FROM the romantic ruins of Kidwelly to the imposing bastion of Cardiff and the brooding menace of Oystermouth, Wales has a grand history of haunted castles. It’s not hard to fathom why! They’re ancient structures whose stones have been stained with blood and history.
Like shadows and sunsets, castles have a habit of retaining their secrets. Their aloof and alluring nature adds to their air of mystery, and when you think of the fate of thousands that was decided within their formidable walls, it is not a question of if they’re haunted, but of how many ghosts linger there in the eternal twilight.
Nestled in the Beacons, halfway between Swansea and Brecon, Craig-y-Nos Castle is not technically a castle—it’s a Victorian Gothic country house, but its most famous occupant insisted upon the title of castle, and it sort of stuck.
Craig-y-Nos is now considered the most haunted castle in Wales and there are multitudes of reasons why.
The tale begins in 1842. A year when British East India Company troops faced fierce fighting in the first Anglo-Afghan War, Queen Victoria became the first British monarch to travel by train, China ended the First Opium War, the New York Philharmonic performed its first concert, London’s notorious Pentonville Prison is completed, Josef Groll brews the first pilsner beer in the city of Pilsen, the UK’s Mines Act 184 prohibits all women and boys under 10 years old from going underground, Giuseppe Verdi releases his third opera “Nabucco” and Captain Rice Davies Powell commissioned the building of a gothic mansion alongside the River Tawe.
Powell’s father was a wealthy surgeon with the East India Company, and his son also served with the army in India before using his vast inherited wealth to build a home.
However, the cost of the building was excessive, and finances dictated that the north wing remained unfinished when in 1843, the Captain and his family moved in.
The life of a county gentleman suited Captain Powell and he passed his time as a county magistrate and High Sheriff of Brecknock.
However, legend has it that the captain had a curse put on him by someone he owed money to, and the devil always collects.
In 1851 tragedy struck when his youngest son died of cholera. The Captain would also lose both his youngest daughter and wife to the grave before the grim reaper’s bell also tolled from him in 1862.
The family curse did not end there. In 1864 his eldest son lost his life in a hunting accident on the Isle of Wight. His last surviving daughter and heir married a Captin Allaway, but he had only lived at Craig-y-Nos a few years when he too suffered an early death.
His widow moved to Tenby and the family home was sold in 1875 to the Morgan family who had a pretty uneventful time at Craig-y-Nos before leaving a few years later.
Waiting in the wings was a new and famous occupant who would help put this sleepy little manor house in Wales on the map in more ways than one.
On the day Madam Adelina Juana Maria Patti was born it’s not sure if the Heavens darkened, a flurry of stars fell from the sky, or the tide of some far-flung ocean turned crimson red, but one thing’s for sure, the girl born in Spain to Italian parents was touched by the hand of fate.
By the time she had moved into her new and remote fairytale castle in an isolated but beautiful valley far from her native shores, Madam Adelina was what we’d term today, a global megastar.
Her fame was easily on par with the kind that Beyonce and Taylor Swift enjoy today. In fact, it probably exceeded it.
Madam Adelina had a reputation as being flamboyant, glamorous, diva-like, but above all Uber talented.
The superstar soprano could command astronomical fees for appearing in the packed-out theatres of the world’s cultural capitals and after Queen Victoria was described as “the second most celebrated woman in the world.”
World-famous composers such as Gioachino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi (who declared her the greatest singer he had ever heard) were amongst her legion of fans, and she had even been personally invited to the White House by President Abraham Lincoln to sing the song that would eventually define her - “Home, Sweet Home.”
Queen Victoria was one of Madam Adelina’s greatest admirers and for over a quarter a century she was privately invented to sing for the black-clad monarch. In 1870 the Diva was also awarded the Russian Order of Merit by Tzar Alexander II.
Madam Adelina’s story is even more remarkable considering her humble beginnings.
Born in Madrid on February 19, 1843, Adelina was the youngest of six children in a relatively poor family, but she had music in her blood. Both her Sicilian father and Italian mother were opera singers.
By the time she was eight, Adelina was singing in the concert halls of New York. International fame beckoned and a star was born.
So what persuaded the highest performer in the word at the time to leave the cosmopolitan merry-go-round of Europe and settle in a secluded Welsh valley?
It’s likely that the in-demand superstar fell in love with the splendid isolation of Craig-y-Nos, the name of which translates as - ‘Rock of the Night.’
Her new home offered Madam Adelina an anchor in the storm. She would still perform at the world’s greatest opera houses but Craig-y-Nos would serve as her sanctuary and dream home where she could hide from the world and all its demands.
She had a personal theatre built at Craig-y-Nos which allowed her to perform for a host of rich and famous friends as well as servants who could watch from the balcony.
The theatre which can accommodate 150 guests has a stage with a painted backdrop portraying Madam Adelina on a chariot as the title character in Rossini’s opera Semiramide. It is now a Grade I listed opera house.
