The Ghosts of Greenmeadow

Greenmeadow is reputed to have had several ghosts, of whom some members of the Lewis family were apparently quite proud.

One of these ghosts haunted the Old Oak Room. Guests are reported to have been awakened at early dawn by three thuds on the room door, and to have seen the spirit of a tall red-haired man leaning on his sword and gazing out of the window. Suddenly he dropped his sword, crossed himself, fell on his knees as if in prayer and then vanished.

There was also the Blue Room Ghost, the Hunch-Back Spectre who was seen only in an underground cellar, and the Green Man Ghost, who is supposed to have been a former liveried servant of the family.

I received from Miss Gwenllian Lewis, of Cookham Dene, a daughter of the second Squire Lewis of Greenmeadow, who seems to have no doubt that Greenmeadow was a haunted house, a copy of a letter written to her father from Greenhill, Rhiwbina, in 1878, by Miss Martha Moggridge.

Miss Moggridge describes how during a visit to Greenmeadow, she was sitting with her sick sister in the oak bedroom at 3 a.m., when the door opened and ‘a face with a large prominent nose and a shock of rather white hair’ peered in. Then entered ‘a small old man clad in a green coat and white knee breeches,’ with silver buttons on the coat and much lace hanging from the wrist. A silver rapier hung from a red sash at his side.

For a moment he stood still and passed his hands across his eyes in a perplexed manner. The figure ignored her challenge to identify himself and commenced tapping the walls of the room near the door, moving backward and forward as he did so. ‘Suddenly he threw up his arm with a gesture of great despair,’ and vanished.

In the letter Miss Moggridge goes on to say that a Captain Mostyn on another occasion had a similar experience in the same bedroom.