Ghostly laughter in the Scullery

 I was at a gathering of volunteers at Penrhyn Castle a few weeks ago when I heard a fascinating story which was told to me by the member of staff. At these kind of events I always try to find out whether anyone has heard any ghost stories recently and find the person who has had the experience. I feel that it is better to hear stories first hand and to get permission to share them on here. 

The man I spoke to said that he had to go to the Victorian kitchens, which were not open to the public at the time because was doing a fire safety check. When he was near the Brushing Room he sensed that he was not alone. He felt that a woman was with him, although he could not see her.  He unlocked the Kitchen door and walked through the Kitchen to the Scullery. The woman walked with him, then went up the stairs towards the scullery maids bedrooms. He said that he heard her laughing as she went up the stairs. He told me that he did not see her but he knew that she was there. He was not sure whether he actually heard the laughter or just heard it in his mind, but it seemed very real. 

Has anyone else had an recent experiences at the castle? Please let me know. Thanks. 

Man in a brown suit seen in Lower India Room

I received an email yesterday from a volunteer Room Guide at the castle.

"Good morning Caroline, I am a volunteer at Penrhyn since June 2017 and had my first visual yesterday.

On the morning on Sunday 8th March, approx 11.05 I was relieved for ten minutes so I could do a quick familiarisation around the castle of the new ‘What a World’ installations.

I came down from the State bedroom and stepped briefly into the Chapel, saw there was no exhibition in there and headed left towards the Lower India room (Hugh Napier’s bedroom). As I neared the en suite and bedroom I saw a man appear from the right hand side of the room, he looked at me, tutted and raised his eyebrows and backed himself back into the room as though he didn’t want to be seen or bothered. He was wearing a brown suit and would have been about 5’6 if that; certainly not too tall.

I thought it strange but carried on to the Lower India and there was no one in there. I reported my sighting to a staff member (PW) and another volunteer (AD). The other volunteer was on a roving duty that day and stated that she visited the Lower India area a few times during the day and it had remained quite colder than usual."

What a fascinating story! The description of the man sounds as though it could have been Hugh Napier the 4th Lord Penrhyn. I wonder what he thinks about the new What A World Exhibition currently displayed at the castle? Perhaps he is annoyed about things being moved around?

Lower India Room

New ghost stories heard today

I attended a Christmas craft meeting at Penrhyn Castle this morning.  I passed a copy of the photo of the ghost behind the lady in the dining room around the table to find out if anyone had any information about it. Luckily one of the volunteers has got a contact email address for the lady who sent it in so I will be now able to contact her and find out more about it.  She said that the lady did not know who the man was and assumed that he was a member of the Douglas-Pennant family. I showed it to a member of the family last week but he did not recognise him.

While we were discussing the photo several of the volunteers at the meeting told me of their own ghostly experiences at the castle, which were all new stories to me.

One lady said that she was a room guide in the library in the Summer when two visitors claimed to have seen Lady Janet Douglas-Pennant standing near the main door in the entrance hallway.  They looked at the photograph of Lady Janet on a desk in the Library and identified her as the figure they had just seen. The volunteer room guide said that she did not know what to do. She spoke to a member of staff about it and left the excited visitors to talk to him.

Another volunteer room guide, who often does cooking in the Victorian Kitchen, told me of some of the experiences she has had there. In August after a busy day in the kitchen she was clearing things away and putting them in a storeroom next to the Chef's Sitting Room. She carefully closed the door each time she left the storeroom but every time she went back to it the door was wide open. There were no visitors around because the castle was closed. Another time she was in the kitchen looking out of the door towards the Chef's Sitting Room when she saw a dark shadow move across the door past the kitchen door. It went through the Pastry Pantry door and disappeared. She called out, "Hello!" There was no answer.

Another room guide said that she had a very strange experience a few months ago when she was walking past the Breakfast Room. She said that she looked into the room and it seemed to be dark. She then felt a rushing cold wind as though the windows had been opened.  She went to the Steward's room to ask why the windows were open and was assured that they were not. She checked later and sure enough the windows were firmly shut as usual. She could not explain it.

If anyone else has experienced anything ghostly or unusual at Penrhyn Castle

please contact me because I would love to hear your stories and see any photos. Thanks.

Carolinepenrhyn@gmail.com 

Ghostly photo taken in Dining Room

Last week I was sent this photo by email from someone at the castle. Apparently the lady at the end of the table was visiting with a friend. The friend took the photo and when they looked at it they saw that there was a man standing behind her who wasn't there when the photo was taken! If anyone has any other information I would love to know more about it.

