White Ladies and Boscobel Part 3

 White Ladies & Boscobel

Part Three

A place of energy that’s powerful to witches and a magnet to psychics 

and paranormal investigators.

In this final part of our three part series we look at the weird things happening at the locations including our own experiences.

White Ladies Priory and Boscobel House are centres of local and national paranormal interest and investigations. This is due to its strange history and paranormal experiences at the locations has consistantly baffled, excited or damn right scared people visiting to explore and seek paranormal activity. Seldom are people dissapointed!

In this edition of the series we'll take a sample of the mysteries and paranormal history of the locations. This is,however, just a sample and we encourage you to search out more and even visit the priory ruin and Boscobel House yourselves. We have been to the locations many times in over twenty years and we have experienced phenomina that cannot always be scientifically or rationally explained away. Carrie-Anne has had many psychic incidents at the locations.

Let's start with a story that involves the Priory and has inspired psychic quests both there and elsewhere. Let's look at The Green Stone book by Graham Phillips. We will look at the story behind the book and we include a brand new video interview with the author.

The Green Stone and the Meonia mystery 

Published in 1983, The Green Stone is one of the most famous (and controversial) books in British “psychic questing” literature. Graham Phillips, a young Midlands-based researcher at the time, chronicles what he claims was a real five-year psychic treasure hunt (1978–1983) undertaken by a small group of ordinary people who became convinced they were being psychically guided to recover a buried medieval artifact: a mysterious green stone with supposed magical and healing properties.

Book link

White Ladies Priory according to Phillips plays a pivotal role in the locations of group’s five-year psychic quest.

In the book, the priory emerges as a dramatic waypoint on the trail of psychic clues leading to the titular green stone (a bloodstone or jade-like artifact with alleged healing and protective powers, tied to Mary Queen of Scots and hermetic traditions). Here’s how it ties in, based on the narrative:

The Psychic Lead and Arrival

•  The quest group—led by Phillips, psychic William (Bill) Cox, Martin Keatman, psychics and others. The young psychic Gaynor Sunderland received visions and automatic writing in the late 1970s directing them to Shropshire. These messages reference a “sacred mound” or ancient barrow adjacent to the priory, believed to be a portal or energy site linked to pre-Christian Celtic earth mysteries.

•  They arrived at the ruins on February 1, 1980, coinciding with Imbolc (an ancient Celtic festival marking the first stirrings of spring, associated with purification and protection). This timing is no coincidence in the story; the group views it as a ritualistic alignment, heightening the site’s supernatural charge.

•  Accompanying them is an intermediary “green stone” (not the final artifact) unearthed earlier in the quest from another site (likely in the West Midlands). This stone is described as a “source of great spiritual energy,” used by the group as a dowsing tool and protective talisman.

The “Showdown” with Evil Forces

•  The book’s most intense scene unfolds here: As the group performs a psychic ritual near a grassy burial mound next to the priory’s chapter house ruins, they claim to encounter a malevolent entity. Described as a “giant shadowy dragon or bird” rising from the earth, it allegedly swoops down in an assault interpreted as a demonic or “poltergeist-level” attack—complete with chilling winds, oppressive darkness, and physical sensations of dread.

•  In Phillips’ account, the green stone becomes a weapon of light: Held aloft by a group member, it purportedly emits a radiant energy that repels the entity, forcing it back into the mound. This “victory” is framed as a battle between good (the stone’s protective magic) and evil (dark forces guarding the quest’s secrets), echoing themes of exorcism and Grail-like trials.

The  event left the participants shaken, with some reporting lingering nightmares or minor poltergeist activity back home. Phillips and co-author Martin Keatman (in later editions) portray it as a turning point, confirming the quest’s reality and propelling them toward the final discovery in Warwickshire.

Could this be the real green Stone?

Click here to read more about the Meonia stone

The quest and  the book’s story cemented White Ladies Priory’s status in modern occult lore. It’s inspired ghost hunters, pagan rituals, and even a 1980s TV documentary adaptation of the book, where the stone’s role is ambiguously portrayed as potentially malevolent. Today, visitors to the site (free access, but fragile ruins) often reference Phillips’ tale in forums and ghost tours.

Be sure to watch our interview with Graham at the end of the article  or on YouTube!

Press cutting from the era

Graham Phillips holding the sword in question.

Portrait of Humphrey Packington who is alleged to be holding the green stone.

Halloween: the security at the gate each year

Now with a reputation like the priory for paranormal activity it should come as no surprise that English Heritage and others take a dim view of people visiting the ruins and Boscobel at night in the hope of seeing something. Especially around Halloween security Land Rovers patrol the entrance to the priory path. They are, of course, doing their job keeping people safe and preventing any more damage to the area but this has also raised suspicions about what goes on at the priory especially when other cars are also there . A secret cult or Coven rendezvous? Maybe!

It’s not only black land rovers though they have been seen by the gate to the priory…

Horse and carriages

There have been reports of black horses and carriages at the entrance especially around Beltane and Samhain. 

Strange black old cars from the 20s or 30s have also been seen with people dressed in period outfits. Modern day enthusiasts or a memory being replayed ?

And that’s not all! 

People have reported seeing and hearing men on horseback both on the path and around the ruins themselves. Are they also remnants of the past? Soldiers hunting for Charles? Or escorting Guinevere?

