Carew Castle: The Phantom Ape and Celtic Princess

Carew Castle stands on the banks of the tidal Carew River in Pembrokeshire, its massive walls reflected in the dark water below in a scene that has changed remarkably little since the castle’s medieval heyday. This is one of the great castles of Wales, a fortress that evolved over centuries from a simple Norman defensive position into an elaborate complex featuring one of the finest great halls in the country and a suite of Tudor apartments that rivaled anything built in England during the same period. But Carew Castle is known not only for its architecture and its history. It is known for what may be the strangest pairing of ghosts in all of Britain: the phantom ape that lurks in the shadows of the ruined towers, its glowing red eyes watching from the darkness, and the melancholy Celtic princess who drifts through the grounds searching for something lost so long ago that even her ghost may have forgotten what it was.

A Castle Between Cultures

The history of Carew Castle is the history of Wales in miniature, a story of conquest, resistance, accommodation, and the slow interweaving of Welsh and Norman cultures that produced the unique character of Pembrokeshire. The castle was founded in the late eleventh century, shortly after the Norman conquest of this part of Wales, as one of a chain of fortifications that the invaders built to control the conquered territory and defend against the Welsh princes who continued to resist Norman rule.

The earliest castle on this site was likely a simple earth-and-timber fortification, constructed by Gerald of Windsor, the castellan of Pembroke, who married the celebrated Welsh princess Nest ferch Rhys. Nest was one of the most remarkable women of medieval Wales, famed for her beauty and for the dramatic events of her life. She was a daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the last king of Deheubarth, and her story includes abduction, political marriage, and the kind of romantic intrigue that makes medieval Welsh history read like a novel. The marriage between Gerald and Nest symbolized the uneasy accommodation between Welsh and Norman that characterized Pembrokeshire for centuries, and it established Carew as a place where the two cultures met, merged, and sometimes clashed.

The stone castle that replaced the original fortification was built over several centuries, each generation of owners adding to and modifying the structure according to the architectural fashion of their day. The result is a building that contains elements from every major period of medieval and early modern architecture: Norman walls, thirteenth-century towers, a magnificent fourteenth-century great hall, and Elizabethan apartments that speak to the final transformation of the castle from fortress to gentleman’s residence.

The great hall, built by Sir Nicholas de Carew in the fourteenth century, was one of the largest in Wales, a soaring space designed to impress visitors and demonstrate the power and refinement of its builder. The hall featured elaborate window tracery, a fine roof, and architectural details that reflected the sophisticated tastes of the Anglo-Welsh gentry of the period. When Sir John Perrot, reputed to be an illegitimate son of Henry VIII, acquired the castle in the Elizabethan period, he added a northern range of apartments in the latest Renaissance style, creating a suite of rooms that featured large mullioned windows, elegant proportions, and a level of domestic comfort that was remarkable for a Welsh castle.

The castle’s decline began in the Civil War, when it was besieged and partially dismantled to prevent its use by either side. Like so many Welsh castles, it was left to decay after the conflict, its roof timbers removed, its floors collapsing, and its walls gradually succumbing to weather and vegetation. By the eighteenth century, Carew Castle was a romantic ruin, its broken towers and empty windows providing the kind of picturesque scenery that appealed to the sensibilities of the age. It is in this ruined state that the castle has accumulated its most notable ghosts.

Sir Roland Rhys and His Ape

The story of the Phantom Ape of Carew Castle begins with Sir Roland Rhys, a figure whose historical identity has been somewhat obscured by the layers of legend that have accumulated around him. According to the most commonly told version of the tale, Sir Roland was a man of wealth and eccentricity who owned a pet ape, an exotic animal that would have been a rarity in Wales and a clear statement of its owner’s worldliness and purchasing power.

The keeping of exotic animals was not uncommon among the wealthy in medieval and early modern Europe. Monarchs and nobles maintained menageries that included lions, bears, elephants, and primates, and the ownership of such creatures was a mark of high status. An ape in a Welsh castle, while unusual, was not unprecedented, and the bond that could form between a wealthy owner and a favored animal companion was well understood in a culture that valued hunting dogs and warhorses.

Sir Roland’s ape, according to the legend, became fiercely attached to its master, following him through the castle’s rooms and corridors with a devotion that exceeded that of any human servant. The ape was protective, jealous, and possessive, demonstrating a level of emotional attachment that some observers found unsettling. The creature seemed to understand that its existence depended entirely on Sir Roland’s protection, and it reciprocated with a loyalty that bordered on obsession.

When Sir Roland died, the consequences for the ape were catastrophic. Without its master’s protection, the animal was left to the mercy of a household that had never been entirely comfortable with its presence. The ape’s grief at the loss of Sir Roland was extreme, manifesting in behaviors that the castle’s remaining inhabitants found terrifying. The creature howled, raged through the castle’s rooms, and attacked anyone who approached it, its grief transformed into an aggression that made it dangerous to everyone around it.

