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.