Fascinating new ghost stories sent by email

I received an interesting email this week from someone who used to volunteer at Penrhyn Castle. He said, "I used to work as a volunteer about 2 years ago at Penrhyn Castle, and have had my fair share of weird things going on. I am not an inherently superstitious person and always question whether I have just seen a ghost or if it was some kind trick of the light or some such thing. However, I can’t think of any reasoning that makes sense for the following experience. The first of these spooky occurrences happened around March/April of 2017; I was assigned to the top of the Grand Staircase and had gone up just after the briefing had ended, around 11.30.  I got to the top of the staircase and did my usual morning loop, walking around the two rooms, past the chapel and back around to the top of the staircase. No one was around except for me. I was sat a top the Grand Staircase when I heard footsteps and a large sigh. I went to investigate but there was no one around. I checked all of the rooms and could find no one. This occurred the following week at around the same time, and occurred the week after that. For the next month and a bit I didn’t operate on the Grand Staircase. However, I eventually returned to the Grand Staircase once again, only to find the same footsteps and sigh to be occurring again. Towards the end of the day,  I heard some footsteps once again. I had thought that the whole place was empty, as I had not seen any visitors for about 15 minutes. Therefore, I went to investigate. A blue-and-white maid materialised from no where, holding a tray of food, and went up the stairs of the servants staircase. She walked up the stairs for a few seconds before A blue-and-white maid materialised from no where, holding a tray of food, and went up the stairs for a few seconds before disappearing once more. I was sceptical of the story at first, blaming a long day and an over-active imagination for the apparition. After this event, I didn’t hear anything from the maid. A month or so later, I was talking to one of the other volunteers about ghost-sightings in the Castle when he told me that a Maid had fallen down the very stairs that I saw the apparition and had died there. While the footsteps and sigh are generally quiet, every now and then I still hear it in the morning.

                                                                                       The next story comes from the keep, which is the creepiest part of the Castle without ghosts and such things. It must have been around July/August of 2017 as it was really warm, especially for North Wales. I was positioned in the keep and everything seemed to be going great with nothing weird happening until around lunchtime. There no visitors around the keep at around the keep at the time, as things within the Castle had seemed to have died down. I went on my lunch break and swiftly returned, with only about two visitors populating the corridor in front of the mirror when I returned. I walked along the corridor next to the Nursery when everything felt cold. I thought this was weird due to how warm the rest of the castle was; the other bedrooms in the keep was warm save for the Nursery. Again, nothing happened for a few weeks until I was talking to a couple about the pair of creepy paintings of random kids in the Nursery. I had just finished talking to them when I turned around to look towards the corridor leading to the stairs down to Lord Penrhyn’s sitting room, when I saw the third Lord Penrhyn standing there with a cane. He suddenly walked towards the door leading to his sitting room, and de-materialised before I could see him again. The odd thing was that no one else seemed to have seen him, despite it being a particularly busy day. This was the last weird experience that I had during my tenure at the castle, as I stopped working there by the time September had rolled around.
I hope you find the stories interesting, and would love to hear any plausible theories for why they happened, as I am sure there is a perfectly non-paranormal explanation for the aforementioned stories. Thank you,

James"

Fascinating stories! Anyone who has had any spooky experiences at the castle is welcome to send them to me for inclusion on this blog. Thanks.

Ghostly image on the Grand Staircase

I received an email last week from the daughter in law of one of the Room Guides at Penrhyn Castle. She sent me a photo which she had taken of her daughter at Halloween standing at the foot of the Grand Staircase. She noticed something strange in the photo when she looked at it at home and showed her mother in law. I met the Room Guide outside a shop in Bangor last week and she told me about the photo. I asked if the daughter in law could email it to me so that I could put it on here. Look on the left of the legs of the lady at the top of the stairs. What can you see?

Mysterious vanishing visitor in Slate Bedroom

A few weeks ago I was volunteering as a Room Guide at Penrhyn and was assigned to the Keep Bedrooms. It was fairly quiet that day but there was a steady flow of visitors. I had been talking to a couple of visitors in the Slate Bedroom and I walked with them into the Dressing Room to tell them about the paintings and furniture in the room. As I was talking to them I saw someone come through the door of the Slate Bedroom from the Nursery corridor. I told the visitors that I had to go because I had another visitor and I turned around to go back into the Slate Bedroom to greet the new person.  There was nobody in the room! I thought that perhaps they had gone back into the corridor to look into the Nursery or King's bedroom. I went into the corridor but no visitor was there. I looked in the bathroom and Dressing Room, even behind the doors but did not find anyone. I went out to the area at the top of the stairs by the big mirror but could not see anyone walking away along the Grand Hall Gallery.

I was mystified by this experience because in nearly 20 years of volunteering at the castle I have never seen anything ghostly myself. I have spoken to lots of people who have had ghostly encounters there but this is the first one I have had myself. I cannot explain it in any other way. I definately saw someone go into the Slate Bedroom but there was nobody there. 

I remember writing a story told to me by another room guide a few months ago about a similar experience. She was looking into the Nursery bedroom when she saw someone walk past her and go into the Slate Bedroom. When she went into the room it was empty. She searched for the person she had seen, even looking under the bed! She was very shaken by this experience.  I wonder if it was Alice Douglas Pennant who used the Nursery Bedroom as her bedroom and scratched her name on the window with her diamond ring? Has anyone else had a similar experience in the Keep bedrooms? If you have please let me know in the comments below. Thank you.