Curious incident of the Penrhyn Castle pass key

I was told yet another fascinating story last week by a conservation volunteer. He told me that he had taken one of the big, old Penrhyn Castle pass keys to a key cutting shop in Llandudno to see if it could be silver soldered. He said that it had been in his pocket so it was warm. When he handed it to the lady behind the counter she held it for a couple of seconds then dropped it onto the counter. She said it sent cold shivers down her spine, even though she said it was warm to the touch. She had no idea where it was from. He said he would find out whether it is an original keep or a modern copy. He spoke to me on Friday last week and told me that he had spoken to the House Steward who said that it is an old key, but probably not original. It may be an early copy from when the National Trust first took over the castle in 1951.

I would be very interested in speaking to the lady to ask what she experienced when she touched the key. Next time I go to Llandudno I may go into the key cutting shop and talk to her about it.

Ghostly face photographed in tower window

I received an email this week with two photographs attached, from a man who visited the castle a few years ago with his family. He took a photo of the main doors to the stables and when he looked through the photos he noticed a face at the window of one of the stable tower rooms. This is the email I recieved:

I was on holiday with my wife and children and we came to Penrhyn for the afternoon. I was just snapping away and when I got home I was looking at the Crest and clock and happened to look at the window and saw the figure of what looks like a woman. I sent this picture in to a ghost website called Angels and Ghosts and they published it on their site. This was several years ago now. I've been meaning to get in touch with someone at Penrhyn for a while now, and while looking on the net, found your blog. Do you work at Penrhyn? The picture was taken ‎Thursday, ‎August ‎16, ‎2007, ‏‎11:56 I've enlarged the pic, but have not edited it in any other way. Please could you let me know what you think and what anyone else thinks at Penrhyn. Are there any other ghosts pics taken there? Kind regards, Tony

I would be interested to know what people think. Please leave your comments below.

Ghostly skirt sighting in the Keep

I was talking to one of the room stewards this week when I was at the castle for the volunteers Christmas dinner. I had not see her for a while and had heard that she had experienced something strange in the Keep a few weeks ago. Several people had mentioned it to me, so I was very pleased to see her and hear her story. I always try to speak directly to people who have had a ghostly encounter so that I get the story in their own words.

She told me that she had been standing in the corridor near the Nursery Bedroom which used to be Alice Douglas Pennant's room. She was on duty as a room steward that day. She had her back to the King's Bedroom and was looking through the door of the Slate Bedroom, so that she could see if any visitors came into any of the rooms in that area. She suddenly saw someone walking up the corridor towards her wearing a long cream coloured skirt with ridges on it.  She noticed that it was an Edwardian style skirt. As the lady went past her the skirt swished as she walked. The room steward looked up to speak to her and realised that there was nobody there. She looked in all the bedrooms in the Keep but there was no other person around. She was adamant that she had seen the long skirt and was aware of the lady walking towards her. She seemed completely real to her. She said that the experience was not frightening at all, but was so vivid that it stayed with her for about three weeks afterwards.

Alice Douglas Pennant (1862-1939)

I wonder if this could have been the Honourable Lady Alice Douglas Pennant whose bedroom was in the Nursery Room next door and who has been sensed and seen in the room many times by different people over the years?

Unexplained ghostly experiences of a Conservation Volunteer

I was at Penrhyn Castle today to play the part of Lady Penrhyn for the schools hands-on living history Christmas programme. I was getting changed afterwards and preparing to go home when I overheard one of the conservation volunteers asking a conservator if he had been in the area near Lord Penrhyn's study earlier in the afternoon. He thought he had seen him standing at the top of the stairs. I immediately asked what had happened in case it was a ghostly experience and he said that he could not explain what had just taken place. He was moving tables from the corridor near Lord Penrhyn's study down some stairs into the lower link corridor and putting them near a door ready for the volunteers Christmas party on Wednesday. He turned to go back up to get some more tables when he became aware of a figure standing at the top of the stairs. He thought it must be one of the conservation team and he called out his name. The figure disappeared. The volunteer thought that the conservator was playing a trick on him, so he went back up the stairs to look for him. The doors were all locked up and there was nobody around. When he questioned the conservator he had been with another member of the team near Grand Lodge, which is a mile up the driveway! I had just left the Grand Hall with a party of school children and there was nobody else around.

