- The Librarian Ghost of Raglan Castle -

One of the last true castles to be built in Wales, Raglan Castle was built over the period of 1435 to 1525 on the site of a Norman motte castle by Sir William ap Thomas, the Blue Knight of Gwent. William was a Welsh knight who fought at the Battle of Agincourt with King Henry V in 1415. William was responsible for building the great tower at Raglan, which became known as the Yellow Tower of Gwent.

Although just a ruin today, enough of the castle remains in tact to make for a fun castle to explore. The castle is also still home to a resident from the English Civil War.

As Richard Jones tells the story...

"A soothing atmosphere permeates the rambling interior of the cold ruin. Some visitors have been startled by fleeting glimpses of what they describe as a bardic figure, beckoning to them from the vicinity of the wing over which the library was once situated. He is thought to be the ghost of the castle’s librarian who, as the Civil War siege ebbed toward its inevitable conclusion, hid the valuable books and manuscripts in a secret tunnel beneath the castle. His fears proved well founded, for one of the first acts perpetrated by the enemy was the destruction of Raglan’s magnificent and priceless library. The fate of the librarian is unknown, but his guardian spirit still watches over his hidden cache of literary treasures. He was last seen in the summer of 2001, when a girl on a school trip came running from the castle, ashen-faced, insisting that she had seen him gesturing to her from a dimly lit corner.

Bookish bogies aside, there is no denying that Raglan Castle possesses a mysterious aura, and no one who treads its gloom-laden passageways and dark, twisting stairwells, or gazes upon its huge, hollow windows, can deny that a certain spine-tingling strangeness hangs over the entire foundation."

This ghost story was taken from the book "Haunted Castles of Britain and Ireland" by Richard Jones. We would like to thank Richard for graciously allowing us to use his text on Great-Castles.com for some of the ghost stories presented on this site. You can find other stories by Mr. Jones on his website, Haunted Britain, or you can buy a copy of his fantastic book, which contains 100 castle ghost stories. To order a book directly from Richard himself, click the image of the book to the left.

About the book: Region by region, ghost-seeker Richard Jones reveals, explains and delights in the tales of tortured phantoms eager to restage their dark and turbulent pasts. The cast of characters ranges from ghostly queens that hurl themselves from the ramparts to malevolent monks that wander the corridors. This authoritative and accessible guide to haunted sites is illustrated throughout and includes extracts from original documents.