The ape eventually died, whether from grief, starvation, or the violence of those who sought to control it, the legend does not specify. But its death did not end its presence at Carew Castle. Instead, the creature’s spirit remained, bound to the place where it had experienced both its deepest attachment and its greatest suffering. The Phantom Ape of Carew became one of the castle’s permanent residents, a supernatural presence as enduring as the stone walls themselves.

Encounters with the Phantom Ape

The Phantom Ape of Carew Castle is one of Britain’s most unusual and disturbing hauntings, a ghost that defies the usual categories of the supernatural. Animal ghosts are reported at many locations, typically dogs, cats, or horses, but a spectral primate is extraordinarily rare, and the behavior attributed to the Phantom Ape elevates it from curiosity to genuine menace.

The ape is most frequently encountered in the castle’s towers and in the old chapel, the areas where Sir Roland Rhys is believed to have spent much of his time. The manifestation typically begins not with a visual sighting but with the sense of being watched. Visitors to these areas describe an intense, prickling awareness of observation, a feeling that something is studying them from the shadows with an intelligence and an intensity that goes beyond the ordinary.

When the ape becomes visible, it appears as a large, dark, hunched figure, roughly the size and shape of a great ape but somehow wrong, its proportions slightly off, its movements too fluid, its posture suggesting both the animal it was in life and something that has been altered by centuries of supernatural existence. The most consistently reported detail is the eyes: they glow with a reddish light that seems to come from within, bright enough to be visible in the darkest corners of the ruins, and they fix on the observer with an unwavering attention that witnesses find deeply unsettling.

The sounds associated with the ape are equally distinctive. Heavy breathing, audible from a distance, often precedes a visual sighting, as if the creature were announcing its presence before revealing itself. Low growling has been reported, along with what some witnesses describe as a chattering sound, similar to the vocalizations of living primates but deeper and more resonant. On occasion, the ape has been heard howling, a prolonged, mournful sound that echoes through the ruins and across the river, a cry that seems to express grief and rage in equal measure.

Physical effects associated with the Phantom Ape include sudden drops in temperature, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere, and, in some accounts, the sensation of being physically pushed or blocked from entering certain areas. Several visitors have reported that they felt unable to enter specific rooms or passages, deterred by an invisible force that seemed to emanate from the darkness ahead. Those who persisted despite this warning described an increase in the sense of threat and hostility that eventually forced them to retreat.

The ape’s appearances are not limited to any particular time or season, though they seem to be more frequent during the autumn and winter months, when shorter days mean that the ruins are in shadow for longer periods. The creature has been reported by visitors during normal opening hours as well as by those who have been in or near the castle after dark. Its manifestations are sufficiently frequent and well-documented to make the Phantom Ape one of the best-known animal ghosts in Britain.

The Celtic Princess

The castle’s second major haunting stands in marked contrast to the Phantom Ape. Where the ape is aggressive, threatening, and inhuman, the Celtic princess is beautiful, peaceful, and profoundly sad. She represents the Welsh heritage of the castle, the culture that existed at Carew before the Normans arrived and that continued to shape the character of the place even as Norman architecture and Norman power transformed its physical form.

The identity of the Celtic princess is not established with certainty. Some traditions connect her to Nest ferch Rhys, the Welsh princess who married Gerald of Windsor and whose story is so deeply intertwined with the early history of the castle. Others suggest a different, unnamed princess who was killed during the Norman conquest of Pembrokeshire, her death at or near the castle binding her spirit to the location where her life ended violently.

The princess appears as a beautiful woman in ancient Welsh dress, her clothing reflecting a period centuries before the Norman architecture that surrounds her. She is most often seen near the mill pond that lies adjacent to the castle, walking along the water’s edge with slow, measured steps, her gaze directed downward as if she is searching for something in the water or on the ground. She has also been seen in the castle’s great hall, moving through the vast ruined space with a grace and dignity that contrast poignantly with the broken walls and open sky above her.

Unlike the Phantom Ape, the Celtic princess does not seem aware of, or interested in, the living people who observe her. She moves through her own world, following her own concerns, apparently as unaware of the modern visitors as they would be of a ghost in a dream. Her expression, when visible, is one of wistful sadness, a gentle melancholy that communicates loss without anger, regret without bitterness. Witnesses who have seen her describe feeling moved by her presence, touched by a sympathy for whatever grief has bound her to this place for so many centuries.

The emotional atmosphere surrounding the princess is one of quiet sorrow, very different from the aggressive menace of the ape. Visitors near the mill pond and in the great hall sometimes report feeling a sudden wave of sadness that seems to come from outside themselves, a grief that belongs to someone else but is temporarily shared. This emotion typically passes quickly, leaving the witness with a lingering sense of having briefly connected with a consciousness from another time.