I asked if he had ever experienced anything else unusual and he asked me, "How long have you got?" I sat down with a pen and paper to make notes, feeling very excited to hear some new stories to add to the collection. He told me that he has been involved in a National Trust conservation project entitled a Historic Services Survey. He has been into all of the derelict rooms, attics, cellars and roof voids in Penrhyn Castle to help carry out a survey on the heating and lighting of the property for several months. He was usually on his own and has often been in the dark, as he has been testing the emergency lighting system. He is very practical and down to earth and said that he does not feel at all nervous when in these situations. He always looks for a logical explanation for strange events, but he said that there have been some experiences which he cannot possibly explain.

While he was working in the Upper Link Corridor leading to the Keep bedrooms recently he walked towards the large mirror at the top of the stairs near the nursery bedroom. He clearly saw the reflection of someone walking along the chapel corridor towards the Lower India Room. He assumed it was one of the conservation team and thought that he would play a trick on them, as they had often tried to make him jump in the past. He crept along the Grand Hall Gallery, dodging behind pillars and lamps until he came to the Lower India Room, where he jumped out from behind the door and said "Boo!" There was nobody there and the door was locked. He checked with the conservation staff and they had not been working in the area at that time.

While he was working in the cellars a few weeks ago he went into the Barrel Vault, which is Medieval and is in the oldest part of the castle. It is underneath the Drawing Room. He was using a vacuum cleaner to clean the bottom of the 15th century spiral staircase, known as the Pyrs Gruffydd Tower. He suddenly heard a high pitched man's voice speaking in Welsh. He turned off the vacuum cleaner and went up the stone steps to the entrance to see if it was someone in the area outside the cellar. There was no-one around. He went back to the cellar and continued to vacuum, when the voice started talking again, exactly as before. He left the vacuum running and quickly went up the steps again to see if it was someone looking for him in the area near the entrance, but again there was nobody around. He went back down into the cellars and search all around them to see if there was someone about, but he did not find anyone. He realised that he could only hear the voice when he was in the Medieval cellar. I wonder if it could be John the Bottler, who has been seen in that cellar some years ago.                                                                                                                                                                        
One day he was doing some repairs in the New Room, which was created by enlarging a roof space above the Upper India room. He said that the door suddenly slammed shut, but there was no draught. It made him jump! He could not find anyone around.

He gave an interesting account of an incident which happened in the corridor outside the Visitor Experience team office, which used to be the Education Office. He was standing in the doorway when he suddenly became aware of  a young boy wearing a light coloured shirt and waistcoat standing behind him. He moved out of the way to let the boy go into the office but nobody walked past him. He turned around to see who it was and there was no-one there. The volunteer searched the corridor and looked into the other offices in the area but there was no young boy around at all. He had assumed that it was a member of staff's son.

One evening he was testing the emergency lighting system in the stable block. He switched the lights off in the Industrial Railway Museum. He was standing near one of the carriages. As the emergency lighting came on he caught a glimpse of a man sitting in the carriage. When he looked again, he had disappeared. There was nobody else working in the museum at the time and it was closed to the public. The carriage is kept locked.

I am looking forward to hearing more fascinating stories from this volunteer. He is going to let me know if he remembers any more incidents like these. He is also going to send me some photos of some of the places he has been working when things have happened, which he cannot explain.

Please let me know if you have had any unusual experiences at Penrhyn Castle, and I will add them to the collection.

Is there a poltergeist in the National Trust shop?

Last week I volunteered to help at a Fun Day which was held in the stables. I went to look at the new shop in the other part of the stables and had the chance to talk to the shop manager. She told me that some strange things had been happening in the shop in the servants' hall in the castle. She was on her own one day taking things from one part of the shop into the other room. She had left the door between the two rooms open so that she could easily move from one room to the other without having to open the door each time. She turned round to go back through the door with some things she had to carry into the other room,only to find that the door had been closed behind her. There was nobody else in the room who could have closed it and no draught to cause it to shut by itself.

Another day when one of the shop assistants was working in the main room of the shop, the music CD in the CD player in the book room suddenly started to play very loudly. She went into the room to see if anyone has interfered with it but there was only a man standing on the other side of the room looking at the books. He was as startled as she was by the sudden loud music! This has also happened on another occasion when a different shop assistant was in the shop. Nobody was in the room with the CD player that time. Very strange!

