Thomas Corum Caldas - Hangman, Hound & Other Hauntings

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Thomas Corum Caldas - The Hangman, The Hound and Other Hauntings: A Gazetteer of Welsh Ghosts (Llygad Gwalch, 2010)

Clynnog Fawr cemetery
Cover design: Eirian Evans

Introduction
Pubs, inns and hotels
Castles and their ghosts
Haunted sacred buildings
Haunted private and public buildings
Phantoms of the roadside

Note; the names of all living persons mentioned in this book have been changed

blurb:
A book of haunted places in Wales which still exist, and can be visited ...
Thomas Corum Caldas will take you on a tour of Wales looking for ghosts. You will go back centuries, to the time of ghostly monks and knights. Also included are more 'modern' hauntings, like that at Cyfarthfa Castle, said to be haunted by William Crawshay II. There are also dog-hauntings, like that of Math, the dog who howls at Flint castle; cats, like that at St. Donat's and highway ghosts such as the lady in white who walks the Aberglaslyn Pass.
The author treats ghosts and hauntings with respect. They are very different in character - some are menacing, but others are friendly, and some even laugh! They turn up all over the place - we expect them in old castles and inns, but they have been seen in a snooker club, theatres, a municipal hall and hospitals, as well as in some of the buildings that have been moved to the National History Museum at St Fagan's near Cardiff.
The book points an accusing finger at the torturers or murderers of some of the unfortunate victims of cruelty mentioned in the text - like poor Lady de Clare, who was buried up to the neck in a field and left to die - or victims of immuration.
Thomas Corum Caldas spent many years in Ireland, where he became a member of an ancient druidic order. His training included teachings on the nature of ghosts. He says, 'This book is intended to convey a basic scientific understanding of the nature of a haunting, but can also be read for enjoyment.'

From the Spitalfields Crypt charity shop, Watney market, yesterday morning. First thought was to add direct to Vault True Ghost Library, but, Haunted Wales being underrepresented on here, decided topic was overdue own thread.

"Most of the spectral lodgers in the pubs and inns of Wales are quite harmless, but there are also a few mischievous or even harmful phantoms around, such as, for instance, at the Llindir Inn in Henllad, where a spectral sea captain sometimes assaults the villagers, or the phantom of the Rummer in Cardiff, which causes a feeling of great dread."

Selective pub crawl. The Conway Inn, Aberdare, is troubled by a poltergeist prone to rearranging furniture and setting off the burglar alarm; there's also something unspeakable in the women's toilet; a phantom monk, dead motorcyclist and nondescript young woman take it in turns to haunt the Bull Hotel, Abergele (we're looking good for cowled spectres; there's another Brother hogs a table in the restaurant bar at the Pwllgwyn hotel, Aforwen); the Black Lion, Flintshire, boasts a phantom arse-slapper in the ladies and the ghosts of bloodily slain Roman Legionaries in the basement; by contrast, the St. Pierre Golf & Country club can only offer a disappointingly benign lady in grey and a perma-jolly gardener. Worthy of note to greater and lesser degree: the Morticia Addams-a-like of Bargoed's Emporium snooker club; the hound of the Baskerville Hall Hotel, Hay-on-Wye ("Conan Doyle .... relocated the legend to Cornwall to protect the anonymity of the people involved"); the phantom strangler of the Black Boy Inn in Caernarton's former red-light district; and the spectral lady in the mens bogs of the Royal pub, Barry.

So I'm easily pleased but it always give me a kick to find forgotten ephemera in books, be it antique bus ticket or veritable mini-scrapbook. Slipped inside the cover of this one, a flyer for Dark Wales Tours.

[to be continued]

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Pub ghosts; concluded. A mixed bag of the vengeful, the benign and the just plain pointless. Personal picks of the crop; the phantom organist of the Prince of Wales, Kenfig, whose playing first came to landlord and landlady's attention in 1982 (so he or she possibly more an ... of the Paradise tribute than ... Opera.); a super-diligent witch-finder, scribbling notes in his book at the White Hart, Llanddarrog; a crisp-throwing poltergeist at Wrexham's Thirsty Scholar; the anti-laughing cavalier of the Queen's Head, Monmouth, who died botching an attempt on Cromwell's life: Petra and Roberta, the ghostly forbidden lovers of the Thomas Arms, Llanelli — same premises also notable for sudden blood-curdling cries from the cellars, reputedly those of child victims of a black magic cult; the multiple ghosts of the Rhimney House Hotel, involuntary participants in a perpetual murder mystery weekend. Which of them stuffed a pregnant serving maid's corpse down the well? There is some dispute whether the ghost of the Crosskey Hotel is that of a maidservant who took her own life, or a monk from neighbouring Usk priory, hung, drawn and quartered for a crime unspecified. I didn't expect to meet an old friend here, but it seems, on the rare occasion he is excused from duty in Wapping, the ghost of Judge 'Bloodie' Jeffreys can be found resting up in a room on the upper floor of the Skirrid Mountain Inn, Llanvihangel Crucorney, "the oldest pub in Wales." Will close with the mortuary room of the Plough & Harrow, Monknash. Local wreckers would store the corpses of the drowned in an enclosed area adjoining the bar. The dividing wall has long since been demolished ...


Have just made a start on Part 2. Castles the world over are generally good for more than just the one ghost and early indications suggest the Welsh are in no hurry to break with this particular tradition.

[TBC]

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"Quite often the history of these castles reads like a story taken from a Gothic novel. There is suspense and mystery paired with a touch of the supernatural .... "

A scythe-wielding skeleton in a hooded robe; a beautiful, blue-eyed lady in red who met her death in a fox-hunting accident (what a terrible shame!), the cheery white lady of Emily Tower (good with families), a bat-attracting 'swishing' ghost in the corridor outside the Telescope room, and three medieval spooks, leftover from long before the castle was built, are among the ghostly crew awaiting visitors to Gyrych Castle, Abergeyle, Conway.