The Battlements and Beyond

Beyond the ape and the princess, Carew Castle hosts a range of additional paranormal phenomena that contribute to its reputation as one of the most actively haunted sites in Wales. The battlements and ramparts of the castle are associated with the ghosts of soldiers from various periods, phantom sentinels who continue to patrol the walls as if the castle still required defense.

These military ghosts appear as figures in medieval armor or the clothing of soldiers from later periods, moving along the wall walks and pausing at intervals as if checking for approaching enemies. Their behavior is mechanical and repetitive, suggesting residual hauntings rather than conscious spirits, and they do not interact with observers or show any awareness of the modern world. They simply patrol, endlessly repeating the routine that defined their lives and that apparently continues to define their afterlives.

The sounds of medieval combat have been reported in the castle’s courtyards, the clash of swords, the thud of impacts, and the shouts of men in conflict. These auditory phenomena occur without any corresponding visual manifestation, as if the sounds of centuries-old battles have been recorded in the castle’s stones and are replayed under certain conditions. The sounds are described as distant but distinct, coming from a specific direction and possessing a clarity that distinguishes them from the ambient noise of the surrounding countryside.

Unexplained footsteps are among the most commonly reported phenomena at Carew, heard in corridors and on staircases where no one is visible. These footsteps vary in character, from the heavy tread of booted feet to lighter, quicker steps that suggest a different type of person entirely. Cold spots have been documented throughout the castle, particularly in the towers and in the area of the old chapel, and visitors regularly report the feeling of being watched in locations where no one, and no ape, is visible.

The Tidal River and Its Influence

The Carew River, which flows past the castle walls, is tidal at this point, and the rhythmic rise and fall of the water creates an ever-changing relationship between the castle and its aquatic surroundings. At high tide, the river fills the area around the castle with dark, reflective water that mirrors the ruins above. At low tide, mudflats are exposed, and the castle stands above a landscape of wet earth and stranded sea creatures. This constant transformation, this daily cycle of flooding and exposure, gives the castle an atmosphere of instability and change that contributes significantly to its supernatural character.

The tidal nature of the river may also have a more direct connection to the haunting. Some researchers have suggested that water, particularly moving water, acts as a conductor or amplifier of paranormal energy. The twice-daily surge of tidal water past the castle walls, carrying the minerals and salts of the sea, might create conditions that facilitate the manifestation of spirits or the perception of supernatural phenomena. This theory is speculative, but the correlation between tidal activity and reported phenomena at Carew is noted by several investigators.

The mill pond where the Celtic princess is most frequently seen is connected to the tidal river, and its water level fluctuates with the tides. The princess is said to appear most frequently when the tide is changing, as if the movement of water triggers or enables her manifestation. This detail, reported consistently across multiple sightings, suggests either a genuine connection between tidal activity and ghostly phenomena or a cultural expectation that has shaped the reporting of sightings over time.

The Strangest Pairing

What makes Carew Castle unique among British haunted sites is the extraordinary contrast between its two principal ghosts. The Phantom Ape and the Celtic princess represent opposite ends of almost every spectrum: animal and human, aggressive and peaceful, menacing and melancholy, inhuman and deeply human. Their coexistence within the same castle creates a supernatural landscape of unusual complexity, one that cannot be reduced to a single narrative or explained by a single theory.

The ape represents the irrational, the bestial, the parts of experience that resist human understanding and control. Its grief is violent, its presence threatening, its manifestation frightening in a way that speaks to primal fears of the animal other, the creature in the darkness that watches with glowing eyes and unknown intentions. The princess represents the human dimensions of loss: beauty that endures beyond death, sorrow that time cannot heal, a search that continues long after the object of that search has been forgotten.

Together, they make Carew Castle one of the most fascinating and atmospheric haunted sites in Wales. The castle itself, with its blend of Norman military architecture, medieval grandeur, and Elizabethan elegance, provides a worthy setting for ghosts that are as complex and layered as the building they inhabit. The broken towers, the empty great hall, the dark passages, and the tidal river create an environment in which the supernatural seems not merely possible but almost inevitable, a place where the boundaries between the living and the dead, the human and the animal, the historical and the mythical, have been worn thin by centuries of extraordinary history.

Visitors to Carew Castle walk through a landscape of overlapping hauntings, where the menace of the ape and the sadness of the princess mingle with the phantom soldiers on the battlements and the sounds of combat in the courtyards. The castle does not offer the comfortable frisson of a well-managed ghost story but something more unsettling and more authentic: the sense that this place has absorbed so much history, so much emotion, and so much death that it has become permanently charged with the energy of the past, radiating it outward to anyone sensitive enough to receive it.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Carew Castle: The Phantom Ape and Celtic Princess”
• Historic England — Listed Buildings — Register of historic sites