Llanidloes Road ghosts
DRIVING around at night in Mid Wales can be an eerie experience anyway. But as the winter draws in and we’re plunged into darkness, it’s also the perfect time for some observations of a supernatural kind. So if you’re out and about near Llanidloes, remember, you might not be alone… Road ghosts are not a new phenomenon. In Llanidloes though, a harrowing visitor from another world has been scaring drivers for a number of decades.
On an old railway bridge, known locally as the Red Bridge, a number of witnesses reported seeing the ghostly figure of a girl jump out into the road. Bill Hopkins, a former head-teacher in the area, was amongst those who experienced the alarming chill of a supernatural encounter. Mr Hopkins was driving home one night, travelling from Llangurig towards Newtown. He reported that around 200 yards towards the Llanidloes side of the Red Bridge, he could see clearly through the darkness the shape of a girl step out into road from a nearby hedge.
Something didn’t look right with the girl, her sorrowful expression and vacant stare sent a chill through the driver. He slammed on his brakes, convinced he would kill the girl. To his surprise though, the haunting figure passed straight through the car. No crash, no injury, no nothing. Understandably alarmed, Mr Hopkins checked out of his car mirror, and could clearly see the girl still stood in the road, her white face displaying a palpable mixture of sorrow and pain, her eyes still staring straight at the driver. Mr Hopkins, shaken by the incident, gripped the steering wheel and left the area. There was no way he was hanging around for any answers. He went to the Lion Hotel in Llandinam, in need of a stiff drink to calm his shattered nerves.
Other customers were not surprised by the story, having heard tales of a similar incident involving a couple from the village, Mr and Mrs Swain, who had experienced the exact same thing in the not too distant past. More recently, a Moroccan chef who was working at the Trewythen Arms in Llanidloes had an encounter with the ghost of the Red Bridge.
Abderrahman Sennah had been driving his girlfriend home one night and took a wrong turn. It was here he had his ghostly encounter: “I wasn’t sure which way to turn onto the main road,” he said. “Then, as I approached a corner I saw the wall of a bridge and suddenly the head and shoulders of a woman came out towards me. It came straight at the windscreen and passed through the passenger side of the car.” Mr Sennah realised where he was, and having heard the tales of the lady on the Red Bridge drove straight to his work where he told a barman what had happened. The pair went back to the site, but the ghostly woman was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I saw her,” said Mr Sennah.“She had longish hair and a white face with white and yellow shoulders and she passed straight through the car.”
As well as the lady on the Red Bridge, another ghoulish apparition has been noticed by motorcyclists near to Llanidloes. In 1987, a couple were driving motorbikes from Llangurig towards Llanidloes, when the lady rider reported feeling something strange on her bike. She described a strange eerie feeling that took over when they reached a particular stretch of road, and became convinced that she was not alone on her bike. “As we got to one particular stretch of road I had the most awful eerie feeling that I had picked someone up on my bike, and I can tell you it was not pleasant,” she said. A couple of years later, the couple drove the same route, only this time in a car. Again though, the woman described the return of the haunting sensation and the feeling that someone, or something, was in the car with them.
One such incident would be scary enough, but the exact same thing, on the exact same stretch of road? Surely more than a coincidence.
So next time you’re driving near Llanidloes, don’t take it for granted you’re on your own. You may have picked up a special kind of hitchhiker.