When the wizard Joseph Harried died at Werndew on 29 November 1890 -- probably of kidney failure -- some very strange things happened. He had written his will 8 days earlier, so he must have known that the end was near......
In the throes of death he groaned and screamed, as if he was refusing to die. On that day the horses on the farm went wild and unruly and the pigs refused to eat. The locals thought that the devil had come to take him. There were rumours that the family had put something on the fire and that the smoke had choked him -- and that suggests that he was not greatly loved by his nearest and dearest. A couple of months later, when his possessions were sold by auction, people were very reluctant to bid, assuming that somehow to bring any of his things into their own houses would bring the devil in too.
Not long after the death Rev Benjamin Rowlands was at Glan-y-Mor, where he heard a horse arrive at the trot at about 10.30 pm in the pitch darkness. The sound became more distinct but slower, and then faded away, and there was no sound of the horse leaving again. The reverend gentleman went to the inner door of the porch and shouted "Who's there?" to which there was no reply. He did the same at the outer door, again with no response. This happened on several later occasions.
Around Christmas and New Year of 1891/92, just over a year after Joseph's death, a student called James Beynon Williams came to stay at Glan-y-Mor as a guest of Rev Benjamin Rowlands. He was very sceptical about some of the things he had heard about Joseph from his host. One evening they went off to bed, leaving the dog on the mat in the kitchen across the door. At 10.30 they were awoken by the dog howling. They heard the door latch, footsteps, harness being hung up, boots coming off, more footsteps, and another door being opened. Both men left their rooms to investigate what was going on, but their candles were both extinguished. James Williams was speechless and terrified, and afterwards they found that the dog had shifted its position to lie on the mat by the front door, which is where it would lie when Joseph came home when he was alive.
After that Benjamin Rowlands accepted that 10.30 was the "haunting hour" and always endeavoured to return home after 11.30 pm.........
On 13th March 1892 a lad called John Thomas was staying at Glan-y-Mor -- his sister was engaged to marry Rev Benjamin Rowlands. At 11.30 pm he clearly heard a pestle and mortar being used in the room that had been Joseph Harries's dispensary and surgery. The sound continued for about 30 minutes.
Late one night -- around the same date -- a passer-by from Newport heard groans and screams, as if from somebody on their deathbed, coming from Glan-y-Mor.
At Glan-y-Mor Joseph's bedroom was the one above the entrance -- and after his death it was reputed to be haunted -- referred to locally as "The Devil's Room".
It was reputed that in the garden of the house a Bible was kept "in a burrow" -- presumably because Joseph did not want it inside the building. It was also reputed that a skeleton collected by Joseph from the beach at Cwm yr Eglwys (derived from the churchyard as it was being eroded away by the sea) was also buried somewhere in the garden.
(Information kindly provided by Stephen Evans and Hywel Bowen-Perkins)
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