Powis House in Aberdeen has long been associated with eerie encounters and local ghost stories. GRAEME MILNE reveals witness accounts of hauntings at the historic Aberdeen community centre
Powis House, now Powis Community Centre, was built in the early 1800s by architect George Jaffray and belonged to the estate of the Leslie family before being bought by Aberdeen Town Council in 1941.
It then became both a library and community centre, making it the first of its kind in Scotland.
It is without doubt one of the most spiritually active buildings I have ever visited, its reputation common knowledge among locals, yet it has rarely been written about before.
Today students pass the entrance to the original estate, marked by two ornate towers, without realising their historic significance.
I first became aware of the house while assisting Melissa, a local, to write a local history report on crime and punishment.
We inevitably got onto the subject of haunted houses, and she mentioned that Powis House was well known for its ghosts among the local community, which made me want to know more.
What follows is a brief history of the haunting.
Haunted History of Powis House
The first incident of note, and one which she was party to, took place in 1996 just after the youth group had left for the night.
“Mucking about outside, one of them, Kevin (not his real name), suddenly let out a terrified scream and ran, giving his friends a terrible fright.
“Shaken and bewildered, the rest quickly headed for the safety of their homes.”
Afterwards, when they visited Kevin, he refused to leave his house, and it was evident he was unwilling to discuss the matter further.
But what had he seen to make him react so?
Call it coincidence, but I already knew the answer, as Kevin had coincidentally been one of my students two years previously and had recounted the very same story to me.
It had obviously been a frightening experience, and I remember clearly how he struggled to recall the incident.
I was in no doubt it had affected him deeply, and the following is what he told me:
“I was with my mates. There was a group of us standing just outside the centre on the grass after the club.
“Something made me glance up at the building.
“On the top floor is a large half-moon window which was illuminated by a bluish light.
“At the window I saw a female looking down at me, who looked like she was half-smiling.
“She had long black hair and a very pale face, and it looked like she was floating.
“I could see her clearly.
“She then turned and walked away, the blue light receding with her.
“At that point I just screamed and ran.
“When I got home I locked myself in my room and didn’t come out.
“I got my mum to answer the door afterwards as my friends kept wanting to know what happened.
“I didn’t go out for a long time.
“I still remember it clearly to this day.”
When we spoke after the incident I pressed for more details, and he described her as wearing either a light-coloured dress or nightgown, and that her face was pale with indistinct features.
I knew by his demeanour he was not lying.
After hearing the above, it was with some trepidation that I accepted the chance of a visit to the centre and in due course arrived.
What does Powis House look like?
It is an imposing building sitting amid relatively new housing and appears oddly out of place.
Once inside, the interior proved to be surprisingly spacious, consisting of large public rooms on the ground floor, what would have been the library upstairs, and in the eaves the old caretaker’s flat.
The basement, accessed by a circular staircase, is large and contains bathrooms at each end, a music room, assorted cupboards, and a washroom.
There are also the remains of the original kitchen, replete with fireplace.
I found it fascinating and spent many hours exploring the building, which undoubtedly feels quite foreboding.
The basement, I felt, seemed particularly eerie, being isolated from the rest of the house, and it is there we begin our journey.
On speaking to staff, it was apparent they were split into two camps: believers and sceptics.
Leaving the latter behind, as it would make a pretty boring story, one witness, Mike, described his experiences while working there.
“I’ve had several experiences in the house.
“The first happened in the music room which, as you know, is in the basement.
“One evening there were three girls who wanted to record themselves singing.
“I had set up the equipment but before they could open their mouths a male voice boomed out through the speaker.
“I could not understand what was said, but he spoke for a few seconds.
“The girls screamed and became upset, though I calmed down the situation by saying it was a passing taxi’s radio being picked up.
“I doubted the equipment was capable of this, however that is what I said.
“On another occasion I was working with a group of lads and during band practice a loud bang from outside the door brought proceedings to a halt.
“On investigating we found that a fire extinguisher had been lifted off its bracket, upended, and then dropped, breaking the pin.
“It was impossible for this to have happened on its own.
“There was no one else in the building apart from us as the main door was securely locked.”
Next on our agenda was the large nursery room on the ground floor.
