Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2: Wilson.
Speaker 1: It's the last week of October.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Not all of our October episodes have been as halloweeny
Speaker 1: as they might historically have been. Yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: it's typical to have some non Halloween episodes, but it
Speaker 1: has felt a little thinner this year. There. It's because
Speaker 1: usually all of mine are very HALLOWEENI and they haven't
Speaker 1: all been very Halloween, and I feel like I've failed.
Speaker 1: So it's ghost Week. I'm trying to make it up
Speaker 1: to everybody's all ghosts all the time. According to an
Speaker 1: article that was written by Mike Wade for The Times
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, quote in Britain, around a
Speaker 1: third of people say that they believe in ghosts, and
Speaker 1: one in ten claims to have seen one. And that
Speaker 1: got me thinking that the British Isles sure are full
Speaker 1: of ghost stories. So all week long we're doing Ghosts
Speaker 1: of the British Isles. It's our wrap up to Halloween season,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, it would be a cool thing
Speaker 1: to do a two parter that collects assorted ghost stories
Speaker 1: of the British Isles, which I sort of did, but
Speaker 1: I also kind of messed up because I only got
Speaker 1: to three of them because in doing the research, I
Speaker 1: got so involved in seeking out info and trying to
Speaker 1: flesh out some things that I realized like had gotten
Speaker 1: dead ended in a lot of the telling, that I
Speaker 1: filled up two episodes with just three. So the first
Speaker 1: episode deals with two very ghosty ghost tales. They are
Speaker 1: ghost stories. The first one takes about two thirds of
Speaker 1: the episode, and then the second takes about the last third,
Speaker 1: and then the second episode of the week will be
Speaker 1: an examination of a seven teenth century poltergeist story, so
Speaker 1: they can stand each on their own, but we're still
Speaker 1: grouping them together as a two parter as our sort
Speaker 1: of October finale. So welcome to Ghost Week.
Speaker 2: First, we have the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, and
Speaker 2: that's a spirit we've talked about on the show before.
Speaker 2: She was part of our Spirit Photography live show in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, and we'll have a little bit of crossover
Speaker 2: with that. But there is more to the Brown Lady
Speaker 2: haunting story than we could really include of that in
Speaker 2: the context of that show on a different topic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So first we'll talk a little bit about Raynham
Speaker 1: Hall for clarity. This is the Raindom Hall in Norfolk, England,
Speaker 1: not the one in New York, which has its own
Speaker 1: historical significance. But this Raindom Hall was built in sixteen
Speaker 1: twenty by Sir Roger Townsend on a seven thousand acre
Speaker 1: estate and it was at the time a unique structure
Speaker 1: in comparison to most existing manor houses in England at
Speaker 1: the time because it was built in the Italian style.
Speaker 1: It's this beautiful red brick building. It looks definitely different
Speaker 1: than others that were being built around the time.
Speaker 2: More than one hundred years later, the person living at
Speaker 2: Raynham Hall was Charles Townsend, second Viscount Townsend, who came
Speaker 2: to be known by the nickname Turnip Townsend, and that
Speaker 2: was because he was interested in agriculture. He had been
Speaker 2: born at Raynham in sixteen seventy four and after a
Speaker 2: career in politics, that was where he returned to work
Speaker 2: on the farming projects. Turnip Townsend hired an architect named
Speaker 2: William Kent to make both exterior and interior renovations to
Speaker 2: the existing structure. In the seventeen thirties. One of Raynham's
Speaker 2: famous features is its ornate chimney pieces, and those were
Speaker 2: part of Kent's work.
Speaker 1: But it is also with this Charles, and there are
Speaker 1: several Charles's. I apologize. Charles Townsend is a name that
Speaker 1: gets repeated throughout the family tree. But it is with
Speaker 1: this Charles that the haunting story begins, or rather really
Speaker 1: with his wife, Lady Dorothy Walpole. She was the sister
Speaker 1: of Robert Walpole, considered the first British Prime Minister. So
Speaker 1: the Walpoles are hot topics this Halloween season on stuff
Speaker 1: you missed a history class, so you'll remember we just
Speaker 1: covered Horace. And the story here is that Dorothy haunts
Speaker 1: Raynham Hall to this day, but the details regarding her
Speaker 1: life have kind of taken on a life of their own.
