White Ladies & Boscobel
Part Two
Delving deeper into the history of this mysterious place with a dark past
"Whiteladies" is a picturesque ruin; the few
remaining walls are sheltered by thick ivy, but of
the house-one of those " timbered" houses which
we meet in Lancashire and Staffordshire-nought
remains. Yet the Nunnery walls are of more ancient
foundation than the house which has already passed
away. The traces of the walls can be seen, but
of the mansion to which Charles gladly fled after
Worcester fight, there is not one stone standing on
another.
Yet here, in this picturesque and pleasant spot,
memories are green, and many representatives of
those loyal partisans who assisted the king's flight
may be found. Those bold landowners, the Penderells,
the Yateses, the Giffards, and others, left descendants
who will indicate the spots where Charles rested after
his flight from Worcester.
Source https://www.victorianvoices.net/ARTICLES/CFM/CFM1891/CFM1891-FamilyHistories.pdf
In part one of this 3 part series we look more deeply into the history of White Ladies Priory and Boscobel House in Shropshire, England.
The Canonesses of St. Leonard
Who was this saint and who were the canonesses?
Leonard was a Frankish noble who converted to Christianity and was baptized by Saint Remigius (the bishop who baptized Clovis).
• He refused high positions at court and instead asked King Clovis for the right to free any prisoner he visited and found worthy. The king granted this privilege.
• Leonard eventually became a monk, then a hermit in the forest of Limoges (central France), where he founded the abbey of Noblac (today Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat).
• He is most famous for the numerous miracles of liberating prisoners: legend says that when he prayed for captives, their chains would miraculously fall off. Even pregnant queens or noblewomen who prayed to him in childbirth were said to be freed from pain or danger, which extended his patronage to women childbirth as well.
As mentioned in part one , nuns and monks of this and most other orders at the time wore brown or black robes but it wasn't unknown for the nuns to wear a white scapular Therefore we ask, did these particular canonesses ? Did they ever? Probably not or who knows?
Click to read a supporting document
The Ley Line connection
The area of Shropshire where the priory lies is very close to one of the UK’s main energy ley lines. Many sites in the UK and other countries seem to be located along or near to ley lines. Does the Earth’s energy field play a part in why the priory feels so powerful and important to local witches and paranormal researchers? It’s a possibility. We’ve done our own dowsing at the priory and there is certainly a strange energy going through the ruin .
The site is ancient has been a significants political, commercial and strategic location pre dating White Ladies Priory and Boscobel.
It lies close to the Shropshire and Welsh border where King Arthur is thought by many had his fortifications.
Maybe it wasn’t just the strategic location however that was important? Many places of power and significance are on or very near to ley lines. Especially as water is often found there. Was it the good clean water then? Maybe. Or if Merlin existed was he influential in the location choice because of the magical power it possesses?
“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.”
A Templar Connection?
Possible. In part three of this series we will tell you about a particular psychic experience at the Priory which may give a clue to possible Templar and Crusader links. St. Leonard was one of the most frequently invoked saints by Crusaders captured in the Holy Land. There are tales of Templar activity around the Shropshire area
https://the-templars.co.uk/templars-in-shropshire/
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/salop/vol2/pp85-86
Arthur and Guinevere Connection?
Again, it’s a possibility. Especially considering the location. The psychic experience we mentioned earlier could also be considered to have been echoes from Arthur’s time, before the Priory was built. Historical documents don’t say what was on the site before in sufficient detail.
King Arthur’s connection to Shropshire is strong in medieval legend and local tradition, even though the historical Arthur (if he existed) was probably a 5th–6th-century British war-leader fighting the Anglo-Saxons somewhere in western or northern Britain. Shropshire sits right on the Welsh Marches, the fluid borderland where British (Welsh/Brythonic) and English cultures mixed for centuries, so it naturally became fertile ground for Arthurian stories.
Shropshire never appears by name in the earliest Welsh Arthurian tales (Culhwch and Olwen, the Mabinogion, etc.), but by the 12th–15th centuries the Welsh Marches as a whole were so steeped in Arthurian romance that people began to locate the stories in real local landmarks. So while historians treat Arthur as a figure of sub-Roman Britain (c. 500 AD) and place his battles elsewhere (e.g., Badon, Catraeth/Catterick, Chester), Shropshire’s medieval and later folklore enthusiastically claimed him as “our king” and turned the county into one of the most Arthur-rich landscapes in England.
And Guinevere? First mentioned in literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous, and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. The variably told motif of abduction of Guinevere, or of her being rescued from some other peril, features recurrently and prominently in many versions of the legend. Was she held captive on the site ? Perhaps but this would mean the existing belief that she was held at Glastonbury was untrue. We may never know. Was She the white lady as she was sometimes called? Certainly, according to historians Guinevere could well have been a white lady after which the prior was much later named. Her name has its roots in ancient Welsh language and folklore.