It was there he described once seeing the spirit of a woman nursing a child while working alone stacking amplifiers.
He was shocked to see the figure of a woman who ‘whooshed’ into view momentarily before vanishing, which he described as quite frightening.
Later, other witnesses came forward claiming to have seen a similar figure at the window.
The woman was christened Annie, who some suggest had been a servant cruelly mistreated, as is often the case, though no evidence to support this has been found as yet.
Despite this, her figure was frequently felt and sometimes seen around the building.
Later Melissa told me that her grandmother, a former cleaner, had worked there for years and the pair would meet up after school and keep each other company.
Sometimes she would help clean and at other times do homework in the library, but either way she was able to describe the many incidents she witnessed while there.
For example, she remembered on more than one occasion someone mischievously turning out the light in the basement, or even worse in the attic.
However, one incident particularly stood out which resulted in her grandmother handing in her notice.
She explained: “I was sitting downstairs having a snack when I heard a scream from above.
“I ran upstairs and saw my grandmother who was pure white and said she had just seen the figure of a small girl standing near the door that leads to the eaves.”
I found out later that two of the Leslie children had died from scarlet fever in that location.
Though later I was contacted by a local resident called Olive, who I was intrigued to hear had spent much of her childhood at the house.
Her best friend’s dad had been caretaker there some years previously and so it was with great interest I received the following.
Later I was contacted by a further witness, Olive, who stated:
“We frequented the house usually for activities such as the youth club and dances.
“My best friend at the time lived at the top of the building in what was then the caretaker’s flat.
“Her dad kept an eye on the building which I remember at the time being used as a baby clinic and home to a pensioners’ club and a women’s guild.
“Very often I would stay with my friend at the top of the house and when everyone was accounted for it was not unusual to hear footsteps climbing the stairs and walking along the corridor.
“My friend’s father would immediately go out to check but there was never anyone there.
“Her mother, realising we were scared, used to say, ‘Och, it’s just Lady Burnett (a former owner) paying a visit.’
“Her father swore at one point that he saw a monk in the basement of the house and looked at it for about 10 to 15 seconds before it disappeared.
“After he told me this my feet would hardly touch the stairs when I visited.
“They used to leave the front door off the latch for me, and I would pelt up the stairs.”
There are many more stories I could recount, including my own personal experiences of having something push against a door I was opening in the attic, and of my wife who ran after feeling someone standing behind her in the basement, though these will have to keep.
But for now, another more recent account which proved equally unnerving for the witnesses involved.
Pauline, who used the centre for many years, shared several interesting anecdotal tales with me and recounted one evening of mischief that backfired on her and a friend.
“One night me and my mate Mark decided to stay at the centre, so just before closing time we hid in the bathroom till all the lights went out.
“After 10 minutes we snuck out.
“It must have been summertime as when we got to the kitchen I don’t recall it being dark.
“We messed around for a while, played some pool and tried to make a cake, not realising we needed flour and eggs to do so.
“A mess is about the only thing we managed to make.
“We then mucked around in the room we called the disco room where we found a packet of biscuits in the cupboard.
“As it was beginning to get dark we decided to go upstairs to eat them, where light from the lamp post was shining in one of the rooms.
“Mark then had the idea of going into the basement because we could put the lights on with no one seeing us.
“In the basement we ended up playing with some musical equipment and I remember Mark pretending to play the drums.
“I don’t know how long we were down there but as we sat finishing the biscuits we then heard someone coming down the basement stairs.
“We both looked at each other in pure shock.
“You should have seen the expression on our faces.
“We went to hide and could hear every step coming down and although we couldn’t see who it was, I visualised it was a man.
“I then heard what I thought was a chain with keys on it jangling and a sound as if he was out of puff, like he had just walked up 10 flights of stairs.
“When it reached the bottom all was quiet, but we knew someone was there, so we sat tight.
“It felt like forever.
“Eventually we went out to investigate but couldn’t see anything.
“As we were trying to figure out what the hell had just happened, the drum behind us gave a massive bang.
“We then fled out of the room and straight through the exit door that led outside, setting off the alarm.
“I had never known the alarm to go off before despite the door being opened on many occasions.”
I hope that in the future I can collect more tales from what I consider to be one of Aberdeen’s most haunted buildings.
