Newstead III

[poliphilo]

Here is Ailz, wearing her ever so fashionable cap, enjoying a sit down in the courtyard cafe. Another remarkable thing about Newstead is that the catering is really very good. Also there are ducks and peacocks wandering about, begging for treats. 



And here is Ailz, still wearing her ever so fashionable cap, waiting to be admitted by the disabled entrance. This door is known as "The Dark Entry". I was hoping it might have some ghastly medieval legend or ghost story attached to it, but the sad truth, the guide explained,  is that it got its name simply because it opens onto a dark passage.

But there are ghosts at Newstead. The most famous of them is the Black Friar who used to appear to the Byrons when one of them was about to suffer a disaster. Byron the poet maintained that the Friar showed up in his dressing room shortly before his ill-advised, short-lived and scandal-generating marriage to Arabella Millman.

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Ailz does look fashionable in her cap and it suits her well.
:)

I love ghost stories like that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I swear by a book called The Haunted Homes and Family Legends of Great Britain by John H. Ingram, published in 1886. It's full of great stories about country house spooks.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation! And published in 1886...very interesting. I´ll have to see if it´s available somewhere. Perhaps amazon can help with that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've had my copy since I was a kid. I picked it up in a second-hand book shop. It cost me six shillings.