The Welsh name for Guinevere is Gwenhwyfar. It translates to "white phantom" or "white enchantress," from the Proto-Celtic elements *windo- ("white, fair, holy") and *sēbarā ("magical being"). Another suggested translation, "Gwenhwy the Great," contrasts with her supposed sister, "Gwenhwy the Small" (Gwenhwyfach).
- Gwenhwyfar: The original Welsh form of the name, appearing in texts like Culhwch and Olwen.
- Meaning: Often interpreted as "white phantom" or "white enchantress".
Click here to read about Welsh landmarks related to the legend of King Arthur and Excalibur
In another strange coincidence, several woodlands in the area are also called White Ladies but they could potentially be due to the number of Silver Birch trees there. But who knows for sure?
In part three we’ll be looking at some amazing information about the priory and the psychic quest that took Graham Phillips and his paranormal research team to White Ladies.
Why? This seems to be a further possible explanation of the history of the priory in association with Arthur and Guinevere. According to Phillips in a recent interview conducted by Carrie Grove there is a strong link to the priory, the building that stood on the site before it and the legend of King Arthur. According to Phillips there is a small mound that may be a burial mound (more on what happened to the team there in part 3: it’s incredible !) where Guinevere was buried. She is, by some people, believed to have spent her last years at the location of the Priory and may have died and been buried close by. Due to small amount of proven records this could of course be just folklore but it’s another aspect to the site that bears consideration especially when you consider the psychic experiences of a “white lady” and a different, older building have been reported. We’ve also had such experiences but more about that in part 3.
Why are there gravestones in the grounds of White Ladies Priory?
“It appears that, relating to the religious affinities of the families who owned White Ladies Priory and their refusal to receive Anglican communion and therefore denied access to burial in an Anglican parish churchyard, the ruins were used for burial. On the information I have at the time of writing, it is unclear to me whether this is a persistent tradition from the 16th to the 19th century, or a phenomenon limited to the late 18th/early 19th centuries.” Source: Howard Williams.
Edward Dyas asked for people to do their research and ask for expert advice around Templar Knight graves after receiving several requests from members of the public to look at photos of what they believed might be graves of members of the order.
One recent request came from a member of the public living in the north of Wolverhampton near Boscobel on the Shropshire/Staffordshire border. He said he had found some grave stones with what appeared to be Templar symbols on them.
An interesting article on the gravestones at the Priory:
Death with the White Ladies
PROF. HOWARD M. R. WILLIAMS
https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/death-with-the-white-ladies/
Let’s turn our attention for a while to the Priory neighbours:Boscobel House
Besides these long-established histories, narratives handed down for many
generations with infinite detail, there are actually
secret chambers, hiding-holes, and hidden passages,
existing at the present time. These can be seen, and
the uses to which they have been put in troublous times
can be explained.
We need not in this place go into the question of
"haunted" houses. That several well-authenticated
incidents have happened in which (supposed) visitors.
from the other world have taken prominent part, cannot be gainsaid. Shapes have been seen, noises have been heard, which have puzzled even the sceptical, and
while we doubt the evidence of our senses, we are
compelled to acknowledge the extraordinary coincidences, and the exactness with which our impressions
tally with those of others with whom we have had no
personal communication.
Many of these legends, and particularly the stories
connected with the secret panels, secret passages, and
"hiding-holes," date from the Civil War, and the time
of the Powder Plot. To take an instance of the former
period, let us look at Boscobel House, which, equally
with the ruined "Whiteladies," is memorable in the
history of Charles IІ Source: Family Histories
There is an inexplicable link between the priory, Charles and Boscobel House; a place just as mysterious and the location for another psychic experience by us some years back which sent Carrie reeling. The energy was so dark and so intense she had to leave the house!
Boscobel House is a small, perfectly preserved 17th-century timber-framed hunting lodge in rural Shropshire (near Brewood, just over the Staffordshire border). It is one of the most famous “safe houses” of the English Civil War because it was where King Charles II hid after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
Why Charles II hid there – the Royal Miracle Escape (1651)
• 3 September 1651: The last major battle of the Civil Wars ends in total Royalist defeat at Worcester.
• The 21-year-old Charles II escapes the battlefield disguised as a servant and begins a six-week flight to reach safety in France.
• After many close calls (including hiding in the Royal Oak tree), he is guided north into Shropshire by Colonel Charles Giffard of Chillington and reaches Boscobel House in the early hours of 6 September 1651.