Although known worldwide as the Diva, Madam Adelina was a charitable and generous soul. She performed many fundraising concerts for hospitals at Swansea, Neath, and Brecon, and was renowned for treating her staff well with generous pensions and sick leave. She would also offer them accommodation at the Castle if no alternative lodgings could be found when they left her service.
Adelina retired from professional performances at the turn of the century, but in 1906, at the age of 63, the great soprano was finally persuaded to let the boffins capture her voice for posterity with their new fangled gramophone machine.
The men from the “Talking Machine” companies had strived for a long time to record the famous singer, but Madam Adelina was reluctant because she considered the gramophone a toy that was unable to do her voice justice.
Yet tide and technology wait for no man or opera singer and she eventually decided to agree to a recording session.
Once it was over the sound men hid the gramophone beneath the main staircase, and as Adelina descended for dinner, they let rip.
As the sound of her own voice filled the air, the colour was said to leave Adelina’s face and she clung to the banister like a sailor during a storm.
Adelina would record no more but the recordings she did leave behind helped increase the sales of gramophones tenfold.
The Diva appeared to perform one last time in public in October 1914 when she sang at the Albert Hall for the Red Cross. The public adored her to the end.
During her twilight years at Craig-y-Nos, Adelina would practice her scales daily, and would often be joined by her three parrots.
Madam Adeline finally said goodbye to the Welsh hills and the home she loved on September 27, 1919, when death finally took her.
Her embalmed body lay in the private chapel until October 24, when it was taken to the Roman Catholic Church in Kensal Green, London for the waiting world to pay homage to her memory.
The Diva had always expressed a desire to be buried next to her favourite composer, Rossini, at France’s Pere le Chaise cemetery, and her wishes were carried out.
Yet in later years, Rossini’s body was moved back to Italy after his wife was offered the chance to have her late husband buried amongst other illustrious Italians in Santa Croce.
It is said that Madam Adeline’s body may be in France but her spirit continues to roam the halls of the one place she felt truly at home for nearly 50 years - Craig-y-Nos.
The soprano continues to cast a long shadow and there have been numerous sightings of the Diva over the years.
She is said to haunt Craig-y-Nos in a very benign and kindly fashion. Eyewitnesses have given accounts of spotting a small and graceful lady dressed in black gliding across floors and drifting through the courtyards.
There have been stories of people hearing Adeline’s signature song, “Home Sweet Home” in the house when no noticeable source can be found. On one occasion a pianist who visited the theatre and had never heard the song before, found they could play it perfectly after becoming aware of an intense but friendly presence.
Paranormal investigators have since played Adelina’s own scant recordings in the theatre to try and communicate with her, but this doesn’t usually end well, with the sole response being banging noises, slamming doors, and sudden drops in temperature.
It’s probable that Madam Adeline is a bit of a Luddite.
Today, Craig-y-Nos is a prestigious hotel and a wedding venue that still runs ghost tour events, because it is believed that it is not just the ghost of the Diva that lingers there.
After her death, Craig-y-Nos became the Adelina Patti Hospital and catered to tuberculosis patients.
Former patient Ann Shaw who has written a book about her time there called “The Children of Craig-y-Nos: Life in a Welsh Tuberculosis Sanatorium” told the BBC in 2008, “TB affected the whole community not just physically but socially, and emotionally. It was the disease which was never spoken about except in hushed whispers.
“There are no records of this period at Craig-y-nos. It is as if this bleak part of Welsh social history has been quietly erased from the history books.”
Hundreds of children with TB lived and died at Craig-y-Nos. In the early days, there was no treatment but plenty of fresh air and rest. Children were often pushed out on balconies to live and sleep outside. TB was a harsh disease but the treatment these children received was often harsher.
Ann, who was at Craig-y-Nos from ages 9-13, wrote in her diary during that period, “We have started making ice lollipops. Checked the balcony thermometer. It reads 28F. Show it to Miss White (our teacher) and tell her we are cold. She slaps my face and says not to be rude.”
Ann told the BBC, “It was called a hospital but in reality, it had all the hallmarks of a prison - for sick children.
“Isolated from the rest of Wales it had all the appearances of an impenetrable fortress. Once inside children were not allowed out. The average length of stay was around two to three years.
“On arrival, you were stripped of all possessions, clothes, and toys apart from the absolute minimum. I remember my doll being taken away from me and the nurse laughing because I still had dolls at nine years of age.”
Ann added, “I was one of those patients from 1950-1954. I was lucky if one can use the word luck in such circumstances, for the introduction of the lifesaving drugs streptomycin and PAS had just arrived.”
Many others were not so “lucky”, and, alongside the life and times of Madam Adeline, their sorrow and loss continue to haunt the shadows and corners of Craig-y-Nos.
