Drumlanrig Castle
Only the cellars remain of the original 14th century castle in which Mary Queen of Scots stayed in 1563. The mansion, which now stands on the site, was built in the 1700s for William Douglas, the first Duke of Queensberry. Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed at the castle in 1745, after his unsuccessful invasion of England.
The mansion is haunted by three ghosts: Lady Anne Douglas, who walks around with her detached head in her arms, a large yellow monkey – or other strange creature – that haunts the ‘Yellow Monkey Room’. The creature has no associated legend as to why it should haunt the castle. The last phantom is that of a lady in a long dress.
The castle also has a story about a murder victim whose blood can not be washed from the floor of one of the passageways, a common folklore motif.
The castle has a visitor’s centre and a fine collection of masters’ paintings.
Directions: Off the A76
Re: Drumlanrig Castle
DANGEROUS GHOSTS (1954) Elliott O’Donnell
Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries, which was built by the first Duke of Queensberry, is said to have been haunted by the ghost of Lady Anne Douglas, who used to walk about the building with her head in one hand and her fan in the other. Every now and then she fanned her head vigorously.
After the death of the first Duke of Queensberry a phantom coach-and-six, with a headless coachman, used to be seen on the anniversary of his death, driving up to the castle. The ghost of the Duke, accompanied by a tall, hooded figure in black, emerged from the castle and got into the coach, which drove away at a furious rate, passing through the closed gate of the main lodge.
[Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland by J Maxwell Wood, 1911]
Of Drumlanrig Castle itself, the writer of Drumlanrig and the Douglases notes, that “like all old baronial residences, this castle was believed to be haunted by the ghosts of the dead. The most alarming legend was connected with what was known as the ‘Bloody Passage,’ where a foul murder had been committed, and the very spot was marked out by the stains of blood, which no housemaid’s scrubbing could obliterate. It is the passage on the south side of the castle running above the drawing-room, from which a number of bedchambers enter. Here, at midnight, the perturbed spirit of a lady, in her night clothes, parades, bewailing her sad fate, but by whom she had suffered tradition tells not. There is also a haunted room on the east side of the castle, on the fourth storey from the ground, where in former times fearful noises used to be heard.”