Speaker 2: The classic and often repeated version of Lady Townshend's story
Speaker 2: is that Charles treated her terribly, and this is in
Speaker 2: line with the reason that people give for Dorothy haunting
Speaker 2: the estate. She's trapped there, maybe seeking some kind of
Speaker 2: retribution or understanding. This version of the story is that
Speaker 2: Charles had a temper and he either learned that Dorothy
Speaker 2: had been unfaithful to him, or that she'd been romantically
Speaker 2: involved with someone else before they were married. A popular
Speaker 2: version is that Dorothy, who was known to be a spender,
Speaker 2: had angered Charles by just frittering away huge amounts of money.
Speaker 1: She and Charles have their own additional, complicated backstory. They're
Speaker 1: said to have been childhood sweethearts, but that the Wallpoles
Speaker 1: did not agree to a match, so Charles married another woman,
Speaker 1: that was Elizabeth Pelham, and they had a family together,
Speaker 1: a big family. Some reports say they had ten kids,
Speaker 1: while others say that it was five, and this might
Speaker 1: reflect the remainder of them having died in childhood. But
Speaker 1: when Elizabeth died, Charles and Dorothy were finally able to marry,
Speaker 1: which they did in seventeen thirteen, and they too had
Speaker 1: a lot of kids, perhaps eleven. Similarly, in Charles's obituary,
Speaker 1: it states that he and Dorothy had four sons and
Speaker 1: two daughters. So obviously that does not add up to eleven,
Speaker 1: and that discrepancy numbers remains a mystery. Like the other one,
Speaker 1: they may have lost children at a very young age,
Speaker 1: but after thirteen years of marriage in seventeen twenty six,
Speaker 1: Dorothy contracted smallpox and died.
Speaker 2: But rumors sprang up that she was not in fact dead,
Speaker 2: and she was instead a prisoner at Raynham Hall, forbidden
Speaker 2: to go out or even see her own children. These
Speaker 2: rumors persisted, and, as rumors often do, they expanded. Soon
Speaker 2: there were whispers that the funeral had been staged, and
Speaker 2: that there was no body in her coffin, and that
Speaker 2: Charles had put together this deception so that he could
Speaker 2: keep her in the house, isolated and alone, as some
Speaker 2: kind of punishment. Some versions of the story say that
Speaker 2: she was starved to death, and others say she was
Speaker 2: pushed down the stairs by Charles and broke her neck.
Speaker 2: In seventeen thirty eight, Charles Townsend died somewhat suddenly, according
Speaker 2: to a report in the Darby Mercury on Sunday, June
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, seventeen thirty eight, on the preceding Wednesday, quote
Speaker 2: after supper, his Lordship returned to his room, apparently in
Speaker 2: good health. He rung his bell, and the servant going
Speaker 2: immediately up the stairs, found his lord dead. His Lordship
Speaker 2: had flung up the sash of the window, as though
Speaker 2: he had done it for the sake of air. He
Speaker 2: was in the sixty fourth year of his age. There's
Speaker 2: the sighting of a ghost at Raynam that's sometimes included
Speaker 2: in the story and sometimes not, which is surprising because
Speaker 2: it involved royalty. This one involves King George the Fourth,
Speaker 2: who was born in seventeen sixty two and visited Raynam
Speaker 2: while he was a young boy. In this story, he's
Speaker 2: said to have seen a pale woman in a brown dress,
Speaker 2: looking disheveled, and this woman was in his room. He
Speaker 2: woke everybody up, and depending on which account you read,
Speaker 2: he either said he would not spend another hour in
Speaker 2: the house or that he wanted to change rooms. The
Speaker 2: first widely reported ghost sighting at the hall wasn't until
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty five, during a party, which, as was common
Speaker 2: for the day, included the invited guests sleeping over, and
Speaker 2: one of those guests, a major. Loftus, described encountering a
Speaker 2: female apparition while he was headed to bed in the
Speaker 2: wee hours of the morning. The woman he saw was
Speaker 2: wearing a brown silk dress and was standing on the
Speaker 2: landing on the stairs. Loftus called out to this mystery woman,
Speaker 2: who then vanished into thin air. He decided to try
Speaker 2: to corner the spirit, and once again he saw her,
Speaker 2: this time more closely. Loftus described a woman with a
Speaker 2: frightening countenance. Her eye sockets were empty. He drew what
Speaker 2: he had seen and shared his drawing with the rest
Speaker 2: of the guests the next day at breakfast, and this
Speaker 2: prompted the Charles Townsend, who was living there at the time,
Speaker 2: who was a descendant of Dorothy's husband, Charleston Townsend, to
Speaker 2: admit that he and his family had also seen this specter.
