National Museum Cardiff, the domed white Portland-stone building in Cathays Park, was designed by the London firm of Smith and Brewer and opened in stages from 1922. It holds Wales's national art and natural history collections, and according to local ghost guides it holds two of its founders as well.
The first is Arnold Dunbar Smith, one of the two architects. The story told by Future Inns and repeated on a 2019 travel blog is that his ashes were interred at the museum after his death. Later, during renovation work, toilets were built over the spot where they lay. His spirit took this badly. Staff are said to have heard furniture clattering in the corridors when no one was there, and a ghostly voice was reportedly captured saying, "The wrong place!"
The second is Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart, a younger son of the 3rd Marquess of Bute. He was elected MP for Cardiff in 1910 and was killed leading his battalion at the Battle of Loos in October 1915, aged 32. His statue stands in Gorsedd Gardens outside the museum. The guides say his presence is felt in the building, and more often around election nights, as if he were still keeping an eye on his old constituency.
None of the accounts give dates, names of staff witnesses, or details of where the ashes are said to lie, and the museum has not been found commenting on them. HauntedPlaces.org repeats the same two ghosts. They are recorded as popular modern stories rather than documented events.
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