by Derek Acorah
The castle ghost is known as the Grey Lady, as she is dressed from head to foot in grey. There are many stories about her. The most popular is that when the castle was a fortress inhabited by the armies of Edward I, she was the wife of his second in command. Her husband, however, was having an affair with a local woman. When his wife discovered this, she murdered the woman with an axe. Afterwards, she was tried, sentenced and executed at the castle. As a criminal she could not be buried in consecrated ground, so she was buried just outside the castle walls. Her grave is still there, but her ghost can be seen roaming the castle battlements and sometimes the banqueting hall, which was formerly the chapel.
A man in armour wearing only one gauntlet has also been seen at the castle, but nothing is known about him.
Ruthin Castle Hotel, Ruthin, Denbighshire, North Wales LL15 2NU; Tel: (01824) 702664; Fax: (01824) 705978; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: www.ruthincastle.co.uk
The Salutation Inn
The origins of the Salutation Inn, formerly known as the Penrheol Inn, date back as far as the fourteenth century. Today many of the original features still remain: exposed beams, some thick walls and the flagstone floor.
In the early fifteenth century many battles were fought in and around the area and the inn was used as a makeshift hospital. Two Celtic warriors who died there still haunt the premises and it is believed that Prince Llewellyn himself walks between the stable and the bar. He has actually been seen on three or four occasions, escorted by the two warriors, walking through the front wall of the bar. This was the main entrance of the pub until 1888.
On the upper floor there are the ghosts of two women. One of them is Jane, who died in 1874 and today roams the pub looking for a box of pearls that her husband stole from her. At one time she ran the pub with her husband, but he drank the profits and died aged only 37, leaving many debts. Consequently Jane was evicted by the bailiffs and died shortly afterwards in the workhouse in Carmarthen. The other lady is Lorna, who died in the pub in the mid-1700s. Apparently she was extremely well to do and would never go downstairs to the bar area. She is reputed to be buried in the cellar. The ghost of her husband walks back and forth in the snug, upset because he feels people should not be walking over the place where Lorna is buried. Several people have felt a physical nudge urging them to move on when they have been standing in that particular part of the snug.
Five ostlers also haunt the pub, together with a young lad called Daniel Davies, who worked with the horses when the pub was used by drovers. The ostlers died in a fire in the pub in the early 1800s and Daniel was killed the same day when he was kicked by one of the frightened horses. The ostlers have been seen in the form of orbs of light in the lower restaurant, which was once the stable.
The final spirits haunting the pub are Henry Selwyn Allen, a former landlord, and Sam, his partner, who owned the pub. Sam regularly makes the lampshades move and opens the curtains at night. He has a sense of humour, but if he doesn’t like the way something is done in the pub he will make his opinion known. He has his own place at a table in the restaurant and no one else is allowed to sit there. People always know when he is around by the strong smell of pipe tobacco.
Though the Salutation is one of the most haunted pubs in Wales, it is also one of the warmest and friendliest and all 13 spirit ‘friends’ make it that way.
The Salutation Inn, Pontargothi, Nr Nantgaredig, Carmarthenshire SA23 7NH; Tel: (01267) 290336. Serves food.
Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey was the second Cistercian abbey to be built in Britain and the first in Wales. It was founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It soon prospered and buildings were added every century until its dissolution in 1536. Within a few years, though, the lead had been stripped from the roof and the stone taken away for local building projects and the abbey had fallen into ruin.
When it became fashionable to travel to wilder parts of the country in the late eighteenth century, Tintern Abbey was visited by many famous people, including J. M. W. Turner and William Wordsworth, who was inspired to write his famous poem ‘Tintern Abbey’ there.
A number of visitors have seen the ghost of Tintern Abbey, a monk who prays near one of the arches on the west side. The presence of a Saxon soldier has also been felt in the grounds. Apparently he was killed at the abbey whilst fighting in Henry II’s army.
There is also a legend about Tintern Abbey: once some young men visiting the abbey decided to employ labourers to dig in the orchard to see if they could find any antiquities. Two human skeletons were uncovered and the men decided to celebrate in the abbey ruins. As they sat down to their feast, joking about what the monks would think, a thunderstorm blew up and mist came down. Then a gleam of light appeared at the entrance to the choir. It grew larger and turned into a mail-clad knight with the visor of his helmet raised. This was ‘Strongbow’, Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Claire, Earl of Pembroke. As the men watched, petrified, monks and abbots also began to take shape around him. He slowly raised his arm and pointed to the doorway of the abbey with his sword. The men fled and, as they ran, a small whirlwind gathered the remains of their meal from the grass and flung it far and wide.
Tintern Abbey, Tintern Parva, Chepstow, Monmouthshire NP16 6SE; Tel: (01291) 689251. Open most days. Church services are sometimes held there.
Tredegar House
Tredegar House is one of the best examples of a late seventeenth-century mansion in Britain, with some parts dating back to the early 1500s. Set in a beautiful 90-acre park, it was home to the Morgans, one of the most prominent Welsh families, for over 500 years, until they left in 1951. For a while it became a school, then it was bought by Newport Borough Council and in 1976 a major programme of restoration began. The house is now open to the public and the grounds include a children’s playground, jogging trail, woodland walk and boating lake.
