Hauntings

The Blue Lady of Dunraven Castle

Also known as: The mimosa ghost of Dunraven

Site of Dunraven Castle, Southerndown

First World War

Dunraven headland, at the west end of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, has been occupied since the Iron Age. The house that stood there in modern times was Dunraven Castle, a castellated mansion of the Wyndham-Quin family, Earls of Dunraven. It served as a convalescent hospital during both World Wars, and after the Second it fell out of use and was pulled down in the 1960s. Today visitors walk through the restored walled gardens and look out over Dunraven Bay where the house used to be.

The ghost belongs to the hospital years. According to the local visitor guide for Ogmore-by-Sea and Southerndown, when Dunraven was a convalescent home during the First World War, the ghost of a young woman was seen many times by the staff. She was known locally as the Blue Lady. The staff said they could always tell when she had been around, because she left behind a strong perfume that smelled like yellow mimosa.

Nobody seems to have suggested who she was. The same guide, and Graham Loveluck-Edwards's writing on the Dunraven wreckers, tell the house's grimmer legend about Walter Vaughan. A 2019 blog account of a walk at Dunraven notes that "the ghost of a Blue Lady is said to haunt the grounds". Since the house has gone, any modern sightings would have to be in the gardens or on the headland.

Dunraven Gardens and the headland above Dunraven Bay are open to the public (Glamorgan Heritage Coast); there is a pay car park at Southerndown.
Evidence
Single witness account
Access
Open ground
Location
51.443, -3.602 (Sited to the building or field)

Sources: Ogmore by Sea and Southerndown visitor guide (ogmorebysea.co.uk) [other]; Record of a Baffled Spirit (blog), "Dunraven Castle" (2019) [other]

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