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!