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What happened at Boscobel House
• The house belonged to the Catholic Giffard family, who were staunch Royalists.
• Charles was hidden for a full day and night in a tiny priest’s hole (a secret compartment originally built to hide Catholic priests during Elizabethan persecutions).
• While Parliamentary troops searched the surrounding woods, Charles spent part of the time sitting in the famous Royal Oak in the grounds with Colonel William Careless (Carlos), so they could see soldiers approaching without being seen.
• The king was disguised as a woodcutter named “Will Jackson” and even blackened his face with soot.
• The five Catholic Penderel brothers and their sister-in-law (who lived and worked on the Boscobel estate) played a crucial role in protecting him.
Was is it an after image of troops that we glimpsed on the land near the priory? Searching for Charles who had hidden in White Ladies? Could be.
And the house? What spirits linger there?
Boscobel House has a solid reputation as one of the most actively haunted historic houses in the English Midlands.
Most commonly reported phenomena (from staff, volunteers, visitors, and paranormal groups 1990s–2025)
The Grey Lady / White Lady in the attic
• Regularly seen or photographed in the attic near the priest’s hole where Charles II hid.
• Most witnesses describe a woman in 17th-century dress (sometimes grey, sometimes white) who simply appears, looks at people, and fades. English Heritage staff have nicknamed her “the guardian of the king”.
Charles II himself
• Tall male figure in a dark cloak and wide-brimmed hat (matching the disguise Charles wore) seen walking across the garden toward the Royal Oak descendant, or standing at attic windows looking out over the fields.
• Several night-security and cleaning staff have reported this figure in the last 20 years.
The Penderel brothers
• Footsteps on the back stairs and in the servants’ areas, especially around 3–4 a.m.
• Doors opening and closing by themselves in the kitchen and dairy.
Children’s voices and laughter
• Heard in the main bedroom and the parlour – possibly linked to the Catholic Giffard children who lived there in the 1630s–50s.
Cold spots and sudden drops in temperature
• Particularly intense inside the actual priest’s hole (people often feel physically pushed or squeezed even when no one else is in the room).
The “searching soldiers”
• On several occasions groups have heard 17th-century voices shouting outside, boots on gravel, and the sound of muskets being cocked – always at night when the site is closed.
Visitors on normal open days quite often report seeing figures in the windows when the house is empty, or feeling watched in the priest’s hole. It’s one of those places where even the biggest sceptics tend to come away saying “something definitely felt odd”.
We would certainly agree with that!!
Check out next week’s episode to read about our experience at Boscobel!
The Giffard Connection
It may just be a total coincidence, but The Giffard Arms pub in nearby Wolverhampton is also known for paranormal activity and a dark sense of a presence especially in the cellar. Now, the decor and overall atmosphere that the pub has ( it is a rock pub after all) may have to some extent fuelled the stories of haunting at the city centre venue. But taken this into account there doe still seem to be something going on at the pub. Let’s look a little at its history…
The current Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton was built in 1922 in an authentic Tudor style, replacing an earlier inn that was demolished in the same year. It is a Grade II listed building, designed by J. A. Swann for Butlers Brewery and built on the site of a former Giffard family town house. The pub's detailed facade and architectural style were intended to beautify Victoria Street, the thoroughfare where it is located.
Key historical points
- 1922: The Giffard Arms was constructed. It is often misdated, but a shield over one of the doors displays the correct year.
- Architect: J. A. Swann designed the building.
- Builder: It was built for Butlers Brewery, an important brewery in the city.
- Previous building: The current structure replaced an earlier inn that had existed on the same site.
- Site history: The land was formerly the location of a town house owned by the Giffard family.
- Architectural style: The pub is a remarkably accurate reproduction of a Tudor-style building, with well-carved details.
- Listing: The building is Grade II listed, recognizing its architectural and historical significance.
The Giffard family were certainly a big player in the area. Is any of the goings on at the pub due to the family ties to White Ladies? Mm could be.
The fire the priory. Yet no apparent historical evidence.
This is a strange part of the history of the priory. Some of the stories regarding the priory state and the hall that stood next to it. Local memory seems to suggest that a fire destroyed the hall and some of the priory but we couldn’t find any evidence to back this up. If there was a fire it would explain the charred bricks inside the priory and the rapid decline it had since the 1930s. Was this fire significant to the story of troubled souls there? Could be .
So, there you go. More food for thought. There’s a lot more to White Ladies Priory and Boscobel House than meets the eye. There’s mysteries to be discovered here and the area is anything but still and quiet, especially at night!
In our final part next week we’ll talk about the numerous psychic experiences that have happened at the priory and Boscobel. You won’t want to miss it!!
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/
