Quirky History Swansea Ghosts And Pembrokeshire Big Cats
Quirky HistoryBy Richard Thomas
Since September of last year I've been writing a column for the "South Wales Evening Post", entitled "Grand day Out". Originally a one off outing the column quickly morphed into a regular weekly feature for the weekend section of the newspaper and has involved me visiting different tourist hotspots in Swansea and surrounding south west Wales region. Some of the places I have visited have included Swansea Museum, Mumbles Pier, as well as Oakwood Theme Park and Folly Farm in Pembrokeshire.
While a paranormal connection to any of these popular tourist haunts might sound at first unlikely, in every case there has been at least a tippet of what might be called 'quirky history' attached to either the actual place itself or to the immediate vicinity.
Originally set up by the Royal Institution of South Wales (a local group who wanted to investigate all aspects of history, the arts and science at the beginning of the 19th century) Swansea Museum was completed in 1841 in the grand neo-classical style, and is the oldest museum in Wales.
The main museum on Oystermouth Road contains all kinds of unusual objects from Swansea's past as well as the wider world. The building's six galleries house everything from an ancient Egyptian mummy to a traditional Welsh kitchen. However, what few visitors realise is that the museum is allegedly one of the most haunted buildings in Wales.
I spoke with one of the staff there, Catherine Perrie, who told me she and two colleagues (Paul Giuffrida and Trish Nicholls) had seen a 'dark-cloaked figure' walking up and down the stairs.
When I interviewed Catherine further she told me that she saw the strange figure on top of the stairs twice, on two different evenings. While reading, she saw the outline of a figure on the top of the stairs. When she turned to see who (or what) it was, though, the apparition quickly turned and ran up the next flight of stairs leading to the "Cabinet of Curiosities" gallery room, where, according to Catherine, the strange activity in the building "seems to be mainly focused."
When I talked with another staff member who saw this 'cloaked figure' on the stairs, Paul Giuffrida, he shared with me two other strange experiences that he had had at the museum. The first of which took place in the "Cabinet of Curiosities" a few years ago.
Paul Giuffrida shared with me two other strange experiences he had had at the museum. The first of these took place in the "Cabinet of Curiosities" gallery. While putting a window in for one of the exhibits, "The Victorian Room" (where Catherine told me visitors had reported cold spots and a "presence"), Paul said he heard "a lot of noise... tapping and banging" coming from the corner opposite the lift. Naturally, he assumed someone must have come upstairs but, on investigation, he discovered nobody had.
On another occasion, this time at the museum's collection centre at Landore, Paul told me that while he was working in the storage area he heard "loud whistling" in his hear.
In addition to these two accounts, Paul also related to me that when a medium had been brought in to investigate the strange activity at the museum, they were told the ghost of someone who committed suicide on the lightship "Helwick" now haunted the museum; this might even be the cloaked figure who had been seen on the stairs.
Roger Gale, Swansea Museum's Exhibition and Events Officer, wasn't convinced about this, though, since he doesn't believe in the abilities of mediums and other psychics. Despite this, however, Roger did admit after some coaxing to seeing and experiencing things at the museum. Although a little embarrassed, Roger went into some detail about a full-bodied apparition he saw. It had "come out of the wall" and walked along a corridor before vanishing. Roger said the apparition was in view for at least 15 to 20 seconds and that it looked so lifelike that for a moment he thought it was one of his colleagues.
"It was as real as you are now," he said. I run into similar ghost stories at Mumbles Pier.
The gateway to the Gower Peninsula, an area of immense unspoilt natural beauty unparalleled in South Wales, Mumbles in Swansea is best known for its historic pier, castle, lighthouse and other popular seaside attractions.
What is less well known, however, is that holidaymakers risk getting more than they bargained for at "The Mumbles", as the old fishing village is slowly gaining a spooky reputation for haunted locations. But maybe this isn't surprising as Mumbles has always been considered a place apart, as this old poem has it:
Mumbles is a funny place,A church without a steeple,Houses made of old ships wreckedAnd most peculiar people.
The seaside town began its status as a popular tourist haunt when Mumbles Pier, designed by W. Sutcliffe Marsh and promoted by John Jones Jenkins of the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway, first opened on May 10, 1898.
