MacCulloch explained the Bête de la Devise as one of a class of spectres that haunted the "devises", the old boundary stones of the great fiefs. He thought the idea might go back to a custom of sacrificing an animal and burying it under a boundary stone. The Sausmarez beast walked the avenue, and the lane near the manor had its own name in the lore. The black dog of the adjacent road is still mentioned in modern guides.
Carey's addition came with a list of other St Martin's ghosts. After a tall figure at the corner of Les Maindonneaux and the Hermitage, "a little further on, around the pond of Sausmarez Manor, was seen an old man, dressed in a long grey coat, and a grey felt plumed hat". The country people said he was Le Grand Matthieu, "but why he is supposed to return is unknown".
The modern stories are gentler. Island Families and Visit Guernsey describe Sausmarez as "the most haunted house in Guernsey" and list a ghostly nanny, a haunted doll's house and naval officer apparitions, with the Seigneur telling the stories on evening ghost tours. The nanny is said to have cared for the twenty-eight children of one ancestor and to comfort children who stay in the house. These are family tour stories, told with obvious affection, rather than investigated reports. Combined with the nineteenth-century beast and the grey man by the pond, they give the manor the longest run of ghost lore of any house on the island. The gardens and sculpture park are open to visitors.
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