The Irish Castle Haunted by a Chimera
Marchioness Townshend of Raynham and Maude Ffoulkes wrote a book in the 1930s titled True Ghost Stories.
One of the most intriguing tales is about a ghost that haunts a castle in the south of Ireland, that appears to be something between a man and an animal.
This allegedly true story was told to the Rev. Archdeacon St. John D. Seymour and vouched for by Reginald Span the Vicar of the Anglican Church (Arizona) as it "happened" to friends when they rented a castle in the south of Ireland. The castle and its grounds were beautiful and the family overlooked rumors that circulated among the villagers, which they assumed was part of the charm of such an old structure.
One night Mrs. A. was waiting for husband’s return from Dublin, and the following occurred:
... the stillness was shattered by the loud banging of a door in the corridor followed by stealthy footsteps creeping and crawling about in a very peculiar manner. Mrs. A., neither nervous nor imaginative, opened her bedroom door and hurried outside.
At first she saw nothing; afterwards, as she stood holding her lighted candle above her head to get a better view, she noticed an extraordinary figure shambling in the direction of the staircase. Before she had time to wonder who on all the earth was roaming around, the creature turned and looked at her, and Mrs. A. saw what appeared to be a hideous human face on the body of a huge ape. The revolting creature stared at the frightened woman for a few seconds—and then vanished.
Needless to say Mrs. A. ran back to her room shrieking along the way. One of her daughters heard the noise and came to her mother's room. She heard the story and told her mother she had a walking nightmare. When Mr. A. arrived later that night, she did not tell him what she had seen.
However, a few nights later he would have his own experience.
All at once he heard a queer kind of laugh, and looking up at the landing, he saw an ungainly figure learning over the banisters. The obscene face, of a leprous whiteness, was that of a clean-shaven, youngish man and its expression was not only evil—but horrible. As the creature looked at Mr. A., its body positively shook with laughter—and Mr. A. noticed that the hands and arms resting on the banister rails, covered with thick reddish-brown hair, were those of an ape.
Mr. A. ran up the stairs, and the creature laughed loudly and continuously. The rest of the family came out of their bedrooms to find out what was happening. It was after Mr. A. described what he had seen that Mrs. A. told him of her own experience.
The next day the family searched all of the rooms in the castle. The servants who lived in the kitchen wing had not see or heard anything, and the couple decided not to tell them about it.
Nothing happened for a time, except weird sounds in the pre-dawn hours, quiet footsteps, stifled cries and doors banging for no reason.
Eventually their return to America was decided by an episode that started on an afternoon when their daughter was arranging flowers. She heard a rustle behind her and felt two hands on her shoulders. She turned and found herself face to face with the creature her parents had seen.
The daylight showed the creature to be neither human nor animal—it was covered with hair like a gorilla, it stood over six feet high, and its appearance was so repulsive that Miss A., overcome with disgust called loudly for help. But just as her friend came to the rescue, the Ape Man vanished, although not before the other girl had caught a glimpse of the horror it represented.
Gwladys Townshend, the Marchioness lived in a home that had its own ghost. It was first seen in 1835 during Christmas, when the family had invited several guests to the Hall for festivities.
Lucia C. Stone retold how Colonel Loftus and Mr. Hawkins another guest saw the Brown lady as they came to their bedrooms. They took particular note of her brown dress, from which her moniker would be drawn. Loftus saw her the following evening; her face glowed and where her eyes should have been were only empty sockets. After this sighting several servants quit.
A year would pass before the Lady was seen again by Captain Frederick Marryat. He purposely stayed in the most haunted room at Raynham Hall. He theorized the story was made up by smugglers who wanted to keep people away from the area.
In 1891, his daughter Florence Marryat described her father’s experience that night.
…he took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung, and in which she had been often seen, and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. For two days, however, he saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. On the third night, however, two young men (nephews of the baronet), knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room (which was at the other end of the corridor), and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, “in case you meet the Brown Lady,” he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again, “in case you meet the Brown Lady,” they repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in company.
The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end. “One of the ladies going to visit the nurseries,” whispered the young Townshends to my father. Now the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned houses. My father, as I have said, was in shirt and trousers only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the outer doors (his friends following his example), in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by.
I have heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the figure as the facsimile of the portrait of “The Brown Lady”. He had his finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him. This act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the revolver right in her face. The figure instantly disappeared - the figure at which for several minutes three men had been looking together – and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor, and lodged in the panel of the inner one. My father never attempted again to interfere with "The Brown Lady of Raynham"
According to Lady Townshend it was not until 1926, when the Brown Lady was seen by her son George, and his friend on the staircase. She was identified with the likeness of Lady Dorothy Walpole, whose portrait hung in a haunted room.
However the most famous sighting of the ghost did not occur until September 19, 1936 when Captain Hubert C. Provand a photographer for Country Life magazine, and his assistant Indre Shira were taking photographs throughout Raynham Hall for an article.
As they were setting up a shot of the main staircase a vapor-like form took on the appearance of a woman coming down the stairs. A photograph was taken, and published in the December 26, 1936 edition, and on January 4, 1937, Life magazine reprinted the story.
It became one of the most well known photographs taken of a ghost.