
So I ran outside to see my colleague and she was white! I asked her if she was okay and she said that she had seen me run out of the “OUT” door, but someone was
shaking the “IN” door from the inside, which I had locked first!!!
There was definitely no one in there, as I had just checked it, and no one could have got past us!

Ape house

I have mentioned the horse noises, and this one is similar. We were sat on the working surface one June morning around 8am getting ready for a hard days work looking after “Azimat” the female Orang-utan.
The kitchen was very large with long windows, opposite which was “cage 1” This cage had a viewing door with bars, but also had a bright glossy door.
We were sat there when a black kind of blur went in front of the doors and in front of our eyes, although we felt and heard nothing.
She said to me, “Did you just see that?”
I replied, “That black thing? Yes!”
That morning the Orang-utans were acting extremely strange and were calling out all morning. This was very unusual for them. We just got the work finished and got out of there.

Chimpanzee house

This was situated on the bottom of the zoo site and was always very creepy
and spooky!
But the cleaner was walking down there one Sunday morning to clean the
toilets situated on the building, when she saw a girl who looked around 7 or 8 years of age wearing old fashioned clothing and wearing a bonnet. The little girl looked like she was searching for someone or something, and was walking with a limp!
The cleaner shouted out for the girl, but she seemed to ignore her. Then she just walked off and disappeared.
From what I can remember, the cleaner did some research and found out
that the chimpanzee enclosure was built on a graveyard that existed when the Castle was in use many years ago.
I think that the cleaner had seen her on more than one occasion.