The Ghost of Mira Turner

Location: Llanelly House

The story of the ghost that haunts Llanelly House is well documented and describes how a young servant girl who was made pregnant by the master of the house killed herself because she feared the shame that would be brought on her and her family.

One story describes how she threw herself down the stairs whilst the other story relates how she threw herself from an upstairs window falling to the courtyard below.

Different stories have been recounted over the years by people who have seen the ghost, but the most fascinating one was told by the daughter of a lady who was responsible for cleaning Llanelly House during the 1960s. The daughter and her friend were waiting for the mother to finish cleaning the downstairs rooms and they wandered upstairs and got lost in the maze of rooms.

Feeling frightened and about to panic the two young girls who were about nine or ten years old, saw what looked like a young women in dark clothes beckoning to them to follow her.

The frightened young girls followed the figure that disappeared into one of the rooms. The girls found themselves at the top of the flight of stairs and ran down to explain what had happened. The mother told them not to worry they must have seen the ghost of Llanelly House.

This was an intriguing story and all the more so when the UK Census details of 1851 show that a young servant girl called Mira Turner who had been born in Reading, Berkshire, was working as a housemaid for the Chambers family.

At that time Llanelly House was divided into two parts with William Chambers Senior, his son William Chambers Junior, his wife and children living in one part and Doctor Thomas Bedlington Cook, his wife and four children living in the other part. One of the doctor’s children was also another doctor, John Kirkhouse Cook aged 37 and unmarried.

Looking through records of burials for the parish of Llanelli, Mira Turner was listed as being buried on 9 August 1851 aged 22 years. At first it was thought that Mira might have died through natural causes or one of the diseases that were prevalent at the time.

Llanelli Registry Office provided a death certificate for her which revealed that she had committed suicide by taking Laudanum whilst temporarily insane. The coroner was William Bonville of Bryn Towy, near Carmarthen and the Registrar was David Arthur Davies of Llanelli.

It was common practise in the 1800s for girls who became pregnant out of wedlock to be considered insane or immoral and would have been ostracised by society.

Many young women were placed in mental institutions, or forced to seek shelter in a workhouse having no means of support because they would have lost their job. Many girls, like Mira, could not cope with this situation and killed themselves rather than face the wrath of society.

It is intriguing to consider how Mira was able to obtain the laudanum, which is not a drug that would have been readily available to a servant girl. Did one of the doctors provide the laudanum? Laudanum would have made her feel drowsy.

Did she fall down the stairs or fall out of the window because the drug made her unsteady? Was she given the laudanum deliberately and was she pushed or thrown down the stairs or through the window to make it look like suicide?

It would have been unthinkable in those days for the gentleman responsible to face up to his responsibility and his family would have ensured that no blame was attached to him.

This story is courtesy of Llanelli, Birth of a Town, By William & Benita Rees.  http://llanelli-history.co.uk/index.htm