Stretching 225 meters out into Mumbles Bay, the Victorian built pier was once the only way to visit Swansea in style. The White Funnel paddle steamers of the Bristol-based P the bustling holiday magnet still welcomes thousands of visitors each year from across Wales and the world, all of them attracted to the beautiful beaches, pubs, restaurants and famed scenery of the Mumbles coast.
With such a happy history Mumbles Pier isn't automatically the first place ghost hunters might think to look for proof of the paranormal. Nevertheless, there is at least one ghost story linked with the popular Victorian walkway. The figure of a young woman wearing a long dress and what looks like a scarf or shawl wrapped around her face has been seen walking on the pier late at night, long after closing at 8.00pm. The apparition allegedly disappearing before anyone can ask her who she is? Or why she is haunting the pier?
And Mumbles Pier isn't alone. Oystermouth Castle (aka Mumbles Castle) built sometime around 1100 by William de Londres, and later rebuilt in the thirteenth century by the infamous de Breos family, after being burnt down by the native Welsh twice, also has a resident spectre. Known as the "White Lady of Oystermouth Castle". This apparition of a woman dressed all in white has been experienced many times by visitors to the battlement.
The "White Lady" is usually seen weeping, with the back of her dress ripped away and a series of brutal welts on her back. The woman then abruptly vanishes as if she had never existed before witnesses can offer her any help. Reports of the "Woman in White" allegedly go back centuries, leading some paranormal investigators to believe she might have died after being tied to the medieval whipping post - which still stands in the castle's dungeon, and tortured.
When I visited Pembrokeshire I found evidence for torture of a totally different kind.
Pembrokeshire is best known for its rugged natural beauty and tourism magnets, including Oackwood Theme Park and Folly Farm. In recent years, however, the idyllic maritime county has made national headlines for quite a different reason. Mystery "big cats" have been sighted wandering the county, and leaving paw prints and the gory remains of mutilated livestock in their path.
As late as last January it was reported that a former police officer, Michael Disney, had had an encounter with an animal described as being similar to a "puma or panther". In a statement passed to the police, Mr Disney said he was travelling around 10 to 15mph on a single-track lane when the animal crossed just five meters in front of his car.
"I immediately stopped my vehicle and stared at this animal. It had a large cat-like head, muscular build and was approximately three feet tall... I am 100% certain that this was a puma or panther-like animal and was definitely not a dog, cat or any other domestic animal. It was not something I had seen before other than in a zoo," he said.
Mr Disney's close encounter with an ABC or "alien big cat", which took place near the village of Treffgarne, six miles north of the market town of Haverfordwest, was touted by the Pembrokeshire council as being the "most definitive yet." However, big cat sightings in the region and throughout England and Wales are nothing new.
Members of this writer's own family have on occasion heard "growls" and once even saw what they thought was a puma or panther, "carrying a dead sheep in its mouth." And during the last decade there have been hundreds of similar reports of large big black cats roaming the remote hillsides and valleys of Wales - many of these sightings taking place in the Pembrokeshire region.
Between April 2004 and July 2005, 123 sightings in Wales were reported to the research group Big Cats in Britain. And in March of last year newly released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that a government agency tasked with investigating more than 100 sightings across England since 2005, concluded that 38 were genuine.
But if these creatures are in fact real, and not just the stuff of myth and human imagination, where could they have come from?
The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the only fulltime scientific organisation in the world dedicated to the study of unknown animals. I subscribed to their journal "Animals & Men" and had an opportunity to interview their Zoological Director, Richard Freeman, about the evidence for a breeding population of big cats roaming wild in the British countryside.
"There is no doubt big cats are alive and well in the UK", Richard Freeman told me.
The former Zookeeper from Leeds adding: "A female puma was captured in Inverness in 1980."
"These are descendants of escapees and deliberate releases", he explained.
"Until the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976 anyone could keep anything they wanted as a pet and up until the early 1980s any old duffer could start a zoo in their backyard! The nucleus of the current big cat population in the UK was from these irresponsible people."
When people normally think about the paranormal they tend think about big Hollywood films such as "The Exorcist" or "Close Encounters", but do a little research and maybe you'll find evidence of some "quirky history" in your own local area.
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