Why Is Carew Castle So Haunted?

Introduction

Carew Castle is often treated as Pembrokeshire’s flagship haunted ruin because its ghost lore is unusually crowded, named and place-specific. The best-known stories are the White Lady, usually identified with Princess Nest; the Barbary ape attached to Sir Roland Rees or Rhys; a Celtic warrior in the undercroft; and a kitchen boy blamed for clattering sounds from the castle kitchens. The important point is not that these legends prove the castle is haunted, but that Carew has unusually strong public folklore: the stories are preserved by the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, repeated in Welsh tourism material, held in local archive-linked collections, and folded into visitor events, ghost walks and paranormal evenings.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The evidence is therefore layered. Carew has solid historical foundations as a major Pembrokeshire stronghold, with an Anglo-Norman origin story, links to powerful Welsh and Norman families, later Tudor rebuilding, Civil War damage and abandonment in 1686. Its ghosts sit on top of that history rather than replacing it. The White Lady grows from the memory of Princess Nest and the violent politics of early twelfth-century south-west Wales; the ape legend looks more like a later Gothic family tale, vivid but harder to verify; the warrior and kitchen boy are site traditions preserved mainly through modern heritage interpretation.[pembrokeshirecoast.wales]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

Why Carew Castle feels so haunted

Carew Castle has the right ingredients for a haunted reputation: a ruined castle beside a tidal inlet, a history reaching back before the Normans, and a succession of families whose stories connect Pembrokeshire to Welsh princes, Norman conquest, Tudor power and Civil War violence. Coflein, the database of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, describes Carew as a ruined palatial stronghold and the centre of a great medieval lordship; it also notes that an earlier fortress occupied the site before the Anglo-Norman castle took shape in the opening years of the twelfth century.[Coflein]coflein.gov.ukOpen source on coflein.gov.uk.

The castle’s official history makes that long timeline part of the visitor experience. Excavation has revealed an Iron Age settlement, Roman pottery and possible early medieval occupation before Gerald de Windsor built his fortification on the Carew River, roughly ten miles up the tidal waterway from Pembroke. Later, the castle passed through major phases of medieval strengthening, Tudor domestic remodelling, Civil War garrisoning and eventual abandonment.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

That matters for the ghost stories because Carew’s legends are not free-floating tales. They are attached to named rooms, towers, sounds and historic personalities. The undercroft, kitchen, corridors, towers and battlements all become part of the folklore map. Official heritage material now invites visitors to ask whether they will see “the White Lady or the Barbary Ape”, while the National Park’s events programme includes ghost walks and, in recent years, paranormal investigation evenings.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The White Lady and Princess Nest

The White Lady is Carew’s most historically anchored ghost tradition. In the castle’s official ghost account, she is described as a kindly spirit, said by local people to walk the ruins in daylight or under a full moon. The same account identifies her as Princess Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr of Deheubarth, and connects her to Carew through her marriage to Gerald de Windsor around 1100.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

Nest is not a fictional figure invented for a ghost story. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography identifies her as a princess of Deheubarth, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr and spouse of Gerald de Windsor. Carew’s own historical page says that after her father’s death in 1093 she spent time at the court of Henry I, married Gerald in 1100, and that Gerald received the site of Carew Castle as part of her dowry. Together, the couple are presented in the site’s public history as having built the first castle there for their family.[Dictionary of Welsh Biography]biography.waless DEWI NES 1120s DEWI NES 1120

The dramatic human story behind the apparition is the famous abduction of Nest. Carew’s official history says that in 1109 Owain ap Cadwgan, son of another Welsh prince, was so overcome by Nest’s beauty that he scaled the walls of Carew Castle, started a fire and raised the alarm; in the confusion Gerald escaped, while Nest remained and was taken by Owain, “perhaps not unwillingly”.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

That last phrase is important. It shows why Nest’s afterlife in folklore is complicated. In some retellings she is a wronged woman, in others a romantic figure, and in others a political survivor moving through a violent male world of dynastic marriage, hostage-taking, desire and revenge. The People’s Collection Wales item uploaded by Pembrokeshire Archives & Local Studies says the White Lady is said to have been seen several times moving around the ruins and is “sometimes identified” with Nest, waiting for Owain to return. That “sometimes” is a useful caution: the apparition tradition and the historical princess are now strongly linked, but the identification is part of folklore rather than a medieval eyewitness record.[People's Collection Wales]peoplescollection.walesOpen source on peoplescollection.wales.

