Spooky Sunday

I'm looking at having Haunted Wales republished in two volumes by The History Press now that Landmark have gone bust. With Haunted Wales I set out to find all the old - that is pre-War - stories recorded in written primary sources from Wales. I was surprised to find a yarn from Flintshire that I had missed when researching Haunted Clwyd etc years before. Mind you, it was in the form of a piece of inexorable doggerel verse tucked away inside some old periodical, so perhaps it wasn't so odd that I missed it. It's not much of a story but it has its amusing moments and does shed some ligth on old ghost-lore. Here is the story as recorded in Haunted Wales:

Once upon a time, possibly in the 1740s but details are vague, a ghost was seen in the laundry at Hawarden Castle. A ‘misty form’ resembling that of a deceased steward called John drifted past several maid-servants, driving them into hysterics. John had been an unpopular bully during life, an absolute tyrant to those he considered his inferior, so this may explain their extreme reactions.

Lady Marshall, who learnt of the incident from a 90-year-old servant whose mother had been one of the maids, wrote it up in the form of a whimsical ballad. The ballad is very long but the story very slight, and it took some time to dissect it from Lady Marshall’s intentionally rococo language and shamelessly bad rhymes. We learn the staff were very distressed –

‘And they, for want of public ghost inspector,
Resolved to lay the case before the Rector.’ (You get the idea!)

The rector told them they were all ‘tom-fools’, so instead the servants sought out the services of a sympathetic priest, who agreed to perform the rites of exorcism. The ghost was duly conjured up among the sheets and smalls in the laundry, and John-as-was told the priest that ‘after so much wrong’ performed by him on his fellows, his spirit was unable to find a resting place. He did not explain why, of all places, he chose to haunt the laundry, and on being told ‘he must be laid’, he begged that it be in somewhere more salubrious.

Initially he suggested his spirit be conjured into a crow (which seems somewhat less salubrious to me) but the priest rejected this idea because he thought it might lead to ‘mischief’. So, John then suggested he be turned into a harmless leaf, but the priest also disapproved of this plan. He argued that an unfortunate cow might chance to eat the leaf – and the cow become possessed! Finally, John agreed to be secured inside a block of granite. This was done, the stone buried, and John’s spirit no longer troubled the living.

(The picture shows Hawarden Castle in about 1880, when it was the residence of W E Gladstone).

Spooky Sunday

Finally got round to visiting Gwydir Castle, near Llanrwst today, albeit in pouring rain. I'm particularly pleased with the interior shots here, partly because they were taken on a quarter-of-a-second exposure (without flash of course) and I think they've come out surprisingly well. But also because it turns out photography (even without flash) was supposedly forbidden inside the house, despite the lack of signs stating this and the failure of the guy who sold us the tickets mentioning it. Neverthless, they're certainly not shy about telling off their paying visitors if, like me, you are heinous enough to do so in blissful ignorance. Pity, because up until that point it was a very enjoyable, atmospheric visit, depsite the rain. Being talked down to by a posh twat does spoil the mood somewhat.

Anyway, on to the ghosts. Gwydir is the ancestral home of the important North Wales family the Wynnes and has a long-established haunted room. The apparition of a young woman has been seen in and around the 'Ghost Room' and she is linked to a horrible, unearthly smell of decay which has also sometimes been detected. Legend has it the ghost is of a servant seduced by one of the past Wynnes who was murdered by him and her body secreted in a chimney breast backing on to the room. A sizeable cavity has been found in this chimney and is now labelled a 'priest hole'.

According to the house's website, www.gwydircastle.co.uk, other ghosts have been reported here, including that of the first Sir John Wynne (said to be so wicked that his spirit is trapped at the bottom of the Swallow Falls in Betws until it is washed and purified), a 'procession' on the Great Terrace and the apparition of a dog, possibly the one whose skeleton was found some years ago in the cellar. The eerie sound of children crying has been heard, too.

Another story regarding Gwydir Castle is eluding me: something about some history project by schoolchildren leading to a strange 'coincidence' but I am unable to find a reference to it. Perhaps it was something I was simply told many years ago back in the days when I'd stopped writing about ghosts and folklore. Perhaps I simply forgot to take a note of it. Bother. If I find a reference or remember it, I'll let you know.

When I asked Janet Bord to compile her top ten favourite haunted houses (that are open to the public) for an article for Paranormal Magazine last year, she voted Gwydir number one, for its atmosphere. When me, James and Rosie first arrived and were alone in the the house - pre-telling off - we could certainly understand why.

Spooky Sunday

During the spooky converations at The Sportsman's Arms I also met a lady who used to run the Pwll Gwyn pub along the A541 Mold-Denbigh Road.

When I interviewed the then current landlady here for my 1992 book Haunted Clwyd, I was told the building stood on foundations of a medieval hostelry servicing pilgrims to St Winefride's Well at Holywell. This information was used as an explanation for the apparition of a monk allegedly seen sitting in the dining room, often in daylight.

The woman I spoke to in the Sportsman's Arms, who was landlady up until the late 1980s, denied any medieval hostory for the building, saying that as far as she was aware it had always been a coaching inn belonging to nearby Maesmynan Hall (I gathered the owner of the Hall kept his own horses stabled there, too). She also knew nothing about a ghostly monk but certainly experienced a spooky presence about the place, especially on the first floor. The publicans I spoke to prior to 1992 had also spoken about an eerie presence upstairs.

But what this lady added to the mix was a phenomenon that may be unique and greatly engaged my interest. Although they saw no appairition duign their time as licencees, she and her husband (and staff) did get used to ciming into the dining room on occasions and finding little piles of salt had been mysteriously appeared on various surfaces overnight. Very neat and tidy, pyramidal piles they were, and the source of the salt was also a mystery.

Salt, of course, is a substance seen as sacred in many cultures, representing purity in the Christian religion (and capable of banishing evil spirits). The dining room, of course, is the room where the monk was seen in later years - was 'he' responsible for placing the salt?