Speaker 2: This information is said to have scared the house staff
Speaker 2: so much that all of them reportedly quit on the spot,
Speaker 2: and then that led the townshend in residence to suspect
Speaker 2: that someone had actually been playing a trick by creating
Speaker 2: this ghost with the intent of creating havoc in his life,
Speaker 2: so he actually had a team of detectives investigate. But
Speaker 2: after two months of these detectives essentially living at Raynham Hall,
Speaker 2: they found nothing and they closed the case. In a moment,
Speaker 2: we will talk about another account of an encounter with
Speaker 2: the Brown Lady, but first we will have a sponsor break.
Speaker 2: After the Loftis sighting, another guest saw the spirit. Although
Speaker 2: the account we have of that event is from years later,
Speaker 2: even though it happened the year after Loftus saw the
Speaker 2: Brown Lady. In an eighteen ninety one account of the
Speaker 2: Raynham Hall haunting written by Florence Marriott in her book
Speaker 2: There Is No Death, she describes another experience that happened
Speaker 2: at Sir Charles Townsend's house. Marriott claims in the text
Speaker 2: that her father learned about the story from Townsend, who
Speaker 2: at the time was his country neighbor. Charles and his wife,
Speaker 2: once they took ownership of the Raynham Hall estate, had
Speaker 2: launched this huge renovation and redecorating project, and they brought
Speaker 2: a load of friends over to stay and party, but
Speaker 2: soon the guests started leaving one by one because of
Speaker 2: all the ghost sightings. They claimed to have seen a
Speaker 2: woman quote wearing a brown satin dress with yellow trim
Speaker 2: and a rough around her throat. She's described as looking
Speaker 2: innocent and harmless, and her portrait, according to Marriott, also
Speaker 2: hung in one of the bedrooms. The initial assessment of
Speaker 2: the situation was that this was a trick that was
Speaker 2: being played by poachers who would rather have the estate
Speaker 2: left unoccupied so that they could hunt the grounds there themselves,
Speaker 2: which they had apparently been doing before this whole renovation
Speaker 2: and party happened. So to help Marriott's father, Captain Frederick Marriott,
Speaker 2: who was a Navy officer and a novelist, offered to
Speaker 2: stay in the room where the brown Lady's portrait hung
Speaker 2: because he believed he could catch the tricksters. He slept
Speaker 2: his daughter wrote quote with a loaded revolver under his pillow,
Speaker 2: and after a couple of nights of seeing nothing, Frederick
Speaker 2: Marriott did see a woman in the hallway, and he
Speaker 2: was not alone. The host's two adult sons were with him.
Speaker 2: Captain Marriott discharged his weapon at the woman at close
Speaker 2: range after she had made like this menacing face at him,
Speaker 2: and she vanished. The bullet he fired lodged in a
Speaker 2: panel of the room opposite where he stood, and he
Speaker 2: was after that experience convinced that the apparition was real.
Speaker 2: The Townshends occupied this estate for centuries, and in eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine, John Townsend six, Marquess Townshend, inherited it. At
Speaker 2: that point, though the estate and the family were bankrupt.
Speaker 2: The estate was rented out and the art collection was
Speaker 2: sold off. It wasn't until nineteen twenty one that he
Speaker 2: died and his widow moved in. The Marchiness Townsend, who
Speaker 2: was quite wealthy, decided that she would restore the house,
Speaker 2: but she also had another project related to the house,
Speaker 2: and that was a book about all of its various hauntings.
