Welsh UFO sightings from 1836. For sightings from other years please click HERE.
A letter in the January 22nd 1836 edition of the Merthyr Guardian mentioned a supposed haunting of the precincts of Neath Abbey by Lady Hoby in her spectral coach.
PRESS
1836
South Wales
An unnamed young woman was being haunted by the ghost of her boyfriend who died in the Merthyr Riots. This ghost visited her regularly and supposedly carried her off under witness' noses, taking her to Merthyr and back (some seven miles) in quarter of an hour. The Merthyr Guardian (20/02/1836) lamented that inspite of the enlightenment of the age 'a great majority of the working people believe this absurd history!'
A Ghost! - For some time back a young woman, in an adjoining parish, has been much troubled by the visits of a former lover, who died during the Merthyr riots, and who desired her to meet him, at a place appointed, last week. The girl was (or pretended to be) so alarmed, that she took to her bed; but got up to keep the appointment, accompanied by her father and other friends. The ghost was true to his time, and carried her away over the mountain to Merthyr, from whence she returned home (a distance of about seven miles, there and back,) in a quarter of an hour. (Our readers, near Cowbridge, will remember a similar act of violence committed on a young woman at St. Donat’s, who, after being forced through the air, came back to her family, dripping wet.) It is melancholy to relate, and but ill agrees with the much enlightenment of these days, that a great majority of the working people believe this absurd history!
PRESS
Tuesday 18th October 1836, night
Church Street, Monmouth
Residents were woken by screams for help - they found the butcher's wife, along with her daughter and maid, huddled together in terror. They had heard a rapping sound, following by the door latch lifting and in walking 'as real a ghost as ever was seen.' The Monmouthshire Merlin (22/10/1836) gave the story as much credence as any modern newspaper, but the witness herself refused to back down.
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A ghost! - The mind of women is said never to stand still, but is in perpetual search of after fresh subjects of excitement, and where it does not find matter to work upon, it makes it. This proposition may, perhaps, serve as some elucidation of a “startling” event which took place in the town of Monmouth, this week. On Tuesday night, the peaceable and prudent inhabitants of Church-street, were aroused and alarmed by loud and incessant female screaming and cried for help! Many jumped from their suppers, re-infecta, others left their vespers, and some very early and exemplary persons, who go to bed betimes, in order to breathe the morning’s bracing air, whilst others hug the inglorious pillow, sprung from their beds and poked their night-capped heads from windows, to catch the thrilling sounds more distinctly, and to see that “no unmanly fellow had presumed to outrage feminine delicacy;” all were on the alert to save an to succour a fellow-being in danger. It was ascertained that the alarming sounds proceeded from the house of a respectable butcher, where the mistress, her daughter, and a female servant, were found, with hysterical countenances and hair erect, huddled together for safety, and screaming in chorus at the altissimo pitch of their voices. To anxious enquiries as to the cause of this “scene,” a reply was with difficulty elicited. Oh heavens, a ghost! - and the good lady sobbed out that whilst sitting at the fire in the absence of her husband, a loud rapping took place at the stairs door which leads from the sitting-room: that this was succeeded by a raising of the latch, and in walked “as real a ghost as ever was seen.” No one had pluck to ask it what it wanted, the lights were out, they could not screw their courage to the sticking-place; indeed it would have required hearts of steel to have remained, as the apparition bustled menacingly around the room, and appeared desirous of knocking them on the head: they then had a race, and sought the protection of a discerning public. Crowds assembled round the door, some sympathising, some encouraging, and not a few jeering and ridiculing. The alarmed would not hear a doubt breathed as to the reality of the ghost; indeed she believed it would be visible to any of the neighbours who could see in the dark. A shower of rain dispersed the good people after one or two had valiantly hunted in vain for the spirit, and all was still again. The lady, it appears, is still confident of having had a supernatural visitation, so reluctant are we sometimes to have our minds disabused of that which confounds us. Should the house be again haunted, it would be well to obtain the aid of Sergeant Fuller, who might make the annoyer “give up the ghost.”
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