Three cottages once stood on the site where The Captains Wife public house now stands. Formerly a smugglers lair there was once a tunnel that connected the inn to the sea and Sully House opposite. The legend goes that the wife of a sea captain was hidden there by her husband because he didn’t want to confess that she had died on his ship, due to the superstition of the time. Her body was placed in a box and mistaken for treasure and was stolen. Her ghost is said to haunt the building and appears as a dark disoriented shadow.
Human remains were revealed bricked up in the chimney during renovations.
Another female spirit is said to walk through the bar doors and walk the length of the lounge before disappearing into the fruit machine.
A male ghost of a man with windswept hair who died about the age of 40 is said to roam the bar area.
A ghost of a young boy aged 4-5 is often heard in one of the upstairs bedrooms, though to have died of strangulation, and another young boy has been seen regularly near the chimney in the bar area; it is believed he was trying to escape from his violent father and died there.
LOVE AND TRAGEDY? There are various versions of the Captain’s Wife story. One from the 19th Century tells of a woman who was married to a Colonel Rhys but was in love with a local sea captain, Captain Winstanley.
The woman and the captain would meet on the beach near her home.
One night the Colonel heard the couple’s secret signal and confronted them. In the ensuing struggle he was stabbed and killed.
The wife ran off with the captain but their dreams of happiness were never fulfilled.
There was a mutiny on board the captain’s ship and they both burned to death.
Another version originates in the 16th Century and has Colonel Rhys’ wife in love with a young sailor who was away at sea. When her lover returned, he arranged for her to escape from the colonel with him.
But Colonel Rhys discovered the plot and challenged the young man to a duel. The sailor won – and he and Mrs Rhys escaped.
While the two of them were at sea, the girl drowned.
That, so it is said, is why her ghost now haunts the pub.