I am pleased to know that spooky things are still happening at the castle. I hope that anyone who has any strange experiences there will let me know so that I can record them on here.

There are going to be spooky Twilight Tours of the castle during Halloween week on the 25th, 28th, 29th 30th and 31st  October. Please book in early so that you can get a place as numbers will be limited. Tours will cost £10 per person. For £5.00 extra you will be able to try Witches Broth, Devil's Dough and a drink.There will be a Halloween Fun Day on Thursday 31st October with Castle Performers at 2pm. Book your place on the tours by telephoning the castle on 01248 353084

Spooky Behind the Scenes Tour

I have not been working at the castle so far this year apart from volunteering on some of the Fun Days,which is why I have not been able to add any new ghost stories since the 1st March. I was very excited to see this evening that I have had over 30,000 views on this blog and a new story from a recent visitor to the castle which I am giving its own title and space here. I hope the writer will not mind me using her story:

Hello! I replied to one of these blog posts last summer when I first visited the castle. On entering the small toilet room at the top of the grand staircase (last year) I became instantly much colder despite the general warmth of the day. Yesterday, (for the first time since then), I came to the castle and entered the same room. This time however, I felt nothing. Prior to exploring the house with my friend we went on one of the new (and fantastic) secret rooms tower tours. On walking into Lord Penrhyn's study our tour guide began to tell us of the son who died in WWI. He then moved on and I walked towards the stone placed on the desk. As I did so I shivered violently and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up - it felt as if someone was watching me despite everyone else being at the other end of the study. As we walked past the room again later on I felt similarly uncomfortable. The presence had not left. The original nursery also disturbed me slightly, though this may have purely been due to it's disrepair and the general 'haunted' quality many abandoned nurseries have, due to their associations in horror movies. I am in the process of writing an amateur historical fiction surrounding the life of Lady Alice (inspired by my trip last year.) In her room I felt nothing but both my friend and I agreed that the painting above the fireplace had an eerie feel about it. Down in the kitchens I entered one of the dark but open pantries. Stepping into it I again felt cold, a sensation of foreboding crept over me and I left swiftly, glancing nervously over my shoulder as I went. The castle is my favourite of the National Trust properties and I love the improvements in terms of attractions/tours for this year. Hope to see you soon!

28 June 2014 12:34

 

I hope this experience will encourage those of you with an interest in the supernatural to come on the tours. They start at 11.00am. Meet at the main entrance to the castle. Please let me know if you experience anything unusual.

Open Day 1st March 2014... a busy day for the ghosts of Penrhyn Castle!

Penrhyn Castle re-opened to the public on Saturday 1st March 2014, which was also St. David's Day. Over 900 visitors poured through the doors of the castle, explored the gardens and visited the Industrial Railway Museum. The weather was sunny and the carpets of snowdrops were magnificent. Inside the castle the ghosts were apparently as active as the National Trust staff and volunteers who have worked so hard to get the property ready for the opening day. I was volunteering as the face painter in the old shop in the stable block. I painted 30 children's faces that day! There were various crafts and activities for children in the stable block and I was on my own to keep an eye on it all.

I managed to have a 20 minute break about 1 pm to give me enough time to go into the house to hear the Welsh harps being played in the Grand Hall. I met a friend who had brought several of her friends with her, some of whom had not visited Penrhyn Castle before. One of them was a young girl of 16 called Alice, who is apparently very psychic. She has had many experiences of seeing people who have died and can describe them in some detail. I went with her and her family to the bedrooms in the Keep. She stood by the door of the Nursery bedroom and described a young woman who was standing by the window. She said that she was crying and was leaning her chin on her hand and she gazed out of the window. She felt her great sadness. She described her as very slim and that she had her long fair hair curled at the front, with the sides swept up and the back loose over her shoulders. Her dress was a pale silvery grey colour, although she could not see it clearly. Cheralyn and Alice both sensed that she had been in a relationship with someone who worked in the grounds, but not a gardener, as some people have felt.

Her experience in the room sounds very similar to one which I described a couple of years ago when an elderly lady saw a young girl in the room and could feel her sadness. She later identified her as the Honourable Alice Douglas Pennant from the photograph of the family in the entrance lobby. Alice saw a young baby in the King's Bedroom.

