Stories abound about an unseen ghostly presence at Sandringham, which flings books and bedsheets and once had a young King Charles fleeing in terror from a ‘strange coldness’
When King Charles featured in a special episode of The Repair Shop filmed in Scotland, viewers saw his evident delight after a cherished piece of ceramics was restored by the team.
Speaking at Dumfries House, the Ayrshire mansion his charity saved for the nation, he said the restoration of a Wemyss Ware vase made for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee was “fantastic”.
The King (who was still Prince of Wales at the time of the filming in 2022) said 19th century piece fell over when someone was opening a window. And he joked that the offender “didn’t own up”.
But now claims have emerged that the vase was in fact broken by a poltergeist at Sandringham Castle in Norfolk. The well-informed Ephrahim Hardcastle column in the Daily Mail reports: “Charles has apparently had uncomfortable experiences at Sandringham with a resident poltergeist who throws books off shelves and switches the lights on and off.
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“A mole whispers that the shattered Wemyss vase marking Queen Victoria’s 1897 diamond jubilee – which the King took to the BBC’s Repair Shop – was one of the ghost’s casualties.”
A number of unexplained ‘poltergeist’ occurrences have been reported at Sandringham, including Christmas cards being rearranged on mantlepieces by unseen hands, and sheets being flung off beds. It’s said that some servants point blank refuse to go into one particular second-floor bedroom, where the sound of heavy breathing has previously been heard.
According to the 2019 book, Britain’s Ghostly Heritage, by writer and supernatural enthusiast, John West, a young King Charles and a footman once fled in terror from the library after an oppressive and strange coldness descended, with the pair feeling as though somebody was right behind them.
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Wemyss Ware is brand of pottery first produced in Fife in 1882 by Robert Heron and Karel Nekola and named after the Wemyss family, who championed their wares. The Queen Mother was said to be a great fan and a lifelong collector.
When ceramics expert Kirsten Ramsay showed the King the restored piece he was delighted, saying: “It’s fantastic. I would never have believed that. I was thinking when I was coming, ‘I bet she hasn’t managed it,’ because it’s my favourite.”
During the visit to Dumfries House, the Repair Shop team also helped with an 18th-Century bracket clock while Charles struck up an instant friendship with presenter Jay Blades.
The Prince’s Foundation Building Craft Programme is based at the estate, and Charles said during the show that the lack of vocational education in British schools was a “great tragedy”.
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