We have captured orbs several times on photos taken inside the priory at night. By day the priory seems benevolent with a positive energy that witches and energy workers can tap in to. Carrie-Anne has used this energy in the past to create a swirling energy field making the leaves around her dance and encircle her.  At night, however, it’s seems it’s only dark energy that is there and this seems to attract those who want to tap in to this. The Priory seems to serve as a channel or amplifier of energy. Maybe that’s why it has kept hold of the sprits who dwell there.  Is the priory a portal? An energy vortex or a place trapped and destined to repeat the horrors and events witnessed by those stones over the centuries.?

As we have said , White Ladies is legendary and much loved by local witches who revel in the energy.  Witches , including us leave offerings there, scatter ashes and bury our animals. There is a secret witches hole in the brickwork . If you find it leave it alone or face the wrath of the witches and the priory itself!

White Ladies bridal path is an eerie place too, dark and foreboding . For some that’s as far as they get to the priory! 

We have sensed great energy on the path seen flying and dancing witches in the moonlight 

Our own psychic paranormal investigations have been incredible and correlate with others experiences.

Nuns hanging

During one psychic investigation Carrie saw two nuns hanging from what would have been the upper beams of the priory ( long since lost over time ) . The vision was of the building while it was still intact, before the destruction by the King. There are suggestions that the Canonesses refused to leave the priory and hung themselves in desperate protest. This has never been substantiated but could the ghosts of those desperate souls still be at the priory? 

Guinevere waiting

On another psychic investigation we had a report of a vision of a lady in white crying and looking out across the fields from the priory doorway. Could this has been Guinevere? Was she the very white lady that gives this place its name? According to some historians she was interned at the priory following her divorce from King Arthur and she spent her last years there. Was she longing for Arthur and regretting her transgressions with Sir Lancelot or was it Lancelot that she was waiting for? Perhaps we will never know but she does seem to at the priory generating a sense of loss and sorrow that people are picking up on.

Soldiers

Another of our psychic experiences was the image of long red banner flags draped down the windows and walls. Again, the image was of a fully intact building but this time it was different , more wooden in construction. Could this have been also from Guinevere and Arthur’s era before the priory was there?  In a previous building? Some research has suggested that the site was used before the priory of St Leonard . The land is in a strategic location close to Shropshire and the Welsh border where Arthur was believed by many now as have his fort . Yet more echoes from the past it seems.

We have also seen soldiers on horseback.

Peoples' claimed experiences:

“My wife was over come with a strange feeling of sadness and fear as we were wondering around the old ruins and she suddenly insisted that we leave emmeditely I was curious as to why because this isn't normal behaviour for her. as we were leaving I felt something brush past me while walking under one of the arch way's. It was a beautiful later summer evening and a good temperature outside but whatever brushed past me felt like a stiff January breeze! It was suddenly freezing in one small location! This had me very confused! As we turned back on are way our I gazed down the footpath back at the priory to take one last look before it came out of view and suddenly heard horse hooves galloping!” Alexander J.

GHOSTS AT THE PRIORY

There have been persistent tales of paranormal happenings around the priory ruins. Visitors have reported hearing music and seeing strange lights and unexplained noises. Source: Britain Express 

Boscobel House is haunted too!

Notable investigations

•  2008–2010: Most Haunted (Season 11) filmed there – picked up some EVPs and a famous thermal-camera silhouette in the attic.

•  2016 & 2022: Local groups (Paranormal Shropshire, Haunted Happenings) held public ghost hunts; both produced Class-A EVPs saying “The King is here” and “Hide”.

•  English Heritage staff themselves openly admit the house is active and keep an unofficial “ghost log” of incidents reported by stewards.

Check out our compilation of videos related to White Ladies and Boscobel on YouTube 

References

The Green Stone (1983) by Graham Phillips

Full title: The Green Stone: A True Story of Psychic Phenomena, Buried Treasure and a Magical Saga Spanning Twenty Centuries

Author: Graham Phillips (with additional contributions from Martin Keatman in some editions) 

White Ladies Priory (officially St Leonard’s Priory, near Boscobel in Shropshire, England) was deliberately sited next to a stream, and there is clear historical and archaeological evidence for water features in and around the site.

Key points:

•  The priory is built immediately beside the small stream known as the Sherbrook (or Shropshire Brook) that flows down the Sherbrook Valley from Brewood Forest toward the River Penk.

•  Medieval Augustinian canonesses (the “White Ladies”) required a reliable water supply for drinking, cooking, washing, sanitation, and their fishponds. The stream provided this.

•  Post-Dissolution surveys and excavations have identified the remains of at least one large medieval fishpond immediately to the north and east of the priory church, fed by the Sherbrook. Parts of the pond embankment and sluice arrangements are still traceable on the ground and on LiDAR images.

•  A second, smaller pond or mill pond existed a short distance downstream (near the later Boscobel House), again using the same stream.

•  Even today, if you visit the ruins (now an English Heritage site), the stream still runs only a few metres from the standing remains of the church, and the ground to the east is distinctly boggy where the medieval fishpond was located.

White ladies & Boscobel 

Free entry. Open any reasonable time during daylight hours

ADDRESS:

Cosford, Shifnal, Shropshire, WV8 1QZ

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/white-ladies-priory/