Margam Park Ghost Story

The following is a true account regarding an anomalous experience involving one of the writers of this blog when in the environs of Margam Park some years ago. This story has never been reproduced elsewhere and is only available in the 2021 publication, Haunted South Wales by Mark and Jonathan Lambert.

Monastic Echoes

It was a cold but bright early afternoon in February 2008 when one of the authors, Jonathan, was walking around the environs of the ruinous Margam Abbey. Apart from Jonathan and the person with him, the place was very quiet, there being just two other individuals within the locality.

While within the grounds of the abbey, something suddenly caught the author’s ear; the faint but very distinct sound of Gregorian plainsong chanting gently enveloped him. The sound was unmistakably a male chant in the medieval monastic style, and even for someone who is familiar with medieval music, it sounded unlike anything the author had heard before. Gradually the chant grew slightly louder, although it was never particularly loud, even at its peak. Despite being relatively faint, the sound was clear and unambiguous. When it fully struck the author what he was hearing, the sound gently but quickly faded away into nothing. Realising what he had just heard, he asked the person with him if they had heard anything and it was confirmed that they had.

The immediate area was thoroughly explored but no obvious source for the chanting was forthcoming. The closest building which was likely to have been occupied or could have been a possible source for this chanting was the twelfth century derived Abbey Church of St Mary. This church in its present form was constructed during the sixteenth century around the main surviving body or nave of the medieval Cistercian abbey - its environs were explored, but the church was not open so must be discounted as a possible source of origin for the chanting.

The whole experience was brief, lasting no more than ten or fifteen seconds. The author was not expecting to hear anything of this nature and his thoughts were quite elsewhere at the time. He waited about the area for a short while and further explored the immediate environs, but nothing more was heard.

This phenomenon is documented within literature regarding the paranormal. For example: in Graham J. McEwan’s book, Haunted Churches of England (1989) it is recorded that a Michael Sedgwick experienced a similar phenomenon. It was during 1959 when residing in a cottage on the east side of the abbey church of Beaulieu, formally a medieval Cistercian abbey in Hampshire (located within the estate of Lord Montagu), and on a number of separate occasions at various times during the day and night, Michael reported hearing the chanting of long dead monks.

Michael describes the acoustics: ‘It came in uneven waves, as if from a faulty wireless - sometimes quite loud and then fading away.’ Michael’s description of how the chanting materialised is similar to the author’s own experience, with the author’s notes, written not long after the experience in 2008, describing the sound as ‘wafting over, as if from an out of tune radio.’

Margam Park is set within the grounds of a former medieval Cistercian abbey. The site, like most other pre -Reformation places of worship in Britain is ruinous due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the last years of the 1530s. Monastic life was an everyday feature at Margam Abbey for close to four hundred years and it is possible that the continuous daily worship and devotions of the medieval monks who resided here may have somehow been recorded onto their immediate environment.