Ghosts of Shrewsbury Castle
Shrewsbury Castle stands on a hilltop in a loop of the River Severn in Shropshire, England. William I ordered a castle built there around 1067, and Roger de Montgomery, the first Earl of Shrewsbury, greatly extended it around 1070 as a base for operations against Wales.
In 1138, during the Anarchy, King Stephen besieged the castle and captured it from William FitzAlan, a supporter of Empress Matilda. Stephen had the surviving garrison hanged from the battlements. In 1215, Llywelyn the Great briefly held it. In February 1645, during the English Civil War, Parliamentarian soldiers under Colonel Thomas Mytton rowed up the River Severn before dawn and took the town and its royalist castle by surprise.
Around 1790, Thomas Telford remodeled the castle for Sir William Pulteney and built Laura's Tower for Pulteney's daughter. The castle now houses the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum. In 1992, an IRA bomb attack damaged it, and it reopened in 1995.
The castle's long and violent history has left behind several ghosts, and one of them is famous across Shropshire.
The most famous ghost is Bloody Jack, also known as Bloudie Jack or Jack Blondell. In the legend, which is usually set in the 12th or 14th century, he was a soldier, or perhaps the castle's warden, who lured young women to the castle and murdered them. According to the legend, he killed eight women and kept their severed fingers and toes as trophies in a chest in his quarters.
Jack was caught when the sister of one victim saw him dragging a body. He was tried and executed at the top of Pride Hill, a short distance from the castle, by hanging, drawing, and quartering. His head was reportedly displayed on a pole at Wyle Cop, a steep street in the town.
It wasn't long after his execution that his ghost was seen dragging a screaming young woman named Mary-Anne across the castle courtyard to her fate. Visitors still report seeing a male figure stalking the grounds, sometimes appearing to drag a victim or followed by weeping women. Others describe blood-curdling screams and a strong sense of dread, and some female visitors say they felt a tug on their clothing.
Staff and visitors inside the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum have also heard the footsteps of boots walking across a balcony that was removed decades ago. During the restoration work after the 1992 bomb attack, workers reported that their tools mysteriously moved.
Other ghosts are said to haunt the castle, too. Roger de Montgomery and his wife, Adelaide du Puiset, who appears in the stories as Adeliza, are said to race toward the castle during storms.