Speaker 2: This is one of those details that does not seem
Speaker 2: to pop up a lot that the owner of the
Speaker 2: house published a book about its various ghosts in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty six, But this seems pretty important. As you'll see,
Speaker 2: the Marchioness Gladys Townsend co wrote the book with another writer,
Speaker 2: Maud Folks, who was a ghostwriter. Excuse the punt for
Speaker 2: a lot of wealthy society women who want to depend
Speaker 2: their memoirs or their family biographies. And I was not
Speaker 2: able to get my hands on a copy of the
Speaker 2: book in time for this episode. I presume it will
Speaker 2: get here today, right after we finished the corning. It does,
Speaker 2: though we know, include the story of the Brown Lady
Speaker 2: Dorothy Walpole, and it seems, based on the brief excerpts
Speaker 2: that I was able to get a hold of online,
Speaker 2: that this might be the source of some of the
Speaker 2: speculative versions and the sort of dark, romanticized and played
Speaker 2: up for dramatic effect versions of Dorothy's story. So this
Speaker 2: all sets the scene for the famous photo of the
Speaker 2: Brown Lady. Two men were assigned by Country Life magazine
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty six to visit Raynham Hall and take
Speaker 2: photos of the estate. These two men were Captain Hubert
Speaker 2: privaned and In Shira, who was Provin's assistant. The official
Speaker 2: story is that when they were getting ready to take
Speaker 2: a photo of the building's main staircase, Andrey Sierra saw
Speaker 2: what he described as a vapory form that slowly took
Speaker 2: on the futures of a woman floating down the stairs.
Speaker 2: When Shira exclaimed in shocked, Provand who was under the
Speaker 2: camera's black cloth, jumped and snapped the photo and captured
Speaker 2: an image of the ghost in the process. The magazine
Speaker 2: published the photograph on Boxing day that year, December twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: with the following as part of the introduction to the
Speaker 2: article about it quote a genuine case of spirit photograph
Speaker 2: has yet to be proved. Those so far investigated either
Speaker 2: proving to be fakes or impossible to authenticate owing to
Speaker 2: the absence of witnesses. Yet the following account and the
Speaker 2: illustration of what happened at Rayndham Hall, Norfolk, the seat
Speaker 2: of the Marcus Townshend deserves attention, so the account of
Speaker 2: what happened, as written by Andre Shira is included next.
Speaker 2: Here's how he described how they snapped the photo quote.
Speaker 2: Captain Pravaan took one photograph of it whilst I flashed
Speaker 2: the light. He was focusing again for another exposure. I
Speaker 2: was standing by his side, just behind the camera, with
Speaker 2: the flashlight pistol in my hand, looking directly up the staircase.
Speaker 2: All at once I detected an ethereal veiled form coming
Speaker 2: slowly down the stairs. Rather excitedly, I called out, sharply, quick, quick,
Speaker 2: there's something. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: The photographer replied and removed the cap from the lens.
Speaker 2: I pressed the trigger of the flashlight pistol after the flash,
Speaker 2: and on closing the shutter, Captain Privan removed the focusing
Speaker 2: cloth from his head and, turning to me, said, what's
Speaker 2: all the excitement about. I directed his attention to the
Speaker 2: staircase and explained that I had distinctly seen a figure there,
Speaker 2: transparent so that the step were visible through the ethereal form.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless very definite and to me perfectly real. He
Speaker 2: laughed and said, I must have imagined I had seen
Speaker 2: a ghost, for there was nothing now to be seen.
Speaker 2: It may be of interest to record that the flash
Speaker 2: from the Sasha bulb, which in this instance was used,
Speaker 2: is equivalent, I understand, to a speed of one fiftieth
Speaker 2: part of a second. Shira's account goes on to mention
Speaker 2: that Privan didn't believe in spirits and actually bet Indra
Speaker 2: five pounds that there was nothing on the image, But
Speaker 2: of course when they developed it there it was pravand,
Speaker 2: according to Shira, allegedly never paid up. Shira noted, quote,
Speaker 2: I have neither his technical skills nor long years of
Speaker 2: practical experience as a portraitist. Neither am I interested in
Speaker 2: psychic phenomena. But I maintained that the form of a
Speaker 2: very refined influence was so real to my eyes that
Speaker 2: it must have been caught at that psychic logical moment
Speaker 2: by the lens of the camera. Paranormal investigator Harry Price
Speaker 2: wrote the next segment of the piece in Country Life,
Speaker 2: Price explains, quote, it must be admitted that had the
Speaker 2: photographer first taken the stairs and without moving the camera
Speaker 2: introduced a draped figure into the picture. By the double
Speaker 2: exposure method, an identical spirit picture would have been obtained.
Speaker 2: I asked to see the negative, and much more important.