The White Lady therefore has better historical roots than many castle ghosts, but not stronger paranormal proof. Nest’s life, marriage and connection to Carew are historically meaningful; the sighting tradition is modern and local; the emotional interpretation depends on which version of her story is being told. As evidence, the White Lady is best understood as a haunting shaped by memory: a way of keeping a famous woman of early Welsh-Norman Pembrokeshire visible in the ruins long after the politics around her have faded.

The Barbary ape and Sir Roland Rees

The strangest Carew legend is the Barbary ape. The National Park’s “Land of Legends” page summarises it as the gruesome story of Sir Roland Rees and his pet ape, Satan, who once lived at Carew Castle. Visit Wales also singles out Carew as unusual because, alongside human apparitions, it is reportedly visited on dark and stormy nights by the ghost of a Barbary ape.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The basic story usually runs like this: Sir Roland Rees, Rhys or ap Rhys was a cruel or unstable castle resident, sometimes described as a sailor, privateer or former pirate. He kept an exotic ape, often said to have come from North Africa or from a wrecked Spanish ship. After a quarrel involving his son, a local merchant’s daughter, rent, insult or family disobedience, the ape attacks. In the most familiar ending, Sir Roland is found dead, his throat torn or cut, and the ape either dead beside him or later seen as a ghost climbing the tower and howling into the storm.[substack.com]jpdavis9.substack.comJ. P. Davis Substack Sir Roland ap Rhys and the Barbary ApeJ. P. Davis Substack Sir Roland ap Rhys and the Barbary Ape

This is Carew’s most memorable ghost story, but also its most folkloric. The details shift noticeably between retellings. Some versions call the man Sir Roland Rees; others Sir Roland Rhys or Sir Roland ap Rhys. The ape may be from the Barbary Coast, from North Africa more generally, or from a Spanish galleon. The wronged outsider may be a merchant named Horowitz, a tenant, the father of a woman loved by Roland’s son, or a man who has come to pay rent. Even the date floats: some accounts place the tale in the seventeenth century, while lighter tourism retellings sometimes blur it into a more general old-castle past.[substack.com]jpdavis9.substack.comJ. P. Davis Substack Sir Roland ap Rhys and the Barbary ApeJ. P. Davis Substack Sir Roland ap Rhys and the Barbary Ape

Those variations do not make the story worthless. They make it look like a legend that has been told and reshaped. Its power comes from the ingredients: a tyrannical master, an enslaved or trained animal, a curse, a storm, a locked domestic space and a violent reversal in which cruelty turns back on the cruel. The ape is not merely a novelty ghost. It carries older anxieties about aristocratic power, foreign voyages, exotic possessions, family disobedience and punishment.

As source evidence, the ape legend is weaker than the Princess Nest tradition because it lacks the same solid documentary anchor. Carew Castle’s seventeenth-century history is real enough: the official castle history says the site was garrisoned during the Civil War, changed hands several times, suffered damage to prevent further military use, and was later abandoned in 1686. But the specific Sir Roland-and-ape episode is preserved mainly in heritage storytelling, ghost literature, tourism features and modern retellings rather than in easily verifiable contemporary records.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The smaller ghosts: warrior, kitchen boy and castle sounds

Carew’s lesser-known ghosts matter because they show how the site’s haunting has spread through the building. The National Park’s ghost page says a Celtic warrior is said to haunt the undercroft, while the ghost of a kitchen boy may be responsible for the sound of pots and pans clanking in the kitchen. These are brief claims rather than fully developed legends, but they give visitors a route through the castle: below-ground military antiquity in the undercroft, domestic noise in the kitchen, and the more famous apparitions elsewhere.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The Celtic warrior fits the site’s deep pre-Norman story. Carew’s official history describes evidence of an Iron Age settlement and a substantial five-ditched promontory fort, while Coflein also notes an earlier fortress on the site before the Anglo-Norman castle. That does not prove a ghostly warrior; it explains why such a figure feels locally plausible. The haunting compresses a long archaeological timeline into one memorable figure.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The kitchen boy is different. He belongs to the everyday life of the castle rather than its dynastic drama. Clanking pots and pans are the sort of sound easily absorbed into a haunting tradition because kitchens, servants and unseen labour are often under-recorded in grand-house history. At Carew, the claim is preserved by the site’s official ghost interpretation, but the available public evidence does not provide a named witness, dated first report or archival case file.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

These smaller ghosts are therefore best read as atmosphere-bearing traditions. They do not have the narrative richness of the White Lady or the ape, but they help explain why Carew feels like a whole haunted site rather than a castle with one famous apparition.