Bodelwyddan has phantom women in black, lilac and blue -at least one of whom drinks tea - plus several ghost-children and random Victorians, at least one of whom is given to strumming a spectral unseen harpsichord. At Dunraven, Bridgend, another blue lady haunts the site of a castle long demolished. Marc Alexander's Haunted Castles is referenced as the source for sketchy details on the same ex-premises 'Green Lady.'Boverton is home to Lady Hadwisa, and has been for the several centuries she's mourned the no-good husband who traded her for a rich young French heiress. Among the several spectral attractions Cardiff castle has to offer, a phantom coach-and-four by the gate house, a nine foot man in the park and his ghost-ship, the centuries dead Marquis of Bale tending his library.

A phantom army at Caernarfon. A monks chorus and foreboding watcher-in-the-dark at Beaumaris, Anglesey. Yet more hooded brothers at Caldicot.


I'm sure we've met some of above in Welsh supernatural/ horror anthologies;

R. Chetywnd-Hayes [ed.] - Welsh Tales of Terror, 1973
Peter Haining [ed.] - The Magic Valley Travellers, 1974.
Paul Finch [ed.] - Terror Tales of Wales, 2014.

[helrunar]

This sounds like a lot of fun. I could use the apparition of a swishy ghost today, in the middle of a heatwave; preferably the ghost would tell old Paul Lynde jokes and I'd rummage around for the cocktail shaker and some spectral gin as I doubt that ghost would be happy sipping tea.

Interesting about Hadwisa--I recall that having been the name of the Queen of the nefarious King John, and that Hadwisa was supplanted by scheming and very young French b*tch Isabella, who in the Robin of Sherwood version of mediaeval British history murdered the young Prince Arthur.

H.

[dem bones]

Will come back to the chapters on sacred, public & private buildings. Last night's reading was Phantoms of the Roadside. On this evidence, Wales is surprisingly lacking in phantom hitch-hikers.

A policeman whose heart gave out as he was making an arrest in 1911, has jaywalked the Aber-big to Cwm road ever since. An elderly woman in a rain mac haunts the Old Rhyl Road; it's pointless stopping for her as she'll vanish should you offer her a lift. An unquiet dogging vicar patrols Old Warren, Broughton's popular lover's lane, peering in widows and generally enjoying a crafty postmortem ogle. A spectral coach pulled by headless horses haunts the road between Denby and Sampson Cross, it's driver and female passenger likewise minus skulls. The entire apparition is said to disappear in a loud explosion. A mystery near-nude girl climbs from the river Cowlwyn at Llam Trysol. Queen Boudicca of the multiple graves — Stanmore common, Parliament Hill, beneath platform 10 of Kings Cross station, etc — is sporadically sighted leaving a tomb on Gop Garn, as are a Roman General and the occasional footsoldier; a large phantom medieval army with banners and horses host reunions in the Nant Y Ffrith valley. Squire Thomas, cider fiend, has defied afterlife bans and an exorcism to pursue his reign of terror versus the pub landlords of Redwick village. Seldom a quiet moment in Wepre Hall Park where Nora, the white nun haunts the waterfall, her headless lover, the monk, flits between the trees, and restless hounds crawl from their graves in the dog cemetery. Finally, if you've not yet done with living then it's better you avoid the white women of Aberglaslyn Pass.

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Haunted Sacred Buildings.

"Researchers have speculated that the unfortunate person whose remains were found in a cavity of a wall in the priest's room was a nun who had committed an unpardonable sin. As a punishment she was immured. Her ghost now haunts Old Hall."

Sixteen pages of murder monks, self-drowners, (more often than not clutching their illegitimate offspring), cathedral choirs, men-in-gold (Valle Crucis Abbey), and a couple in Edwardian costume whose grey pallor resembles elephant skin. Neath Abbey's resident ghost is that of a monk who betrayed his brothers. He is eternally damned to pound its gates, beseeching forgiveness and readmittance. Several skeletons discovered in Brecon Cathedral are believed to be those of yet more nuns entombed in the masonry. No mention of their crime, but I think we can guess.

Maybe some capable researcher will consider compiling a gazetteer of bricked-up nuns in England & Europe?

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Haunted Private and Public Buildings.

Run-of-the-mill for most part. Few you'll not find the equivalent of in other British and Irish gazetteers. Selection includes; the bleeding ghosts of Beaumaris Gaol, victims of fatal punishment beatings by sadistic wardens; an unseen chain-rattling presence at Newton House, Llandeilo, believed to be the ghost of Elinir Cavendish, who took refuge here circa early 1700s to avoid an arranged marriage. Alas, the offended intended learned of her whereabouts and murdered her. A phantom usherette walks the old cinema at the Memorial Hall, Newbridge. A spectral keeper diligently goes about his duty at the long locked and boarded Talacre lighthouse. The Swansea Grand theatre's mandatory woman in white is either the ghost of famous soprano Adelina Patti, or Jenny, a young actress who went down with the Titanic, while possibly the least interesting of the opera phantoms - an elderly lady of a sunny disposition - occasionally serenades visitors to Cardiff New Theatre. But for mediocre poltergeist activity at Aber Conwy house, a dubious 'vampire' at Baron Hall, a lady in blue wimple and a phantom odour of stew at Brithdir Mawr, that's pretty much it for The Hangman, The Hound & Other Hauntings. I found the Pub, Castle and roadside ghosts an altogether more interesting bunch.