S03-E08 - The Ghosts of Castle Leslie

Haunted UK Podcast: History, Hauntings and the Unexplained

Steven Holloway

Haunted Locations, Ghosts, Society & Culture, Strange Phenomena, Documentary Podcast, Folklore, Documentary, Hauntings, Ufos, History, Paranormal, Unexplained Mysteries

4.5 • 652 Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An Irish castle beside lakes, woodland, and old family ground.

A soldier seen walking home on the day he died in France.

And generations of spirits who seem less like intruders than relatives returning to the house they loved.

In this episode of Haunted UK Podcast, Steve explores the ghosts of Castle Leslie — a striking estate near the Irish border, where history, family memory, folklore, and paranormal testimony seem to sit side by side.

Built in 1871 on the site of an earlier castle, Castle Leslie has remained closely tied to the Leslie family for centuries. The episode traces its history from Scottish clan origins and the family motto “Grip Fast”, through the Irish Famine, the estate’s survival, and its later transformation into a luxury hotel and wedding venue.

At the centre of the haunting is Norman Leslie, killed near Lille during the First World War. On the very day of his death, he was reportedly seen walking in the grounds of Castle Leslie by the family gamekeeper — a sighting later followed by apparitions in the Red Room, where guests and family members described seeing a glowing figure searching through papers, pointing toward a mystery that may have helped save the estate.

The episode also explores the ghostly Jack Russell known as Patch, the strange wind said to mark Anita Leslie’s funeral, the healing apparition of Lady Marjorie Leslie, the presence of Lady Constance in the Mauve Bedroom, and the moving account of Ned, the head gardener whose final journey may have taken him back to the roses he loved.

Atmospheric, historic, and unusually tender for a haunted-location episode, this is not a story of violent spirits or malevolent forces. Instead, Castle Leslie feels like a place where the dead remain close — watching, helping, warning, and sometimes returning home.

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Transcript

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1:30.7	Whichever platform you choose, we're sure you'll enjoy we were up in the greenhouses picking grapes.
1:56.0	My wife Helen had her hand at, and she suddenly felt little fingers pulling her wedding ring off.
2:01.6	Directly below there was stone, and it never hit the floor. It should have gone ping. So we
2:07.5	searched and searched. We dug up the greenhouse. And I knew in that greenhouse childish laughter
2:12.6	had been heard. So I said, well, it's the little people who live just one octave up, and they have a very naughty sense of humour.
2:21.0	So I went back to the greenhouse and I said, well, very funny, we're all very amused and here's some silver for you.
2:27.4	And I buried half-crans and said, now can we please have our wedding ring back?
2:32.4	I went back to the house and a few days later,
	...

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