Laying a troublesome ghost in water is one of the oldest patterns in British ghost lore. The clergy, usually several of them, confront the spirit, reduce it in size or strength, and banish it into a pond, a river or the Red Sea. The Monmouth story shows the scene from outside.
A lady was crossing the Wye Bridge on her way to a house where the school now stands. As she walked, a coach and four came at her, with the horses and driver headless in the usual way of phantom coaches. It dashed past her and went straight into the river. She went on, shaken, to the house and knocked. The door was opened by a clergyman in a bath of sweat, who asked sharply what she wanted. She was let in, and as she made her way through the house she saw a group of clergymen standing in a circle, in the act of an exorcism.
The story does not say whose ghost it was or when it happened, only that it was "centuries past". The source is the Great British Ghost Tour, which draws on Alan Roderick's collections. It fits well with the other old Welsh accounts of ghosts being laid by groups of ministers, and with the many phantom coach stories told on the roads around Monmouth.
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