We went into the Slate Bedroom after the Nursery and Alice immediately said that she did not like the feeling in there. She had a sudden headache, which she described as pressure in her head. Her mother came in behind her and said that she did not like the room and had a headache as soon as she walked in too! Two of my friends also visited the castle on the Open Day and told me the next day that they had a bad feeling in the Slate Bedroom and in the Scullery. They sensed something telling them to get out of there as fast as possible. Neither of them told the other one what they had felt until later that evening when they found out that they had both experienced the same thing in the same places! Both of the locations are where a "black whoosh" has been seen. Cheralyn described it as an earth spirit, one which came from the land where the castle is built, not from the people of the castle itself.

I had to go back to the stable to do the face painting so I left them to continue their tour of the house. Afterwards they came to find me and told me a few of the things they had seen and felt there. Alice saw a man standing on the Grand Hall Gallery looking down into the hall. Cheralyn saw him too and asked her to describe him. It was Hugh Napier, the 4th Lord Penrhyn. He has been seen in the same place several times. He always appears to be grumpy. There is a photograph of him in the library, so she was able to confirm that it was him.

In the Library Alice saw a woman with dark hair standing in the corner of the room. She pointed her out to Cheralyn and told her that she had gone into the small tower room off the library. When she came out again Alice described her and Cheralyn asked her to look at the desk in front of the window. She pointed to a photograph of a young lady in a ball gown. It was the woman she had seen and described. The lady she saw was Lady Janet Douglas Pennant who inherited the castle from Hugh Napier and gave it to the National Trust in 1951.

She went into the Drawing Room and felt very uncomfortable near the spiral staircase. She said that there was an unpleasant presence there. She did not see anything but felt as though she need to move quickly into the Ebony Room. She did not like the cold unwelcoming feeling in that room. She said that it felt weird.

She told me that she had seen a woman in the chapel who was wearing a dark coloured dress and had a large bunch of keys dangling from her waist. She looked very disapproving and followed the party around until they came to the kitchens. They thought that she was probably the Housekeeper as she would have had a bunch of keys. The Housekeeper poked Alice in her arm in the kitchen, which made her jump! A young maid called Polly was seen near the kitchen. She was running. Alice said that she could hear a lot of shouting as soon as she entered the house.

Cheralyn saw Alice Douglas Pennant standing near the grand piano. She also saw the 2nd Lord Penrhyn in the entrance hall. She had the feeling that he was saying, "This is mine!" There was a distinct feeling of dominance from him. Cheralyn said that whenever he was around his daughter Alice Douglas Pennant disappeared as though she was afraid of him.

When the group went into the Ice Tower Alice said that she looked into the hole in the tower room where the ice was taken out in a bucket and could see a man standing in the hole looking up at her. She could smell a horrible decaying smell, like something rotten. The hole is dry and there is not usually a smell in the tower room. She could smell it very distinctly and said that is made her feel sick!

Did anyone else experience anything unusual there? I would love to hear your stories. Please add your comments below. Thanks.

Ghostly footsteps and a mysterious rattling door!

I was at Penrhyn Castle today for a Winter talk for staff and volunteers in the Gallery. I am always interested to hear about any ghostly experiences which have happened since I was last there. Two of the Visitor Experience Assistants who are working at the castle over the winter season told me about their recent spooky encounters. One of them was upstairs in the office above the stable block last week when she heard footsteps coming along the corridor. She knew that she was the only person in the building so she was surprised to hear someone walking past the office. She said that it was definitely the sound of shoes on the quarry tiled floor but then she heard the rustling of a dress. She went into the corridor to check if anybody was there but she could not find anyone. She said that it felt very creepy!

The corridor

The other Visitor Experience Assistant said that she was working in the stable entrance a few days ago. She was wiping the tables in the Coffee Shop when she heard a rattling sound. It was coming from the door of the storeroom where the Christmas decorations are kept when not in use. The rattling stopped when she looked at the door. It sounded like someone was trying to open the door from inside the storeroom. She continued wiping the tables, wondering what could have caused the rattling noise when it started again. She felt frightened and decided to challenge whatever was doing it. She said, "Stop it! I am here on my own. You are going to frighten me!" The rattling sound stopped and did not happen again. She said that it could not have been caused by a draught as it was not a windy day and the door does not rattle in the wind.

The storeroom door

I am going to another talk in two weeks time. I wonder if I will be told any more interesting stories?