Tredegar has the reputation of being one of the most haunted houses in Wales and a ghost dressed in black knee-length trousers, a white shirt with frills down the front, black overcoat and black boots has often been seen in the grounds. Parades of nuns have also been seen walking through the inner courtyard and one of the outbuildings is said to be haunted. In the house itself people have reported strange sounds coming from empty rooms, unexplained footsteps and the ghost of a nun at prayer. The owners believe that ghosts, ghouls and all manner of phantoms infest the house, particularly at Halloween. Dare you enter it?
Tredegar House, Newport, Gwent NP10 8YW; Tel: (01633) 815880; Fax: (01633) 815895; E-mail: tredegar. [email protected]. The park and woodland walk are open all year. The house is open for tours from Easter to the end of September, Wednesday–Sunday. The house caters for conferences and is licensed for weddings. Special events are held throughout the year.
SCOTLAND
The Highlands and Islands
Crathes Castle, Banchory
Culloden Moor
Dunrobin Castle, Golspie
Dunvegan Castle, Skye
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness
Eilean Donan Castle, Loch Duich
Ethie Castle, Inverkeilor
Glen Coe
Inverary Castle, Loch Fyne
The Salutation Hotel, Perth
Sandwood Bay, Sutherland
Skaill House, Orkney
Swallow Thainstone House, Inverurie
The Tay Bridge
Scotland is one of my favourite countries. From its craggy peaks to the gentler slopes leading down to the coast, it is breathtaking. It also has a breathtaking past, with stories of enormous feats of courage peppering the pages of history books. It is little wonder that armies quaked in their boots when they faced the prospect of having to fight the ‘Ladies from Hell’ – those fearsome soldiers of the Queen’s Own Highlanders and the Gordon Highlanders.
The Highlands and islands are full of haunting images with macabre stories of the unknown within the castles of old whose pasts recall the memories of battles fought there. I
t is no faint-hearted ghost hunter who investigates these locations!
Crathes Castle
Crathes Castle in Aberdeenshire is one of the most popular castles in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. It was built in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Burnetts of Leys. Their first home was on an island in the loch of Leys. The old laird died, leaving a wife and an heir, Alexander. He fell in love with a girl called Bertha, a relative of his who had been left in his mother’s care for a few months, but when he returned home from a business trip, he found she had died. Standing by her coffin, full of grief, he reached for a nearby goblet of wine, but his mother quickly snatched it from him and flung it out of the window. Horrified, Alexander realized that she had poisoned Bertha.
Several months later Bertha’s father arrived to collect her body. As Lady Agnes and Alexander were talking to him, suddenly the room became very cold and Lady Agnes pointed into thin air, shrieked, ‘She comes, she comes!’ and fell down dead.
To get away from the scene of all this unhappiness, Alexander left his home and built Crathes Castle. However, it is said that every year on the anniversary of Bertha’s death, a ghost travels from the site of the old castle to Crathes. No one knows whether it is Bertha or Lady Agnes.
Crathes Castle itself is haunted by a Green Lady. She is most frequently seen crossing one of the rooms carrying a baby. When she reaches the fireplace she disappears. She was apparently a young girl who lived at the castle, had an affair with one of the servants and became pregnant. The servant was immediately dismissed and when the girl and her baby disappeared soon afterwards it was rumoured that she had eloped with him. However, not long after that the haunting began, and in the middle of the nineteenth century, when building work was being carried out at the castle, the skeleton of a woman and a baby were found together under a hearthstone. Today the Green Lady is heard more than seen – which is perhaps just as well, as her appearance is said to herald the death of a member of the Burnett family.
The ghosts of Crathes were allegedly sighted by none other than Queen Victoria. Without a doubt the castle is a spooky place, including a ceiling painted with a mixture of grotesque faces, weird designs and advice such as ‘Flie sone all naughtie companie’ and ‘From fools no friendship crave’.
Crathes Castle, Banchory AB31 3QJ; Tel: (01330) 844525; Fax: (01330) 844797
Garden and grounds open daily all year; castle open daily 1 April–31 October; restaurant open Wednesday–Sunday 10 January–31 March and 1 November–23 December, daily 1 April–31 October.
The walled garden features yew hedges dating from 1702 and many unusual plants. There are six trails in the grounds and two permanent exhibitions in the visitor centre.
Culloden Moor
Culloden Moor, to the east of Inverness, was the scene of the last battle fought on British soil. This took place on 16 April 1746 between the Jacobites who supported Bonnie Prince Charlie’s claim to the throne and the government forces loyal to the House of Hanover. This was a dynastic struggle which resulted in a civil war, with all the horrors and complexities which that brings. Its roots were steeped in religion and ideology. There were Scots and English on both sides and there were also Highland clans-men among the 8,000 government troops led by the Duke of Cumberland.
The poorly armed and exhausted Jacobite army, which numbered less than 5,000 men, was defeated in under an hour. This effectively settled the fate of the House of Stuart. Over 1,000 men were killed in the battle and many more were slaughtered as they tried to escape afterwards. They were buried on the bleak moorland. Their graves are marked with stones, some bearing the names of their clan. A giant cairn of stones stands as a memorial to the fallen. Bonnie Prince Charlie himself spent five months on the run in the Highlands before he was able to escape to France.