How official heritage keeps the legends alive

Carew Castle’s ghost stories have survived partly because they are now embedded in official and semi-official visitor culture. The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority does not present the apparitions as proven facts; it frames them as things “said” or “thought” to haunt the castle, while still giving them enough prominence to shape how visitors imagine the place. Its pages direct readers to “Ghosts of Carew Castle”, “Legends of Carew Castle” and “Land of Legends” material, where the White Lady, Princess Nest, the Barbary ape and the Celtic warrior sit alongside the castle’s wider history.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The legends are also part of the castle’s events economy. Carew’s visitor information advertises specialist tours including ghost walks and evening tours, while news material from the National Park has promoted Halloween ghost tours and adult paranormal investigation events. One 2025 announcement quoted the castle manager as saying that Carew has inspired ghost stories for centuries and described the paranormal investigation events as popular.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

That official keeping-alive matters for evidence. A story repeated by a heritage body is not automatically true, but it is more traceable than an anonymous internet scare. It shows that the legend has become part of the public identity of the site. It also gives careful readers a way to separate types of claim:

This is why Carew works so well as a Pembrokeshire haunted-history page. The legends are vivid, but the evidence invites careful reading rather than blind belief.

What the source evidence can and cannot prove

The strongest evidence for Carew Castle is historical, not paranormal. Official heritage pages, Coflein and Cadw-linked listing material support the importance of the site itself: a nationally significant Grade I monument, a medieval stronghold, a Tudor domestic showpiece and a place associated with powerful figures in Welsh history. Cadw’s listed-building report calls Carew a monument of national importance and a fine example of Edwardian military planning and Tudor domestic architecture.[Cadw Public API]cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.netCadw Public APIListed BuildingsCadw Public APIListed Buildings

The strongest evidence for the White Lady is cultural continuity. Nest’s historical connection to Carew is well supported, and the ghost tradition is preserved by the castle’s official interpretation and by a People’s Collection Wales item uploaded by Pembrokeshire Archives & Local Studies. What is not supported is a clear chain from a medieval record to a first apparition report. The ghost belongs to later local memory, not to documentary proof from Nest’s lifetime.[pembrokeshirecoast.wales]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The strongest evidence for the Barbary ape is repetition and distinctiveness. It appears in official legend material, Visit Wales’s haunted Wales guide, local tourism writing and ghost-story sources. Yet its shifting names, dates and details suggest a tale transmitted through folklore rather than a stable archival event. A careful article should therefore call it “the Barbary ape legend”, not “the recorded death of Sir Roland Rees”.[pembrokeshirecoast.wales]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The weakest evidence is for specific sensory claims: clanking pots, apparitions moving room to room, howls from the tower, or sightings on stormy nights. These details are central to the atmosphere of the place, but the public sources available online rarely provide dated witnesses, original statements or investigation reports that would let a reader test them properly. The honest conclusion is that Carew’s hauntings are rich as folklore and heritage memory, not as verified supernatural evidence.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

Why Carew became Pembrokeshire’s haunted castle

Carew became Pembrokeshire’s best-known haunted castle because its legends do several things at once. The White Lady gives the ruins a famous woman, a romantic-political tragedy and a direct bridge to the early Norman transformation of south Pembrokeshire. The Barbary ape gives the site a grotesque, unforgettable story unlike the standard grey lady or headless rider. The kitchen boy and Celtic warrior fill out the building with sound, depth and age. The National Park then keeps those stories in circulation through official interpretation, tours and seasonal events.[Pembrokeshire Coast National Park]pembrokeshirecoast.walesOpen source on pembrokeshirecoast.wales.

The result is a haunted reputation that is both atmospheric and readable. Carew’s ghosts are not best approached as a single mystery to be solved. They are better understood as a set of stories attached to a real Pembrokeshire landmark: some rooted in known medieval people, some shaped by later moral legend, some preserved as visitor tradition, and all strengthened by the castle’s physical presence beside the tidal water. That mixture is exactly why Carew Castle stands at the centre of Pembrokeshire’s haunted map.

Amazon book picks

Further Reading

Books and field guides related to Why Is Carew Castle So Haunted?. Use these as the next step if you want deeper reading beyond the article.

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The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories

By Peter Haining

First published 2000. Subjects: ghost stories, haunted house stories, ghost story anthology, Ghost stories.

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The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

By Peter Berresford Ellis

First published 2002. Subjects: Celtic Mythology, Tales, Fiction, Celts, Mythology, Celtic.

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The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

By Michael Newton, Michael Newton et al.

First published 2010. Subjects: Fiction, Literature, Ghost stories, English Ghost stories, English fiction.

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Haunted Wales: A Guide to Welsh Ghostlore

By Mark Rees

Strong fit for Carew Castle's ghost traditions.

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Browse more on Amazon:The Mammoth Book of Haunted House StoriesThe Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and LegendsThe Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

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Endnotes

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Additional References

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