Berry Pomeroy Castle

It is said that Margaret de Pomeroy still walks here, appearing as a misty shape deep inside the dungeon and as a "White Lady" who climbs one of the towers and walks around the ramparts. She was imprisoned and starved to death by her sister Eleanor because they both sought the affections of the same man. Another phantom is the "Blue Lady," who haunts the manor house and is supposed to be a daughter of the de Pomeroy family who smothered her baby when it was born, the girl having been made pregnant by her own father. Her ghost beckons to men for help, and when they attempt to assist, the samaritans find themselves trapped by the ruins (one person was injured when he fell from the ruins). Two more phantoms are said to be young brothers, who leapt to their deaths from the ramparts wearing armour after riding their horses to the top. There have been other phantoms reported including a small boy in a hood, a man in Stuart attire, "Child Isabella", a tall man in a dark suit, a cane bearer (a young woman dressed in rags who may poke witnesses with her canes), a guardsman carrying a lantern on the ramparts, an old gardener who scythes the grass, a spectral dog (maybe two!) and a cavalier (who is seen on the road outside and smiles at people telling them that he is on the way to the local inn). Apart from these spectres, there have been reports of alleged activity including lights, sounds such as hooves, a smell of perfume, animals behaving oddly, the failure of electrical equipment and humans feeling as if they had been touched or shoved. The Weird Wiltshire website relates an interesting tale; "When I visited the café to grab a coffee I asked the manager there [about ghost stories]. She told me a funny little story. Apparently, a couple of years back they had been making a pan of jam and had left it to cool in the café kitchen overnight. The place was locked; only the manager had the keys. When they came in the following morning, the lid of the jam pan was knocked off and several jammie handprints went up the tiled wall behind the cooker."

Researcher Greg Hardman sent me images of the English Heritage Castle guide book regarding the claims of ghost here; "The "historical explanations" given for Berry's principal spectres are, however, without foundation. Most are based on the mistaken belief that Berry was a Norman castle occupied by generations of Pomeroys, and many can be traced to the 19th century works of fiction written as the ruins became increasingly popular with visitors. The tale of the Pomeroy brothers heard galloping to their doom over the castle cliff to avoid defeat in a siege is a borrowing from a story told about St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. Berry Pomery was never in reality besieged at any time. The story of the Blue Lady (a Pomeroy reputed to have strangled her child by her own father) who lures visitors to their doom, was supposedly told by the physician Sir Walter Farquhar (1738-1819). He is said to have encountered her in a panelled room with a stained-glass window within the castle at some unspecified date in the late 18th century. In fact, the Buck print of the castle made in 1734 shows it already a roofless and tree grown ruin four years before Farguhar was born. The most famous Berry Pomeroy ghost, the White Lady, originated in 'The Castle of Berry Pomeroy,' a Gothic tale of jealousy, multiple murder and ghostly revenge published in 1806 under the pseudonym Edward Montague. In it, Elinor Pomeroy, jealous of her prettier sister Matilda's success with the man Elinor loves, has her shut up and left for dead in a dungeon below the castle chapel. Later the character Matilda was renamed Margaret and the story went that she was starved to death in the 'dark dungeon' identified as being the basement of St Margaret's Tower. That this 'dungeon' is in fact a late medieval gun emplacement, lit by large gun ports communincating directly with the castle's exterior, does not stop the White Lady from haunting the tower and its wall-walk. Some people continue to report phenomena in the castle and its surroundings, such as strange lights, cold spots, feelings of terror, jamming cameras, stalling car engines, slippings back in time and impressions that the whole building is infused with an evil influence. Now that much more is known about Berry Pomeroy's unusually bloodless history, however, the explanations for these have also moved with the times. Ghostly damsels are less often held responsible than are the intersection of ley lines, the enactment of mysterious prehistorical rituals, or periodic visits by wandering bands of earthbound 'elementals.'"

Link: Devon Live

Link: Devon Live

Link: Mojo Mortgages

Link: Devon Live

Link: Weird Wiltshire

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