Speaker 2: Mister Andre Shira and his operator, Captain Privan we duly
Speaker 2: met at their studio and I was invited to cross
Speaker 2: examine the photographers. I will say at once that I
Speaker 2: was impressed. I was told a perfectly simple story. Mister
Speaker 2: Andrey Shira saw the apparition descending the stairs at the
Speaker 2: precise moment when Captain Provan's head was under the black cloth,
Speaker 2: a shout and the cap was off and the flashbulb fired,
Speaker 2: with the result which we now see. I could not
Speaker 2: shake their story, and I had no right to disbelieve them.
Speaker 2: Only collusion between the two men would account for the ghost.
Speaker 2: If it is a fake, the negative is entirely innocent
Speaker 2: of any faking.
Speaker 1: So this famous paranormal investigator could not find evidence of
Speaker 1: trickery or foul play on Provan's and Shearer's parts. But
Speaker 1: though that was good enough for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: the Society for Psychical Research was not convinced. In nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven that organization did its own investigation and it
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that the alleged apparition in the
Speaker 1: photo was there because the camera was shaken or shifted
Speaker 1: during its exposure.
Speaker 2: This photo has continued to garner interest in the nearly
Speaker 2: ninety years since it was published. There are still people
Speaker 2: who believe it is real, as well as skeptics who
Speaker 2: have picked it apart. To some it looks as though
Speaker 2: there was an awkward shift in the way the lines
Speaker 2: of the staircase appear in the photo, or that there's
Speaker 2: a double exposure, with some elements of the wall decors
Speaker 2: repeating just below their actual positions, But a clean image
Speaker 2: of the staircase shows that there is a sort of
Speaker 2: demi landing halfway down, It isn't one continuous line from
Speaker 2: top to bottom, and there's a panel with trim that
Speaker 2: could easily be mistaken for a picture frame. There are
Speaker 2: some examinations of the height of the figure. She does
Speaker 2: look unusually short, and a number of people have noticed
Speaker 2: that the shape looks more like a statue of the
Speaker 2: Virgin Mary than an early eighteenth century woman in a
Speaker 2: silk nightgown.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the most informative part of all this story
Speaker 1: is the timing. It does seem oddly coincidental that a
Speaker 1: photo of the Brown Lady would be snapped right after
Speaker 1: a book featuring her was released by the owner of
Speaker 1: the property. One item of note is that the Country
Speaker 1: Living right up never references the Brown Lady at all.
Speaker 1: It talks about the possible ghost in more general terms,
Speaker 1: and this is sometimes held up as some sort of
Speaker 1: proof that the photo must be genuine and that no
Speaker 1: one involved knew about the story of Dorothy Walpole Townsend.
Speaker 1: But that would just mean that the magazine that just
Speaker 1: published an entire spread on Martianists, Gladys Townsend and her
Speaker 1: home hadn't done a very thorough job of researching her life.
Speaker 1: As to the rumors of why Dorothy Walpole might be
Speaker 1: haunting Randham Hall, they also have problems the story that
Speaker 1: Dorothy was held captive and that her funeral was all
Speaker 1: theatrics those just don't actually hold up. In a statement
Speaker 1: to the BBC in two thousand and nine, the estate
Speaker 1: said quote people said that Dorothy was locked away and
Speaker 1: badly treated, but in the nineteen sixties we uncovered paperwork
Speaker 1: and medical reports suggesting she had a happy life and
Speaker 1: was much loved. She does seem to have gotten treatment
Speaker 1: for her smallpox, even though that did not save her,
Speaker 1: not actually effective treatment for small boss. Ye she was living,
Speaker 1: and if she was haunting the house, at some point
Speaker 1: she seems to have stopped. No one has claimed to
Speaker 1: see her since that famous photograph was taken. Oh, Dorothy,
Speaker 1: We will get to another ghost in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but first we're gonna hear from the sponsors that keep
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class. Going in sixteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: on the northeastern coast of what's now Northern Ireland that's
Speaker 1: known as the Antrim Coast, John Shaw of Greencock built
Speaker 1: a French chateau style castle. Shaw did not own the land.
