Spooky black shape seen in the scullery and ghosts working in the Victorian kitchen!

Me in the Victorian kitchen with Christine

I spoke to Lindy, the new Winter Engagement assistant, in the Victorian Kitchen at Penrhyn Castle again yesterday. I needed to use her keys for the storeroom to put some costumes away because our Christmas schools programme has now finished. She was very excited to tell me about something extraordinary which happened to her the previous day. She was sitting at the large wooden kitchen table facing the windows, making Christmas decorations. Another assistant was standing on the opposite side of the table and there was a lady visitor with two children standing next to her. Lindy said that she suddenly saw a black shape moving quickly across the scullery doorway from the area near the vegetable pantry to the bacon loft side of the room. She asked the other assistant if she had seen anything, but she had not been looking towards the scullery and did not see it. Lindy also asked the visitor, but she had not seen it either. She said that it was a definite shape which looked very solid, but there was nobody there.

When she was locking up the kitchen later that afternoon she heard hail on the window of the roof light near the kitchen door. As she was listening to the hail hitting the glass she became aware of sounds coming from the kitchen. She knew that there was nobody else in the area but she called out, "Hello!" She said that she was very spooked and wanted to run out of the door but she remembered that she had not switched off the electric switch for the spit in front of the range. Lindy said she could hear it turning round. which struck her as rather peculiar, as it is usually silent. As the hail died away she could hear sounds of mixing and chopping coming from the kitchens and several voices, as though there were people in there busily preparing food. She gingerly walked along the corridor to the kitchen door and peeped into the room. She said that as soon as she got to the door everything stopped and it was completely quiet! She switched off the spit, locked the doors and went home.

Lindy told me that when she arrived this morning she was too scared to go and unlock the kitchens on her own. She asked the conservators if somebody could come with her after what had happened yesterday, but they just laughed at her. (One of them is her husband!) Eventually she persuaded John to go to the kitchens with her to check that they were ghost free before she started work.

I have asked her to let me know if anything else happens. I am delighted to get a story about the Victorian kitchen as I haven't had many from there yet. I am sure that there will be more to follow!

Ghostly Footsteps in the Scullery

Today I met a lady called Lindy who is working in the Victorian kitchens as a Winter Engagement Assistant. I asked her if she had felt anything or had any unusual experiences whilst working there. She has only been at Penrhyn for three weeks and she has already had several supernatural experiences! She said that she is quite sensitive to spirits. She explained that when she unlocks the kitchens in the morning she often feels a cold shiver down her spine and senses that she is being watched. She was sitting at the kitchen table two weeks ago when she heard footsteps coming down the stone stairs in the scullery from a locked door, which used to lead to the scullery maids' bedrooms. She looked through the doorway of the kitchen into the scullery but could not see anyone.

The same thing happened again yesterday. She told me that she was sitting at the table polishing some copper pans when she distinctly heard footsteps coming down the scullery stairs. She got up and went to investigate but there was nobody around and the door at the top of the stairs was locked as usual. Very mysterious! I wonder if any of the Victorian scullery maids are still around and if they are aware of us?

Mysterious raking sounds in the night

Whilst at Penrhyn Castle today I spoke to the son of the head gardener who lives in an apartment in the castle. I asked him if he had ever experienced anything supernatural there and he told me that sometimes in the night he hears the sound of gravel being raked near the Barbican Gate. He said that he knows what gravel being raked sounds like because he has worked with his father doing just that on many occasions over the years. He said that is sounds as though it is happening between the Barbican gate and the main entrance of the castle, which is near the windows of their apartment. He has never seen anything and there would definitely not be anyone outside raking in the dark. He has heard it on many occasions and is totally mystified as to who or what is causing the sounds. If it was a badger of another animal scratching the ground there would be some evidence in the morning, but he has not seen any disturbances on the gravel. Very mysterious!

Barbican Gate

Spooky tour of Penrhyn Castle at night and a white lady in the King's bedroom!

