The Red Lady of Newark Castle

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In 2004 a young couple, Wendy and Iain McGinnes, chose the 15^th century fortified Newark Castle in Port Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland as the perfect venue for their wedding. The day was everything they could have wished for but, when they got the wedding photographs back, they found an extra guest had turned up. One who was not on their invitation list. In fact, one who wasn’t even alive.

A blonde woman dressed in red, stared out of a castle window, apparently watching the photographs being taken outside. Wendy returned to the castle to try and find out more about the identity of the shadowy figure and discovered she was not alone in having encountered her.

In fact there are frequent reports of a blonde haired lady in red haunting a room called the Steward’s Chamber and she has been photographed on more than one occasion. Staff at the castle told Wendy McGinnes that they close off that part of the castle during weddings and special events so it would be most unlikely that the figure at the window was of this world.

On further investigation, Wendy discovered that it was indeed the Steward’s Chamber from where the ghost had peered out at them. But who was she?

Firstly a little background. Newark Castle stands impressively on the shores of the mighty River Clyde and most of what we see today is down to the work of one man – Sir Patrick Maxwell who lived in the 16^th century although the castle was originally constructed a century earlier by an ancestor of his. Maxwell added greatly to the majesty of the building but, apart from his grand building schemes, he was not the sort of man anyone would want their daughter to marry. He was a murderer and a serial wife beater. He murdered neighbours including two members of the Montgomery family of Skelmoorlie, and even some of his own relatives – including another Patrick Maxwell, this one of Stanely.

But his own wife bore the brunt of his cruelty – for 44 years during which time she bore him 16 children.  The former Lady Margaret Crawford alleged he attacked her with a sword and kept her locked in her bedchamber for six months with only bread and water for sustenance. When one of her sons and his wife attempted to care for her as she lay recovering from the sword attack, Maxwell had them thrown out of the house.

Things were so bad that even her mother in law attempted to intervene, lodging a complaint about her son’s behaviour with the Privy Council. It did no good. Added to the beatings and other violence she suffered, it is hardly surprising that one day, when she managed to escape, she fled across the Clyde to Dumbarton. It was here she died in poverty. Her husband was never made to face any charges. Some were pending, but he died before he could be called to account.

It is believed that it is the ghost of the tragic Lady Margaret that haunts the castle. She, it seems, is the Red Lady. This poor, mistreated soul cannot find rest and remains trapped in the place which during her life must have felt like a prison.

Newark Castle has been in the care of the state since 1909 and is today administered by Historic Environment Scotland . You can visit between April and October and wander its tower, rooms and corridors – and maybe say a little prayer for the repose of the soul of the Red Lady of Newark.

The Strange and Sinister Tale of Major Weir

It is a strange story indeed. An upright, seemingly godfearing Presbyterian – a pillar of Edinburgh society – suddenly confessed to being a witch. Not only that, he implicated his own sister, Grizel, and she confirmed it!

No-one could fathom out where the confession had come from. Major Weir of all people - a black-hearted witch, guilty of the most heinous crimes and satanic rituals. And he confessed to his crimes during a church service in 1670. The congregation could not and would not believe his confession and doctors were summoned. Sure enough they concluded that Weir was mentally unstable but not insane. Nevertheless, the Major was having no one of it. He was a witch, so was his sister and they must both pay the penalty which, in those days meant death.

Apparently these two, while living in a smart house in West Bow, had regularly met with a ‘dark stranger’ who escorted them to meetings in Dalkeith in a fiery coach drawn by six horses. Weir and his sister had indulged in an incestuous relationship, they said. Their confessions became wilder and wilder. They had inherited their practice of the dark arts from their mother and Weir claimed to derive supernatural powers from a black staff he used which had been given to him, so he said, by the devil himself.

Weir admitted to bestiality and all manner of sexual acts with servant girls as well as devil worship. As if that were not enough, the Major claimed to have only listed some of his crimes – the others being too awful to recite.

Grizel said that a horseshoe-shaped mark on her forehead had been put there by the devil and he had given her the power to spin yarn at an astonishing rate but this yarn would break if anyone else tried to use it.

The Major and his sister claimed to be able to commune with the dead. Still no one would believe them but they insisted that every claim they made was true. They demanded to be tried and punished.

  

Eventually they got their wish and both were found guilty as a result of their own confessions. Grizel was hanged (after first slapping the executioner) and the Major was initially strangled and then burned. Witnesses reported that their executions took far longer than usual. Evidently the devil didn’t want them to die.

Their home in West Bow became the stuff of legend. Children were warned not to go near it and it lay empty for many years. The fiery coach was reportedly seen stopping there, strange shapes could be seen at the windows and their victims were said to haunt the building where the Weirs had tortured them. Candles would flicker even though there was no one there to light them, and the sound of music emanated from the closed and increasingly derelict house.

The house seems to have dropped out of sight for many years and was presumed demolished in 1878, along with a lot of property in the vicinity. Now, however, it seems at least some of it may have survived. In 2014, historian Dr Jan Bondeson concluded that it had been incorporated into the current Quaker Meeting House in Upper Bow. Ironically, the manager of the Meeting House told the Edinburgh Evening News that one of his staff, some years previously, had witnessed Weir’s ghost pass straight through a wall. In the toilet.