Speaker 1: He was at the time renting it from the Earl
Speaker 1: of Antrim, Randall McSorley MacDonell, at a rate of twenty
Speaker 1: four pounds per year. This area, incidentally, might look quite
Speaker 1: familiar to listeners if they watched Game of Thrones, because
Speaker 1: some exterior scenes were shot nearby. That whole coast is
Speaker 1: home to a lot of shooting locations.
Speaker 2: The castle, as originally built, had a stream that ran
Speaker 2: through its outer hall and a tower at each of
Speaker 2: its four corners with a conical roof. The walls of
Speaker 2: this castle are also very thick, more than a meter
Speaker 2: and a half, and this was definitely a place built
Speaker 2: for defense protection and thanks to that water source survival.
Speaker 2: And that's because at the time that it was constructed,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of conflict happening in this area,
Speaker 2: and that conflict had been going on since sixteen oh nine.
Speaker 2: That was when King James the First decided that residents
Speaker 2: of England and Scotland, and Protestants specifically should move to
Speaker 2: the northern region of Ireland, which was at the time Catholic.
Speaker 2: Prior to this, that region was not exactly friendly for
Speaker 2: the king, So really this conflict goes back much farther
Speaker 2: than sixteen oh nine, and he basically wanted to make
Speaker 2: sure that all of the areas of his kingdom were
Speaker 2: populated with people sympathetic and loyal to the crown in
Speaker 2: order to theoretically prevent any uprisings. And this effort to
Speaker 2: relocate Protestants is called the plantation of Ulster. The Protestants
Speaker 2: who made this move were called planters. But this was not,
Speaker 2: of course, as benign as just suggesting people move and
Speaker 2: then they did it. Even if it had been that benign,
Speaker 2: there were political reasons to suggest that people do such
Speaker 2: a thing. There was the financial component to the plan
Speaker 2: that also caused a lot of strife. To pay for
Speaker 2: moving a bunch of people, King James leaned on the
Speaker 2: wealthy companies and landowners of London. He made a deal
Speaker 2: with them that if they financed people moving, they could
Speaker 2: have large tracts of land in Ireland. But that land,
Speaker 2: of course, already had people living on it. So the
Speaker 2: king was seizing the land in an area known as
Speaker 2: Ulster to make this whole colonization thing work. And all
Speaker 2: of this tension was ongoing. So when John Shaw built
Speaker 2: his castle, those thick walls were considered imperative. Shaw was
Speaker 2: one of the people who moved to Ireland as part
Speaker 2: of the plantation. He had gotten there in sixteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: And in sixteen forty one there was an attack on
Speaker 1: the castle by the Gaelic Irish, who wanted to force
Speaker 1: out the Scots that were living there. This attack was
Speaker 1: ultimately unsuccessful. Thirty nine years later, the castle was captured
Speaker 1: in sixteen eighty by Irish chieftains, but their occupation was brief.
Speaker 1: They were wanted men and they were being aggressively pursued,
Speaker 1: and rather than stay and risk attack, they scattered into
Speaker 1: the surrounding woods.
Speaker 2: But the political upheaval and battles are not the source
Speaker 2: of the bally Galley ghost story. It's Shaw's immediate family.
Speaker 2: Like most ghostlore, this one has several versions. The first
Speaker 2: is that shortly after finishing the castle, or even while
Speaker 2: it was being completed, James Shaw married a woman named
Speaker 2: Isabella Brisbane. Her first name gets spelled in a variety
Speaker 2: of ways depending on the source. Sometimes Isabella is also
Speaker 2: described as very young, maybe just sixteen when the couple married. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there are also versions that say that she came over
Speaker 2: with him, but there's such a gap that then she
Speaker 2: would have been much older by the time she got
Speaker 2: married and had kids, and so uh, it just doesn't
Speaker 2: add up. This is one of those cases where you
Speaker 2: can tell that a lot of the lore has shifted
Speaker 2: and embellished. James's goal was to have kids. He wanted
Speaker 2: an air, and several years into their marriage, Isabella gave
Speaker 2: birth to a child, but it was not the hoped
Speaker 2: for son, and according to Lord James, flew into a
Speaker 2: rage over it. He locked Isabella in a tower of
Speaker 2: the castle after taking her baby away possibly killed the child.
