Some years ago I took my
sons, then aged 12 and 8 on their first visit to England. For reasons I won’t
go into, my husband was supposed to accompany us but didn’t make the trip so it
was just me and the two boys circumnavigating England in a Fiat Punto… and we
did castles. I mean we really DID castles! Starting in the Tower of London on
our first day through Warwick Castle, Ashby de La Zouch, York and down into
Wales.
If you want to see castles
then Wales is the place to go. The great castles built by Edward I as a symbol
of his power and authority over the rebellious Welsh ring the Welsh border down
through the Marches and across the coastline. However by the late middle ages,
the need for these great stone edifices had diminished and the wealthy landowners
were building elegant houses with minimal fortifications and “all mod cons”.
Our adventure was in the
days before GPS and Navman and I was driving a car with an 8 year old and a 12
year old who, for all his badges in Scouts, appeared incapable of reading a
map. So every evening, in consultation with the road atlas, I would
painstakingly write out our route for the day for him to read out loud to me.
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| Gwydir Castle - exterior |
This system worked well
until we got to Wales where all the road signs are in Welsh. The inevitable happened
and we got lost… spectacularly lost somewhere in northern Wales and on a back
road I saw a sign that said “Gwydir Castle”. If nothing else it was a chance for a
break and to consult the road map and ask a friendly native where we were.
As it turned out Gwydir Castle was not so much a castle as a late
medieval/Tudor fortified manor house. Probably owing to its strategic position
in a narrow valley, the site of Gwydir had been in continual occupation for
centuries before Meredith ap Ieuan ap Robert, the founder of the Wynn dynasty,
built the present Gwydir Castle, using material from the dissolved Abbey of
Maenan. Of particular interest to me, as a student of the English Civil War,
the house was reputed to have been visited in 1645 by Charles I, as the guest
of Sir Richard Wynn, 2nd Baronet, Treasurer to Queen Henrietta Maria, and Groom
of the Royal Bed Chamber.
It had recently been
purchased and opened up to the public by the owners to raise the money to
restore it (I believe it is now a B&B). At the time I happened upon it in
1996, these works were very much in their early stages and it was dark, gloomy
and overgrown. Everything you would imagine a thoroughly haunted house to be!
In preparing for this article I found wonderful images on the internet which
bear no resemblance to the half derelict building it had been!
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| Gwydir Castle - gates |
I have an interest in ghost
stories and the paranormal and while I have not ‘seen’ a ghost I have visited
places where I have felt decidedly uncomfortable and Gwydir was one of those
places. From the moment I stepped through the heavy front gate, it felt as if
my heckles went up and I am not surprised to see it described (more recently)
on its website as “One of the most haunted houses in Wales”.
Needless to say we were the
only visitors so I got talking to the caretaker, asking her about the spectral
inhabitants of the house. The most frequent ‘visitor’ is a grey (or white) lady
thought to be the ghost of a servant girl who was murdered after becoming
pregnant during a romance with one of the lords of the manor and her body hidden in a wall space beside a chimney
breast (a priest hole). The presence of this apparition is said to be
accompanied by the stench of decaying flesh. It is said that the 5th Baronet
confessed on his death bed to a murder in his youth. The other suspect is the
first Baronet, Sir John Wynn (whose ghost is also seen) who was reputedly
something of a local tyrant.
Also seen is a monk (said to
have died when trapped in a tunnel from a secret room) and the sound of crying
children is also heard.
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| Gwydir Castle - interior |
Thankfully our visit was
uneventful and free of nauseating smells of decay. However the chatty caretaker
did tell us about the ghost dog. She owned a dog which came with her to work at
the Castle. Hearing barking she looked out of the window and saw her dog
joyfully gambling in the garden with a strange dog (she described as “a tall,
grey dog”) she had never seen before. She went out to call her animal in and at
the sound of her voice the second dog just vanished. FOR MORE ON THE GHOSTS,
CLICK HERE
Some years later, the owner
of the house found some bones in the cellar during the restoration and had them
sent away for analysis. The result came back saying they were the bones of a
dog. Conscious that the bodies of animals were often used in the foundations of
houses to ward off evil spirits, she restored the bones to where they had been
found and the spectral dog has not been seen since.
We went on to visit Conwy
Castle (where I nearly lost the boys to a harrassed school teacher in charge of
a large school group), Ruthin Castle (complete with hokey medieval banquet),
Harlech Castle (Men of…) and my favourite castle, Denbigh Castle but if I look
back at that trip, it is the quiet, brooding menace of Gwydir Castle that stays
with me more than any of the others!
HAVE YOU EVER VISITED A PLACE THAT JUST “STAYED WITH YOU”?
