Dark Celtic history - Ghost of "The White Lady" of Strathaven Castle

Ye Olde Scot - the Celtic culture channel.
by Jeff McDonald
Dark Celtic history - The remains of the Castle stand in the historic market town of Strathaven, South Lanarkshire about around 6 miles (10 km) from the larger town of Hamilton. The remains of the present structure, built around 1458, sit on a rocky outcrop on the banks of the Powmillon Burn. It is constructed on the site of earlier castles and has a long, turbulent, and often dark history. Once it was held by the Douglases, and then by the Stewarts and then the Hamiltons. It finally fell into ruin in the 18th century.

For many hundreds of years, there have been sightings of a ghostly figure roaming the castle and its surroundings. Known as the "White Lady of Strathaven Castle" the spirit is still said to haunt the building. Local legend told of a wife of a past laird who having upset her husband was walled up in a small niche and left to starve. This story was passed down through the generations with tales that this lady was the ghost who haunted the castle. Many doubted the whole legend of the woman entombed in the walls of Strathaven Castle and dismissed the accounts of those that had seen the ghost as nonsense. Or at least that was the case until during the 19th century, part of a wall fell down and human bones were discovered within.