Today I did a tour of Penrhyn Castle in the dark. It was held at 6 o'clock in the evening and by the time we came out of the castle it was pitch black outside. The shutters had been closed in the rooms and there was only a minimal amount of lighting for safety. I took a group of about 13 adults around the house telling the ghost stories from my blog as we went. I dressed as a Victorian Housekeeper all in black, for added atmosphere. I was carrying an old brass and glass lantern with a flickering battery powered candle in it. The castle was very atmospheric in the dark even without any ghost stories! I explained that all the stories were genuine experiences and that I had interviewed the people myself. I said that I have recorded the stories for a book, which I am planning to write when I have got enough material. I asked if anyone had any feelings or saw anything supernatural on the tour to let me know. They were allowed to take photos without using flash, so I hope that if anything does show up on their photos they will contact me.

We walked around the bedrooms in the Keep and I told the relevant ghost stories there. One of the women in the group looked back into the King's bedroom while we were all in the Slate bedroom. I was telling them about the slate four poster bed, explaining that Queen Victoria refused to sleep in it because she said, "It would be like sleeping in a mausoleum!" When we came back down the steps from the Keep bedrooms and walked along the Grand Hall gallery we were waiting for the people at the back to catch up with us. Suddenly a stone fell down at our feet, as if it had been thrown! The Events manager picked it up and looked at it. It was about 1/2 in across, and looked like a small pebble. The lady at the back who had looked into the King's bedroom was very startled by it. She was just telling her friend that when she was looking into the room she saw a white shape, like that of a woman, moving across the room. We were all very interested to hear about the supernatural sighting and I noticed that the group stayed much closer together after that! We could not work out where the stone had come from. It made quite a clatter on the stone floor.

The rest of the tour went without incident, and everyone said that they had enjoyed the stories. I gave them all a piece of paper with the website address on it so I hope that they will read this and comment on it. I hope that they will let me have any photos which are of interest to put on the site too. They asked if I regularly did ghost tours and I told them that this was the first one. As it seemed to go well I hope that we may make it a regular part of the Penrhyn programme of events in the future.

"Is anybody there?" Spooky sensations in the house this week

I took a group of school children on a tour of the castle on Friday afternoon last week dressed as lady Penrhyn! One of the adults who accompanied the group was a mother of a child at the school. She asked me if Penrhyn was haunted. I replied that it certainly was, to which she said that she had sensed it as soon as she saw the castle that morning. I asked if she was sensitive to such things and she told me that she could pick up on ghosts, although she could not always see them. I told her to stay near me as we toured the house so that she could tell me if she felt anything unusual. As we walked through the Drawing room past the Medieval staircase of the watchtower, she suddenly shuddered and rushed into the Ebony room. "What was that?" she said. I asked her what she had felt there and she told me that there was definitely something at the foot of the spiral staircase which had made her shudder as she went past. She did not like it at all. I explained that several people have had similar experiences in exactly the same spot.

The next place she felt something unusual was by the Nursery bedroom, which was Alice Douglas Pennant's room. She felt that it was very "oppressive." She also felt a presence in the Dressing room off the Slate Bedroom, which is where a room steward recently saw a ghost dog. I did not prompt her in any of these areas. She just came up to me to tell me what she had experienced. I confirmed to her that other people had felt the same kind of feelings in those places. She did not like the area at the bottom of the stairs of the Housemaids' Tower. The door swung open by itself as she peered around the door and made her jump! I told her about Polly the maid who is said to have died on that spot after falling down the stairs.

Last week I took a friend of a friend around the house and he was also very sensitive to spirits. David picked up on things in the same areas, but he also said that he felt we were being watched as we walked past the windows of the stable block towards the Barbican Gate.

 Barbican Gate

He was aware of something in Alice's bedroom near the fireplace, which he thought was a man. He also sensed that there was someone near the cupboard in the back left-hand corner of the room. Another visitor last year said that she had seen a young girl in the room, who she later identified as Alice, and her father, who she was afraid of. David was aware of something in the Slate Bedroom dressing room and also in the Drawing Room, especially near the Medieval Tower stairs.  He did not like the area near the large doors of the Stable Block. I showed him the door to the Clock Tower and he stood by the door. He said that something was telling him to go away and he felt very uncomfortable there. Cheralynn said that she did not like the Clock Tower when I took her there last year. She had a bad feeling there and could not wait to get outside again.

