The phantom funeral, heard or seen before a death, was one of the most common omens in Welsh chapel communities, and industrial Merthyr was no exception. The Great British Ghost Tour's summary of Richard Holland's Haunted Wales gives a dated example from 1879.
The witness saw nothing at all. What he heard was a funeral: the sound of "distant singing and the steps of a great number of persons", the hymn singing and tramping feet that accompanied every Welsh funeral procession of the time. The sound moved along the street and seemed to edge towards the gates of Bethesda Chapel.
That same night, his wife died. When her funeral took place, the procession went along the route he had heard, to her grave in the graveyard of Bethesda Chapel.
The witness is not named in the summary. Bethesda was one of Merthyr's large Welsh Independent chapels in the town centre; the location given here is approximate.
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