Up In The Attic

A rather tardy postscript to this years Ghost Tours, but I wanted to wait for this photo before posting.

This shot of the attic bathroom was taken (on 5/5/06 19.05) by Tony Edwards, one of our psychic tourists, of his partner Claire dowsing for ghosts. Two nice little orbs are bobbing cheerfully where she's standing in front of the sink.

Everybody finds this spot when dowsing, and it's supposed to be the traces of a Victorian gentleman with a curly moustache, who's rather disgruntled to have us all traipsing through the attic.

I was told this by a medium who came on the tour a couple of seasons ago - a small lady with long white hair plaited into a thick braid, reminiscent of the Native American psychic in Poltergeist, only taller - who encountered him in the bathroom, and got rather told off for being there!

"But I've told him, 'I've paid for my ticket! I'm not going anywhere!" she said, firmly. Even the dead didn't argue!

Funnily enough, the male presences in the Architects Office also resent us being there! I wonder if this ties in with the haunted hat stand that used to be there when the office was in use.

Vernon Morgan and his son Roger used to work there in the early 1980's, and on the first day Roger started there he hung his coat on the hatstand beside the door, and his co-worker in the office said, "Oh, don't bother hanging it there. It throws the coats off!".

Sure enough, a few minutes later, off it came.

Apparently it happened so often, that the architects took to timing how long it took for the coat to be thrown off!

Years later we took the hatstand downstairs to our staff-room (The Smoking Room), and it kept the coats on quite happily. So whatever was throwing the coats of is probably still in the attic.

Which brings me to my final point of this entry. Paul, our resident expert, sent me a copy of a comment that was posted on his Tredegar House blog:

'Had this posted to my blog this morning. It is, frustratingly, posted by 'anonymous' but rather interesting nonetheless....

"I went to Tredegar House as a boarder in the 60's. One day I was ill and was allowed to stay in bed in the dormitory which was up in the attic, quite close to the back stairs. I was laying down in bed, but something made me turn over and look towards the door. Above me was a ghost of a man, dressed in old fashioned clothes, an embroidered waistcoat and funny round old fashioned spectacles. He was in physical form, and was staring down at me intently as if concerned about me. I screwed up my eyes and closed them hoping he would go away when I opened them, but he was there for at least two minutes, and then vanished. I told no one at the time fearing ridicule, and have only told the story a handful of times since the event. What a creepy old building it is, and when I was there, some of the old nuns were very creepy as well!"'

Don't get me started on ghost nuns - that's another story!