He sensed that Penrhyn is a very busy place with a lot of spirits walking about, although he could not see them. He said that he only sees spirits at night. It is a shame that he is not able to come on my tour of the house in the dark on Wednesday! I hope that people do feel that there are spirits around and that they will enjoy the stories I have collected over the past year.

John Pickard positively identified as the ghostly man in the stable block!

John Pickard (1823-1897)

I found this photo of John Pickard on the internet this week. He has a small beard but no moustache in the photo, but he may have grown one at some time during his life. Elaine showed her son the photo and asked if he recognised him. He said that although he doesn't have a moustache, which he did when Rory saw him in the stable block recently, he is convinced that it is the same man. I spoke to him this evening and asked him to describe in detail what the man was wearing. He told me that he was wearing a shirt and waistcoat with a cravat at the neck. He had dark trousers and long boots. He was carrying what looked like a jacket over his arm. He said that he had old fashioned clothing.

John Pickard has been seen in the stables before by a visitor who described him to Sheila, the shop manager at the time. She showed him the photo of John Pickard and the man confirmed that it was him. When Sheila told the visitor that he had been dead for over 100 years he was very surprised! He must have been happy working at Penrhyn for 52 years of service, and perhaps he likes to come back now and again to check on how things are being run in his absence!

New sighting in the Stable Block and strange happenings in the shop!

I received a text message on Sunday from a friend who works at the castle, telling me that her nine year old son had just had a ghostly experience in the stable block. I was travelling back from Barry in South Wales at the time, so I was not able to call her to find out the details until later in the evening. She explained to me that her son Rory was standing at the entrance of the stable block looking towards the Industrial Railway Museum, when he saw a man walking towards him, looking straight at him. Rory said that the man seemed to be moving very slowly and that he was wearing old fashioned clothes. It was a cold, damp day so most people were well wrapped up for the weather. The man was wearing a shirt and waistcoat, trousers and a pair of boots. He had a moustache. As Rory was watching him moving slowly and looking intently at him, a woman walked past the glass doors from the stables on the left towards the shop door on the right. Rory did not take his eyes off the man, but as he looked around the visitor, the man had disappeared. Rory thought it was strange and he went into the stable entrance through the glass doors and looked around for him, but there was no sign of him. He went to find his mother to tell her what had happened. She asked him why he thought it was strange and he explained about the old fashioned clothing and the fact that the man had disappeared so suddenly into thin air.

I wonder if it was John Pickard, the Head Groom of the stables at Penrhyn Castle for 52 years. Part of the stable entrance was converted into a gallery  for temporary exhibitions and it was named the Pickard room in honour of John Pickard. There used to be a picture of him in the stables so I will try to track it down and show Rory to see if it could have been him.

Yesterday I was at the castle and I spoke to the manager of the National Trust shop to see whether he had ever had any strange experiences. He said that he has not seen anything but that every morning when he unlocks the shop door there are things on the floor. He explained that it is as though someone has been in the shop during the night, taking items off the shelves and placing them on the floor. Books, bottles, toys and other items are regularly found lying on the floor in the mornings. Sheila the previous shop manager told me a similar story last week about things being found on the floor, including tea towels neatly laid out flat in the middle of the shop! If they had fallen off a display during the night they would have been in a crumpled heap, not neatly placed. She said it was usually on a Tuesday, when the shop was normally closed. It would be great to set up some recording equipment in the shop overnight to see what is going on. I don't think I will volunteer to spend the night there on my own, as was suggested yesterday. I am not that brave!

I have been asked to give a spooky tour of the castle at night during Halloween week. It will be taking place on 26th October at 6.00pm. I will be doing a tour in the dark and telling ghostly tales as I go. People can book a place on the tour for £10 each by telephoning the castle. I think there will be a maximum of 15 places. Should be interesting!