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Very awkward accommodation in Wales

 We said goodbye to Glastonbury this morning with the timetable making sure that we were heading to Wales today to visit Hay on Wye and the Skyrrid Inn.

As everything is pretty expensive and we are on a tight budget we looked for accommodation that was affordable and Anne found a place called CHESTNUT Cottage just outside of Hay on Wye.

We drove into Wales and spotted an enormous ruined Castle and so decided to turn off to pay a visit as we had not been to a castle yet. By the way, Wales is the castle capital of the world with about 600 of them dotting the landscape.

This was Raglan Castle. The castle was built in the 1430's and is a motte and bailey construction.

If you want to know more, more than you ever need to know about what a motte and bailey is check out our TRUE HAUNTINGS PODCAST all about Jedburgh Castle/Jail - I go into it in great detail!



This place just took over the vista and you eye was drawn to it from all directions.

We spent time checking it out of course but I really had no sense of it being a haunted site - although I am sure at night it would have been very different.

A soothing atmosphere permeates the rambling interior of the cold ruin. Some visitors have been startled by fleeting glimpses of what they describe as a bardic figure, beckoning to them from the vicinity of the wing over which the library was once situated. He is thought to be the ghost of the castle’s librarian who, as the Civil War siege ebbed toward its inevitable conclusion, hid the valuable books and manuscripts in a secret tunnel beneath the castle. His fears proved well founded, for one of the first acts perpetrated by the enemy was the destruction of Raglan’s magnificent and priceless library. The fate of the librarian is unknown, but his guardian spirit still watches over his hidden cache of literary treasures. He was last seen in the summer of 2001, when a girl on a school trip came running from the castle, ashen-faced, insisting that she had seen him gesturing to her from a dimly lit corner.

It was a very cool hour to spend and with 600 castles you would need two years to see them all!!

Then we headed to take a picture of the Three Cocks Coaching Inn as part of our weird and naughty name places.


The building has stood for over 500 years and the original name is Welsh and has nothing to do with chooks.

But we thought it was funny.

Then we headed to our overnight accommodation and this is when things turned a little hairy.

Chestnut Cottage is a 400 year old building which sits next to, we mean right next to a road and is owned by a local farmer/bee keeper who we found out actually still lives in the building and occupies one of the two bedrooms he has available.

Um....

He arrived to let us in and really, I don't know what I was expecting but I was not expecting to be sharing the house with the owner in the next bedroom.

Anyhow - we decided to take to older, less done up room as it had two single beds and we literally locked ourselves in.

The poor man left after about an hour and a half as he said that he was going out - we had no food and I had to take a jug and cups from the other room so that I could make myself a coffee.

We had a tiny floor heater to warm us up but the room had a hole in the side exposing it to the small hallway between the bedrooms.


With the high reviews and the great price it was a good deal - but I was very awkward.

I don't know where the fellow sleeps when the two upstairs bedrooms are occupied - he must have another space downstairs. I guess we will find out more as the night goes on.

If you do not see a new post in 24 hours you can assume this did not end well.


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