Speaker 2: Lady Shaw was soon found dead on the ground outside
Speaker 2: of the tower. So in this version, the story is
Speaker 2: that she climbed out the window and jumped, hoping she
Speaker 2: would survive the fall and be able to get to
Speaker 2: her baby. Other versions suggest that she was killed by
Speaker 2: James or one of his allies. Another version of the story,
Speaker 2: told by Jeff Bellinger in his two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: book World's Most Haunted Places, is that James discovered Lady
Speaker 2: Shaw had a paramour, that there was some doubt about
Speaker 2: who the father of the newborn was. And then, and
Speaker 2: yet another somewhat sanitized version that's shared by the current
Speaker 2: owner of the castle, this baby was a boy, and
Speaker 2: James took it and locked Isabelle up and because he
Speaker 2: just had no more use for her once his air
Speaker 2: had been produced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of those things that Jeff Bellinger
Speaker 1: in particular, is like a lot of these versions of
Speaker 1: the story don't make sense, because even if she had
Speaker 1: had a daughter, there's no reason they couldn't have tried
Speaker 1: again for an heir for a male child. And even
Speaker 1: if he had a male child, wouldn't he want more
Speaker 1: male children so that they could ensure the bloodline, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't always really add up. But the castle, known
Speaker 1: as bally Galley, passed down through the family and then
Speaker 1: it was privately sold and shifted through a number of
Speaker 1: hands over the centuries. It left the ownership of the
Speaker 1: Shaw family in seventeen ninety nine when it was sold
Speaker 1: for fifteen thoy four hundred pounds, and then in the
Speaker 1: eighteen thirties the castle was used by the Coast Guard
Speaker 1: for a while as a rental property. They used it
Speaker 1: as a base of operations from which anti smuggling efforts
Speaker 1: were initiated. The castle was purchased in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: by Cyril Lord, who had made his fortune in the
Speaker 1: carpet business. He was known as the Carpet King. Lord
Speaker 1: turned the castle into an in called the Candlelight Inn.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, the castle was purchased and updated
Speaker 1: by Sir Billy Hastings. It has been expanded. The old
Speaker 1: castle section remains and there's also a newer section of it.
Speaker 1: Many elements of the original castle remain, including the original door.
Speaker 1: There's an inscription over the door that reads sixteen twenty
Speaker 1: five God's providence is my inheritance that inscription is not
Speaker 1: from sixteen twenty five, though it was put there in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty during renovations. There's also a coat of arms
Speaker 1: and the initials JS and IB for James and Isabella.
Speaker 1: The castle remains a hotel in the Hastings Hotels collection.
Speaker 1: Throughout the years, there have been stories of multiple ghosts
Speaker 1: in the castle, and the hotel really leads into that lore.
Speaker 1: For one, Lady Isabella's tower room is maintained as her room.
Speaker 1: It's called the Ghost Room, and for a while you
Speaker 1: could rent that room, although the hotel has stopped letting
Speaker 1: guests stay there. The room has what is purported to
Speaker 1: be Lady Shaw's original bed, and while guests can't sleep there,
Speaker 1: they are encouraged to visit. There is actually very clear
Speaker 1: signage that leads visitors up the stairs into the ghost Room.
Speaker 1: Lady Shaw's story is on display on plaques, and many
Speaker 1: guests specifically request rooms in the Old Castle section, hoping
Speaker 1: that they might have an encounter with her, and there
Speaker 1: have been all of the classic reports of haunting, so
Speaker 1: hot and cold spots, sumping noises, knocks at the door
Speaker 1: when there's no one in the corridor, et cetera.
Speaker 2: There are reportedly other ghosts there, though one of the
Speaker 2: ghosts is Madam Nixon. She was Shaw's sister in law
Speaker 2: and moved to bally Galli after she was widowed. People
Speaker 2: have described hearing what sounds like silk rustling in the
Speaker 2: hallways of the Castle section, and that noise is attributed
Speaker 2: to Madam Nixon.
Speaker 1: Have also stated that guests have heard the laughter of
Speaker 1: a child when there was no child present, as well
Speaker 1: as sensations of having someone touch them when there is
Speaker 1: no one in the room with them. There are stories
Speaker 1: of banquet tables that are set for an evening being
Speaker 1: disheveled before the guests have even arrived, and also a
Speaker 1: story of nuns having their bibles fly off their dressers.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, BBC presenter Kim Lenahan and
Speaker 1: her crew spent the night in bally Galley for a
Speaker 1: story leading up to Halloween, or at least they attempted
Speaker 1: to a medium that the BBC had brought in reportedly
Speaker 1: contacted the spirit of a distressed woman, and as they conversed,
Speaker 1: Lenihan reported that the temperature in the room rose rapidly,
Speaker 1: accompanied by a musty vanilla smell. After the medium left
Speaker 1: and Lenihan tried to get some rest, she reported the
Speaker 1: smell coming back in the middle of the night, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: it was a smell that almost covered you like a sheet.