Legend has it that birds do not sing near the graves of the clans and there have been many strange sightings by people crossing Culloden Moor. One evening a party of men were making their way home across the moor when a huge black bird rose from the ground in front of them, blocking out the evening sky. While all stared in shock and disbelief, the apparition disappeared in front of their eyes. It is said that Lord George Murray, the Jacobite commander, had seen a huge black bird on the eve of battle – a bad omen and harbinger of doom. He called it ‘a great scree’ and in his heart he knew that the next day would not go well for his exhausted and starving men. The last reported sighting of what is called ‘the Great Scree of Culloden’ was in July 2005.
Culloden Battlefield and Visitor Centre, Culloden, Inverness, Highland IV2 5EU; Tel: (01463) 790607; Fax: (01463) 794294; E-mail: [email protected]
Culloden lies six miles east of Inverness off the B9006. Living History presentations are given at the battlefield throughout the summer.
Dunrobin Castle
This fairy-tale castle in the north of Scotland is the seat of the Sutherland family. The oldest part dates back to about 1275 but major additions were made at the end of the fourteenth century by Robert, the sixth Earl, who wanted to offer an impressive home to his bride.
During the Jacobite Rebellion the Sutherland family supported the government, and though Dunrobin was captured by the supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746, the Earl escaped and managed to retake his castle.
Dunrobin is haunted by Margaret, the daughter of the fourteenth Earl, who lived in the seventeenth century. She fell in love with someone her father considered highly unsuitable and to prevent her from eloping while he arranged a marriage to another suitor, he locked her up in the attic. However, her maid took pity on her, smuggled a rope in and arranged for her lover to wait at the foot of the wall with horses, ready to elope. Unfortunately, just as Margaret was climbing out of the window her father entered the room. Horrified, she lost her grip and fell to her death. As a result her lover is said to have put a curse on the Earl, while Margaret herself haunts the upper corridors of the castle and can be heard crying for her lost love.
Dunrobin Castle, Nr Golspie, Sutherland KW10 6SF; Tel: (01408) 633268; Fax: (01408) 633268
Dunvegan Castle
Dunvegan Castle lies on the eastern shore of Loch Dunvegan to the north-west of the Isle of Skye. It is the ancestral home of the MacLeods and is said to be the oldest inhabited castle in Scotland. Parts date back to the ninth century.
There are many historic treasures in the castle, including paintings, furniture, books, weapons and trophies. The most famous is the Fairy Flag of the MacLeods. Legend has it that it was given to the clan by a fairy woman who promised to aid the clan in times of need if they waved it. However, it had to be waved no more than three times in total and at intervals of at least a year and a day. So far the flag has been waved twice, both times in battle, once at Glendale in 1490 and once at Trumpan in 1580, and each time it has brought victory to the clan.
The 27th clan chief, Sir Reginald MacLeod, once took the flag to be analysed by the South Kensington Museum. It is apparently made of silk woven in Syria or Rhodes and could have been brought back to Scotland from the Crusades.
People have often heard beautiful music in the room where the flag is kept and ghostly bagpipe music has been heard in the south tower of the castle.
Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye IV55 8WF; Tel: (01470) 521206; Fax: (01470) 521205; Website: www.dunvegancastle.com.Open daily except for 25 and 26 December and 1 and 2 January.
Eden Court Theatre
Eden Court Theatre is the premier arts venue in Inverness, hosting a variety of entertainment, including music, theatre and cinema. It stands on the banks of the Ness, near the cathedral, and was built in the 1970s, but incorporates part of the old Bishop’s Palace. Major renovations are currently being carried out, including construction of a second theatre, two new cinemas, two educational studios and a new dressing-room block. The Bishop’s Palace will also be renovated and will provide meeting rooms and office accommodation. The theatre will re-open in 2007.
The theatre is haunt
ed by a Green Lady, said to be the wife of one of the bishops who hanged herself there.
The ghost of the murdered King Duncan I has also been seen walking along the banks of the Ness near the theatre. It is not known why he prefers this particular spot.
Eden Court, Reay House, Old Edinburgh Road, Inverness IV3 3HF; Tel: (01463) 239841; Fax: (01463) 713810; Website: www.eden-court.co.uk
Eilean Donan Castle
Eilean Donan Castle stands on the edge of Loch Duich in a spectacular setting. It was built in 1260 as a defence against Viking raids and became a base of the MacKenzie family, who installed the MacRae clan as their protectors and the constables of the castle.
During the Jacobite Rebellion the castle was first a stronghold of government troops, then taken by the Jacobites. In 1719 it was being used as a garrison for Spanish troops and a munitions store when English forces launched a surprise attack with three frigates. The cannon fire set the munitions alight and there was a huge explosion which reduced the castle to ruins. The ghost of a Spanish soldier is said to haunt the castle, but it is not known whether he was killed during that attack or during the nearby Battle of Glenshiel, which took place around the same time.