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?