Speaker 1: Kim asked to be moved to the newer section of
Speaker 1: the hotel.
Speaker 2: Many many people have had experiences that they describe as
Speaker 2: supernatural at bally Galley. But the good news is none
Speaker 2: of those have been violent, so if there are spirits there,
Speaker 2: they don't seem to want to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1: That is where we are going to end part one
Speaker 1: of this two parter on ghosts of the British Isles.
Speaker 1: As we said, we have another one coming up on
Speaker 1: Wednesday that is essentially a standalone so they are options options.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I have listener mail about another
Speaker 1: scary thing from this year, which was carlosh as Waldo,
Speaker 1: who is scarier than many other things. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener Ann who writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy. Being
Speaker 1: a music teacher, I knew somewhat of what I was
Speaker 1: in for when I saw Carlojuswaldo's name in my podcast list.
Speaker 1: My first experience with him, however, was in high school.
Speaker 1: My high school choir did a European tour, and when
Speaker 1: we had the opportunity to go to a performance at
Speaker 1: the Vienna State Opera House, I went. We had standing
Speaker 1: room tickets for a modern opera called Jezwaldo, all in German,
Speaker 1: so I had no clue what they were singing, and
Speaker 1: the music was really weird to my teenaged ears. The
Speaker 1: only thing I remember is the ending, where there is
Speaker 1: a murder and then all these dolls are swinging back
Speaker 1: and forth on giant swings on the stage with lots
Speaker 1: of red ribbons representing blood. Lo and behold. Two years later,
Speaker 1: I am sitting in music history one as a college
Speaker 1: freshman music major, and the composer Carlo Joswaldo comes up,
Speaker 1: and the professor told us a little about him. Finally
Speaker 1: the opera kind of made a little bit of sense,
Speaker 1: sort of. Anyway, I enjoyed being reminded of the weirdness
Speaker 1: and learning a little more in depth than we were
Speaker 1: able to in a college class. Attached for your viewing
Speaker 1: pleasure is my most recent pick of my two cats,
Speaker 1: and I think it captures them perfectly. Aaron Purr is
Speaker 1: the goofy orange tabby and white laying on his back
Speaker 1: in the crack between the top of the futon and
Speaker 1: the wall, and Merlin is the flufy boy on the
Speaker 1: windowsill with the look of utter disdain on his face.
Speaker 1: This is the scene that greeted me when I walked
Speaker 1: in the door after work the other day. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all you do stuffuest in History Class is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite podcasts, and probably one I've listened to the longest,
Speaker 1: at least fourteen or fifteen years. I got my PhD
Speaker 1: back when there were nearly so many back episodes to
Speaker 1: catch up on. Thanks again, and and I love this.
Speaker 1: Your babies look so cute. Also, just the fact that
Speaker 1: one you have a cat named Aaron Purr, which is brilliant,
Speaker 1: and that you describe him as a goofy orange tabby
Speaker 1: and white. I feel like you don't have to use
Speaker 1: the adjective goofy. Orange cats kind of come with that
Speaker 1: as part of the package most of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems almost standard behavior.
Speaker 1: If one of our listeners has a very stoic and
Speaker 1: intellectual orange tabby, please write.
Speaker 2: Him, because yeah, I was saying, we just need the
Speaker 2: data collection an oddly smart orange tabby.
Speaker 1: I think they exist. I believe I believe. It just
Speaker 1: seems that the majority are like Noop Boop boop to
Speaker 1: in the best way. I love them. I have never
Speaker 1: had one personally, and it's on my wish list. So
Speaker 1: if you would like to write to us and share
Speaker 1: your stories about your encounters with weird opera, or your
Speaker 1: kiddies or anything else, you can do so at History
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to
Speaker 1: the show if you like. It is easiest pie to
Speaker 1: do on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.